Hundreds Roam the Mountains In Search of Their Dead

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 94, 12 July 1927, Page 1

Hundreds Roam the Mountains In Search of Their Dead

SAXON FLOOD TRAGEDY PITIFUL and heart-rending- scenes have followed the heavyloss of life in the Saxony floods. Armies of stricken people are searching the mountains and valleys and creeks for the dead and the missing. There are fears of a pestilence, through contamination of the water by corpses.

By Cable.—Press Association. —Copyright Reed. 9.5 a.m. DRESDEN, Monday. from the cloudburst and flood are now estimated at 200.

The death-roll is mounting steadily, as bodies are being recovered in out-of-the-way places. Many are mutilated and unrecognisable. The damage is estimated at £BOO,OOO. It will be months before reconstruction is complete, especially that of the many wrecked railway lines.

Hundreds are forlornly roaming the mountain-sides and creeks and valleys, searching with lanterns all night long for the missing.

' “Tuisila,” said Mr. Nelson, “declined to leave his home. He did not see why he should do so. Now he has been sentenced to imprisonment.”

Further news received by Mr. Nelson this morning informed him that his firm had been summoned to show cause why its trading licences should not be cancelled. He cited this as another instance of oppression. His firm owned about 40 trading posts in the Samoan group, and if its licence to trade was removed, then it was practically forced out of business. The manner in which New Zealand’s administration was affecting Samoa’s consumption of New Zealand goods was, he pointed out, another serious phase of the unrest.

Samoan consumers were so irritated that they did not wish

to buy New Zealand goods. Something in the nature of a boycott would ultimately result. Already the Samoans were showing a preference for Sydney sugar, and refusing to buy the cheaper New Zealand product, simply because of the political unrest which the administration’s methods had fostered. ENTER MR. DU SC HW ABE DISEN The Citizens’ Committee, charged with disloyalty to the flag and the Throne of England, was all British, or of British descent; on the contrary the Planters’ Association, which circulated the counter-petition, was composed largely of Germans. The name of the chairman —Kurt Meyer du Schwabedisen was sufficiently informative. In Samoa, at the present time, the administration extended into every phase of life. The territory was ruled as though it were a military cantonment. Trade was restricted by the fact that no one could set up in business without a licence, and the Samoa Chamber of Commerce had had occasion to protest vigorously against the Government’s methods of trading in copra. * Similarly, the Administration’s policy had affected social affairs. The strained feelings divided the community into separate camps. Even the sacred solidity of the Masonic Lodge had been shaken by the hand of officialdom, and the lodge had been disrupted. “1 am putting that phase of the problem before New Zealand lodge officials during my visit,” remarked Mr. Nelson this morning. He concluded by quoting the remarks of Sir Joseph Caruthers. M.L.C.. of New South Wales, part of whose interview, published in the Fiji “Times” of July f>, was cabled to New Zealand. SIGNIFICANT OMISSION The following, comprising Sir Joseph’s summing up, was not cabled: “He was very sorry indeed that more moderate counsels had not prevailed in Samoa, both for the honour of the flag and the credit of our race. There might be errors on both sides, but surely to goodness they were not so bankrupt in the arts of government as to fall back on a system which sets aside open trial, and all the safeguards associated with British | justice.”

Thousands keep a mournful vigil at the stations where corpses are collected. There were heart-rending scenes. A mother went insane on recognising the bodies of her three children.

There is fresh horror in the Mueglitz and Gottlaube valleys, owing to the fear of an outbreak of disease through the destruction of watermains and the contamination of creeks by corpses. Doctors have rushed to the scene to apply safeguards. Troops and firemen have surrounded the stricken area, where the chaos and filth are indescribable. —A. and N.Z.