NEW RULER OF SAMOA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5255, 23 March 1928, Page 2

NEW RULER OF SAMOA.

COLONEL S.S> ALLEN, D.S.O.

A DISTINGUISHED SOLDIER.

■WELLINGTON, March 22.

Lieutenant-Colonel S. S. Allen, of Morrinsville, has been appointed. Administrator of Western Samoa.

Major-General Sir George Richardson, whose extended term of office as Administrator of Western Samoa expired on the 16th of this month, will relinquish his duties -on. the 31st instant. He will return to. Wellington eartly in April for consultation with the Government-before proceeding to Geneva to act as one of the representatives of New Zealand before the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nation’s, which meets on June 6 for the discussion, inter alia, of Samoan questions. THE NEW ADMINISTRATOR. The Government has appointed as the new Administrator of Western Samoa Lieutenant-Colonel S. S. Allen, of Morrinsville, who will assume office at an early date, as soon as it is possible for him to make the necessary arrangements to proceed to Samoa. In the meantime the duties of the Administrator will be carried on by the present deputy-Administra-tor. Colonel J. W. Hutchen. The Government feels that the new Administrator possesses the qualities of personality, tact, patience, and firmness that are required if New Zealand administration of its trusteeship in Western Samoa, is to be carried on. without recourse bo drastic measures. NOTABLE RECORD OF SERVICE; Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Shepherd Allen, C.M.G., D. 5.0., wap appointed Major in the 6th (Hauraki) New Zealand Regiment in 1914, and served with the Auckland Regiment throughout 1915, being gazetted Lieu-tenant-Colonel in 1917. He was twice wounded and won the D.S.O. distinction in 1918, which was followed in 1919 by the C.M.G. In 1920 he was made Brigade Commander of the First' New Zealand Infantry, Auckland Brigade. Lieutenant-Colonel Allen took a keen interest in politics, in . the years immediately after the war, and in 1922 he unsuccessfully contested the Qhinemuri division' against Mr H. Poland. Samoa’s new administrator received his first commission in the New Zealand territorial forces in, .1911, and at the outbreak of the war was gazetted to .the general command with the rank of major. During 1917 he was officer commanding the Second Auckland Battalion, and it was during the first attack by New Zealand troops at Passchendaele that .he was wounded. It was during this action. that he performed l the feat of gallantry which won for him the D.S.O. Lieutenant-Colonel Allen, lias practised as a solicitor in Morrinsville during the last few' years.