SIXTY EXILED SAMOANS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2600, 23 October 1915, Page 12

SIXTY EXILED SAMOANS

A STORY OF GERMAN RTJLE. The strange experience of a- party of about sixty, natives of Samoa has been disclosed by correspondence between the Hon. 6. ,\V. Russell, Minister of Internal Affairs, the Prime Minister of tlie Commonwealth, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Japanese Government, and tli© British Ambassador at Tolcio. . The correspondence, which is very voluminous, covers a fairly long time, and deals with the united efforts of high ofiicials to h.iVe the natives_ talcen back to their island home from exile, to which they were 6ent by the German authorities at Samoa before the war broke out It appears tliat a Samoan chief named Lauki and members of his tribe, wlio lived in German Samoa, committed the crime of inquiring after what methods the taxation in German possessions in Samoa was administered. In addition, they committed the much graver crime of showing a spirit of friendliness toward tlia British. Otherwise they wero practically guiltless, but they were arrested, wore placed on a German man-of-war, and wero taken to Saipan Island, in the Marianen Group, north of New Guinea, which belonged to German} • They repeatedly expressed a wisli to go back to their home, and the German Governor, apparently, promised that some of them would be taken back, but nothing was done until on the outbreak of war, their position was made known to the British authorities. It was then discovered that there were in the party thirty-four males and twenty-seven females, all anxious to return. The island of Saipan is a lonely spot, seldom visited by trading vessels, and the British authorities immediately set aßout the repatriation of the natives. It was discovered that a trading vessel belonging to Messrs. Bums, Philp, and Co., of Australia, called at Jaluit, in the Marshall Archipelago. Through tho efforts of the British Ambassador at Tolcio, the Japanese Government sent a liaval transport to Saipan, took the Samoans 011 board, and lauded them at Jaluit, where they were placed under the care of the Japanese Government. The correspondence does not show what the end of the affair is, but the arrangement is that a trading vessel will take the Samoans from Jaluit to Sydney from thero tliey will be sent in the Union Steam Ship Company's vessel Atua to the part of Samoa m which they have their homes, -il l which now, of course, is under British rule.