NEW ZEALAND AND SAMOA

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 128, 3 June 1919, Page 7

NEW ZEALAND AND SAMOA

AN ATTACK REFUTED,

(FROM OUT. OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

I LONDON, 4th April. At the meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute, at which, Mr. G. H. Sch.ole- ! field read a paper on "Problems of Ileconstrnction in the Pacific," an attack on the New Zealand administration of Samoa was made by Captain Annandale, who stated that ho had lived in the group for many years under the German regime. The New Zealand administration, he said, had interfered with the labour arrangements of the planters in such a way as to seriously impair their prosperity, and he earnestly hoped that the British Government, and not the Now Zealand Government, ' would be : given control of the Islands. I Sir Gilbert Parker made short work of this complaint. It was, he said, a very good principlo that people who could manage their own country were the best people to bo entrusted with the management of dependencies. He thought New Zealand and Australia should manage the late German colonies adjacent to them, and he hoped that the British Empire would never consent to make a report of its stewardship to the League of Nations or any other authority. * Sir William Macgregor, who is the greatest living authority on the Pacific, was in the chair. He expressed himself unequivocally in favour of New Zealand and Australia being the stewards of the Pacifio possessions' under discussion. Ho had always regarded Papua as a dependency of Australia, and as for New Zealand it could not be denied that she had taught the natives of Polynfleia to love and respect her. That was proved by the manner in which they had come forward in the war.