SAMOAN DISAFFECTION

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 115, 5 August 1927, Page 9

SAMOAN DISAFFECTION

REPLY TO OFFICIAL STATEMENT HON, 0. F. NELSON EXPLAINS POSITION '' r FHE Citiser.s’ Committee would hardly be likely to send * anything not known to be true,” said Mr. O. F. Nelson this morning, with reference to the Government’s statement that it knew nothing of the serious developments reported yesterday. Mr. Nelson to-day issued a statement in answer to that made by the Department of External Affairs.

rpHE Government last night receivetl a long wireless message from i General Richardson, but it had no reference to the alleged picketing of roads, or to the alleged serious position reported in the message to Mr. Nelson, says a Press Association message from Wellington. Further, it is stated that the Department of External Affairs regards the message as meaningless and contradictory of the known facts. The two chiefs mentioned are represented as objecting to words that were never included in the address to the King, and their signatures were the first in the address. As to the handcuffing incident recently reported, the Administrator says the chiefs themselves insisted on being handcuffed, presumably to prove that they had kept their oath not to leave Apia voluntarily. CONTRADICTIONS APPARENT Dealing with the Government’s observations, Mr. Nelson says: “The Department states that ‘up till 10 o'clock last night it had not received any advice from the Administrator of Samoa, Sir George Richardson, concerning the alleged picketing of the roads to Apia, or the alleged serious position which had been reported to me by the Citizens’ Committee, even though ’a few minutes prior to 10 o’clock the department received a long wireless message from the Administrator.’ “While in Wellington, Mr. Smyth and I listened to the Parliamentary debates on the Samoan Amendment Bill, when the Prime Minister, in reply to a question, stated that the Government had not received any official information from the Administrator of the cancellation of any trader’s licence. This statement was made a day or two after the Press actually published a message purporting to have come from the Administrator of Samoa, which said that ‘only two traders had been deprived of their licences for spreading pernicious propaganda.’ DEPARTMENT’S QUERY “In reference to the reasons given in the committee’s report, that the pickets were to prevent food being sent to Apia to the committee, the Department’s statement goes on to say that ‘previous messages published by the committee have asserted that the native members of the committee, and their supporters, have been sent from Apia back to their villages, or that they have been otherwise dealt

with. What, therefore, can be the object of taking food to Apia, to a committee which is not there? “To this statement I reply that the official communiques issued by the Administrator, discrediting the Citizens’ Committee, only had the opposite effect of prompting the village and district councils to send accredited delegates to Apia to represent them, in the Citizens’ Committee. These delegates called themselves the “sub-eommii-tee.” which numbered a few hundred. “After the interview with the Minister, the executive of the ‘Citizens' Committee,’ at a meeting at Lepea, requested the district delegates and all the supporters of the committee, who had congregated in Apia in thousands, to disperse. All were asked to go home, and carry out the ex pressed wishes of the committee, which was to keep the peace and. obey the law. This request was followed generally, with the exception of a few who claimed they had other business to do in Apia. These were ordered by the Administrator to leave Apia forthwith. Some of them considered the order arbitrary and they are the ones who have been persecuted, banished or imprisoned. The food must be for these. HANDCUFFED CHIEFS “No oath or declaration was ever asked for, or given, to make the committee ’not to leave Apia voluntarily.' “There was nothing required of the members of the committee, or district delegates, to keep them iu Apia after the Minister had left, more especially as it was known that nothing could be obtained from the Administrator, and that the chairman of the committee had left for New Zealand. “The official statement, however, states that ‘the police visited the chiefs who had refused to obey orders to leave Apia . . Why did the police visit these chiefs except to arrest them, and what was the object of carrying handcuffs unless it was to use them? “As for the High Chief Advisers to the Administrator, Malietoa and Tuimalealiifano, these chiefs voluntarily sent messages to the Citizens’ Committee on several occasions right up to the departure of myself and Mr. Smyth from Samoa, to say that they were whole-heartedly in support of the representations made by the Citizens’ Committee, and that they were not responsible for the counterreports and petitions attributed to them.”