SAMOAN TANGLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 146, 10 September 1927, Page 9

SAMOAN TANGLE

(Continued from Page 1.) MR. NELSON REPLIES NOT GOING TO SAMOA Nelson, who had booked his passage by the Tofua, did not sail with the steamer when she left Auckland this morning. Instead he is for the present remaining in New Zealand, and said this morning that he felt in need of a rest, after the worry and anxiety of his representations in New Zealand, with the hopeless inadequacy of the commission as a culminating disappointment. Replying to the Prime Minister's letter, Mr. Nelson said that the the Prime Minister’s statement that the demand for guarantees against molestation or interference with petitioners could not be construed otherwise than a deliberate affront, proved that the Prime Minister was either not acquainted with the persecution oE the Samoan people by the Administrator, or that he had overlooked the fact that the last Samoa Bill placed everyone in Samoa under penalty of banishment or deportation by recommendation of the Administrator to the Covernor-General-in-Coun-cil.

FUNCTIONS OF COMMITTEE “To say that the European Committee of which I am chairman has had no other legitimate function than to accumulate evidence and define grievances is not correct. The functions of the Citizens’ Committee, composed of Samoans and Europeans, have been to prepare reports for presentation to the Minister of External Affairs on his last visit, and co exhort the people to keep the peace and place all their grievances before the New Zealand Government in a constitutional manner, relying on ‘British justice to get a fair and impartial hearing in due course.” Mr. Nelson confirmed what his solicitors had said in their protests against the limitations of the commission’s scope, and the lack of time allowed for the petitioners to prepare their case. They had been given no assurance that the harsh regulations now in force would be relaxed, to allow them to gather witnesses and evidence. “None of the followers of the Citizens’ Committee will now appear before the commission,” he concluded, “and only one side of the case can be presented. The commission will be a fiasco.”