SAMOA COMMISSION SENSATION

Evening Star, Issue 19658, 10 September 1927, Page 11

SAMOA COMMISSION SENSATION

PETITIONERS WILL NOT APPEAR SCOPE AND TIME TOD LIMITED OPPRESSIVE TACTICS ALLEGED. [Pek United Paesa Association.] WELLINGTON, September 9. ■following on the correspondence relating to the Samoa Commission, which was telegraphed yesterday (and appeared in yesterday’s issue), tho firm of Findlay, Hoggard, Cousins, and Wright sent a letter to tho Prime Minister in the following terms: — Wo are instructed by Mr Nelson to notify you . that neither he nor the other parties to tho . Samoan petition heard recently by the joint committee of both Houses will appear, bo represented, or call evidence before this Royal Commission, and we are instructed to inform you that tho reasons for Mr Nelson and the other petitioners deciding upon and taking this course aro as follow : 1. That it is impossible for the petitioners, before the time the Commission is to sit in Samoa, to see witnesses; collect evidence, and prepare their case .for hearing by the Commission. 2. That the order of reference is so narrow in the scope of tho investigation it directs that many of the petitioners' most urgent and important grievances cannot be inquired into by the Commission, including tho deportation of Europeans. 3. That no sufficient guarantee has been given by the Government against molestation or interference of or with tho petitioners and their witnesses. We may state, in explanation of this decision of the petitioners, that the treatment by tho Government of the petition has been grossly unfair . and oppressive from, the start. 1. In the first place, Ministers of the Crown in the House have made propagandist statements calculated to prejudice the fair hearing of tho petition. 2. The Government set up the joint committee, not with a view to eliciting the true facts, but on party lines, and with a view to preventing the petitioners making known their side of the case: to the public by the exclusion of the Press. 3. Although the Government made up, its mind, possibly before the committee sat, and at all events at an early stage whilst tho committee was sitting, that a Royal Commission should be appointed, it deliberately deferred the announcement and allowed the inquiry before the committee to proceed. 4. We at once, on tho announcement that a Royal Commission would be set up, asked in writing for a copy of the order of reference—an application we had your assurance . would be considered. The petitioners wore entitled to assume that the draft order of reference, was to be submitted to their counsel, and you did not definitely refuse until the last moment to permit a copy of the draft order of reference to be seen. 5. The petitioners are entitled to infer that your procuring the Commission to proceed to Samoa at such short notice to tho. petitioners t was designed to place them at a disadvantage, and this, inference can more safely be made because, as soon as petitioners’ counsel was furnished with the date when the Commission would proceed to Samoa, -ho., immediately communicated with you, explaining that the time, that would bo allowed petitioners to see witnesses, collect evidence, and prepare their case was utterly, inadequate,. and they earnestly asked you to arrange for "further time being afforded, them. In support of these observations, it might be pointed out to you that Mr Nelson came to. New Zealand to give evidence before the Joint Committee, ; and since the date of your announce-

mont that a Royal Commission would, bo set up there has been no vessel available to take him, back to Samoa, the first vessel being the TOfua, by which the'Commission will be passengers on Saturday next. ■ MR COATES REPLIES A DELIBERATE AFFRONT. Acknowledging tho withdrawal in a letter to-day, Sir Coates says:— It appears to mo that possibly your - clients are acting under a mistaken view of the reasons for the constitution of. the Cohihiissien. The Commission has 'not been issued at tho instance of your clients or for their satisfaction- The object and purpose of the Commission is, first, to provide an opportunity . for persons, whether Europeans or Samoans, who complain of the actions of the - Administration to bring their grievances before an impartial tribunal; and, secondly, to enable the Government of New -Zealand, which administers the mandate for Western Samoa, to satisfy itself by an impartial report whether there is good and just reason for a change, either ip the me- " thods’of administration or in'tho personnel of the Mandatory Government. Tf your clients refuse to assist tho Royal Commission in its inquiries their course will hardly be consistent with tlieir often-repeated demand for an impartial investigation; but they cannot prevent tho performance by the Commission of its duty. ;'The first reason you give on your clients behalf is that it is impossible .before the time tho Commission is to sit in Samoa to see witnesses, collect evidence. and. prepare their. case for hearing by the Commission. It appears to be a sufficient reply to that reason to remind you that the European Committee, of which Mr Nelson is • chairman, ‘ has been in existence for a long period, and it seems to -have had no other legitimate function than the accumulation of evidence and definition of grievances; Your second reason is an objection to the scope of the order of reference. Definition of the order of reference is a matter for the Government of New Zealand,. and not for. tho petitioners; but its terms aro so wide that all the subject matter of tho complaints which have been made is within the jurisdiction of tke Commission. Your reference to the . deportation of Europeans is a matter .which, cannot be properly referred, to a Royal Commission, inasmuch as it would involve an inquiry by such Commission into the merits of an Act of Parliament of New Zealand passed during its present session. Your third reason is that no sufficient guaarntee has been given by the Government against molestation or interference of or with the petitioners and their witnesses. _lt is difficult for ine to believe that in this you aro serious, or to understand how a demand for such a guarantee from the Government, or any of His Majesty’s dominions, can he construed otherwise than as a deliberate affront by its assumption that the Government would he guilty of conduct against which such a guarantee would guard. In the remaining part of your letter detailed in five separate paragraphs you have thought fit to make allegations against the Government

of New Zealand and members of that Government which are’entirely without foundation, and have expressed those allegations in language which , is, to say the least.- unusual in correspondence of tins nature.