SAMOAN PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 162, 5 April 1920, Page 4

SAMOAN PROBLEMS

~« LABOUR PARTY'S VIEW

ADDRESS BY MR H. E. HOLLAND

.Mr. H, E. Holland, M.P., chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, spoko in the Paramount Theatre last evening on Sanioan problems. Mr. P. Fvaser, M.P., presided, and there was a largo attendance.

■Sir. Holland said that tho Labour mem- h bers who accompanied tho Parliamentary s party to Samoa had seen nothing during « their visit that would lead them to o modify their condemnation of indentured i labour. The case of the planters at r Samoa was that white men rouVl not t work in Samoa, that the natives would c not work,. and that cheap .labour was < necessary in consequence. The Chinese ) at present employed were paid .£2 10s. f a month and found, but that wage tho t planters described as prohibitive, and 1 chey were now demanding Chinese la- [ bourcrs at 30s. a month, or, failing this, i Javanese, whom they pointed nit would • work for 10a. a month and find their i own food in their own country. Tho planters further insisted that they must | have at least 5000 indentured coolies; and i .In support of their claim they laid great f 6trcss on the fact that with the present < price of copra a native and lis wifo f could, "by cutting out 4001b: nf copra ( (an. easy task), earn in one day more than, ' 'he planters could afford to pay themi ,'■ in a month." This statement showed I that the natives could work. As a mat-' ' ter of fact, the bulk of the copra expor«l was put out by the natives. ' In the course of the 6tntem?nt (.f the planters' case, it had transpired.' said ' Mr. Holland, that the Government had sent Captain Carter to Clr'na to look for move Chinese coolies for the plantations. Sir .Tames Allen, in making his reply, had made it clear that his Government had > "worked behind the backs of-the peonlo cf New Zealand and against the Imperial Government in the matter of continuing indentured labour in Western Samoa." The Imperial Government had sent the N r e\v Zealand Government definite instructions that no more Chinamen were to be indentured dur'ng the war, and the New Zealand Government had asked the Imperial Government to ngree to the continuation of the system. NewZealand Ministers had nskrd for permission to reindenture the Chinamen already tit. Samoa,' they had begged the Australian Government to let them have Solomon Islanders,, and they hud communicated with the Dutch Government in an endeavour to get Javanese. No whisper of these engineerings had been , permitted to reach the JJew Zealand Parliament during last session; The members were then led to infer that the Sanionn mandate would be imperilled if New Zealand refused v to countenance indentured labour. The suggestion conveyc.d was that the League of Nations wanted the system continued. Mr. Holland said that although he had made a request to Sir James A-llon that an opportunity should be given officially to question the chiefs concerning indentured labour,, no opportunity had been provided for official inouiries froui the natives through the chiefs. The Labour members were thus compelled to make individual inquiries, and they were led to believe that some influence had operated to prevent the chiefs from including a protest against indentured hhour on the occasion of the joint "fono ; " The natives were practically united in. their opposition to the system, their opposition being ba=ed on economic, moras and racial grounds. It had been stated, Mid Mr. Holland, that the Impcrial_ Government's insistence on the -cpatriation of the time-expired coolies was due to representation's made by the tfamoaii chiefs, who alleged that the Sanioan race ■ was in peril owing to the Chinese miximt with their people. The Snmoans had stated that they were, .unite prepared to work, but were not willing to work for eoolie wages or under coolie conditions. Years ago they were demanding ss. a dav, and now their demands ranged lip to'Bs. and 10s. a day, demands which the Labour members considered were quite justified, in view of the increase in ■ the cost of living. ' Mr. .Holland sn'd that although there were 838 indentured Chinamen and 405 Solomon Islanders in Samoa, the Parliamentary party had an opportunity officially of cmestlonin? onlv (en Chinamen and'two 'Solomon Islanders. He 1 condemned the housing conditions of the Chinese and Solomon Islanders, and al-' ieged that the whole indenture system was destructive of morality as' well as a menace to the Samoan race. The Chinese relationships with Sanioan women, could not be defended. He also condemned the tendency to Rovern the Islands "along tho lines of military dictatorship," and said that in the Government schools the teaching tended in a militaristic direction. ,In Samoa a military, censorship that could not be justified operated over the locall Press. The presence of the constabulary from New Zealand was resented alike" by whites and natives, and tho police themselves wore utterly dissatisfied. He denied the assertion that white, .men could not work at Samoa; Some of the Germans recently returned from New Zealand internment camps to Samoa were described as plantation labourers, and (he firemen on the Mokoia proved _ tliw ability to do the mort trying work in the stokehold day by day under tropical condit'ons. . ' ■ It was true, however, that on!y the acclimatised white man could work in Samoa, bu.t the Labour members beliewd it was not necessary to ask the white man to work in the tronics. The natives themselves were capable of doing, the work. The problem to be eolved was not how to make the native a wageworker, or the white man capable of enduring tropical conditions, or how to secure indentured coolies. The leal nroblem was how to get for the. natives .the democratic control of their own islands, and train them scientifically; in the industrial administration of iheir own affairs for their own benefit. It would be better to let all the plantations go hack to nature than to save them at the price of slavery, combined 'with an immorality' which would, eventually mean th» destruction of the Sanioan race. . Financially, added Mr. Holland, tho* nresent arrangement could only mean a huge burden on the resources o£ New Zealand for the benefit of some wealthy planters. Both the whites and the natives were emphatically against New Zea< land having control of Samoa. Complete self-government under s bona-fule League of Nations would he the solution of the nroblem so far as the control of the Islands was concerned; but there was no such League of Nations, and, therefore, Hip next best thing would lie democratic self-government under a British nrotee-' torate. He ureed ' that New Zealand should lose no time in handing back the mandate with a recommendation on the . lines suggested, and should refus? to administer a form of slavery iii Western Samoa.