The Sun 42 Wyndham Street Auckland. N.Z. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1927. SAMOA COMMISSION BOYCOTT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 146, 10 September 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street Auckland. N.Z. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1927. SAMOA COMMISSION BOYCOTT

THE retreat of complainants in Western Samoa from their insistent demand for an investigation of their grievances against the Mandatory Administration is by far the most unsatisfactory episode in a protracted agitation. Their leaders have decided at the eleventh hour completely to boycott the Judicial Commission —Sir Charles Skerrett, Chief Justice of this Dominion, and Judge MaeCormiek, of the New Zealand Native Land Court. Unbiased observers of the mischievous trouble in the mandated territory will find it difficult to reconcile the surprising decision of the complainants with their earlier expressions of desire for a competent and wholly impartial inquiry into the causes of their discontent. Every reason had been given by thenleading representatives, both here and in Samoa, for encouraging the belief that they were actuated in their persistent agitation solely by a desire to befriend the natives, to disperse their discontent, to secure peace on the island, and restore confidence in the Administration. They need not be surprised or chagrined if and when they learn that neutral public opinion is now ranged against them because of an inevitable interpretation of the complainants’ tactics as a foolish policy. It is reasonable to say plainly that the aggrieved natives of Samoa for whom educated representatives with an alert sense of responsibility must think and act have been forsaken by their friends. The reasons for the action taken by the leading representatives of the Samoan complainants may confuse the issue, but they will convince no one but those who have postulated them. Their elaborate arguments go nearer to shilly-shallying than to plain common sense. Take, for example, the claim that the Commission’s order of reference should have been made wide enough not only to cover the admittedly harsh practice or possibility of deportation of agitators without trial, but also to traverse the ground of a serious indictment of administrative officials, who are now charged with drunkenness, illicit beer brewing, liquor and opium smuggling, and other acts of gross misconduct. In respect of the question of deportation or any other harsh and high-handed punishment, the complainants and several commentators appear to have overlooked the simple fact that the Judicial Commission is in no sense a peripatetic court of justice. Its purpose is to make an impartial inquiry, not to pass judgment on had regulations and Jedburgh justice. Quite obviously, if the Commission were to find that the nature of the trouble and the character of agitation did not warrant such condign punishment, the Mandatory Government would see at once that its hard laws could not be maintained. As for the grave indictment of the administrative officials, it is to be regretted that the charges were not given publicity in the early stages of the trouble. Hitherto, the causes of disaffection appeared to be nothing- more heinous than administrative stupidity at the worst or indiscreet zeal at the best. It may be noted, however, that the Hon. O. F. Nelson, whose knowledge of the Samoan grievances has been accepted as complete, has declared that he would not give evidence in support of the charges.

It is to be regretted that the threat of a. boycott has been made. If it be carried out with native obduracy, the service of the Commission will be reduced to a farce which, of course, will delight the Germans who are pressing the League of Nations for a definite voice in the mandatory government of her former 2>ossessions.