Samoan Document Is On Its Way

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 150, 15 September 1927, Page 1

Samoan Document Is On Its Way

IN SEALED ENVELOPE 0' HOLLAND APPREHENSIVE "IBS SUN’I! Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Discontent is stiii simmering among members of the House of Representatives in connection with lie Samoan unrest, and disapproval is lieing expressed at the manner in which t he Government is acting on ibis Question. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. J. (j Coates, gave notice in the House today of his intention to move that Standing Orders be suspended so far to allow the presentation confidentially to members of the Samoan Commission of copies of the evidence taken before the Joint Committee of the House on Samoa. Ait urgent question, asked subsequently by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. H. E. Holland, drew from the Prime Minister the admission the.t t be evidence was already in the hands of the party with the commission now on its way to the Islands, but instructions bad been given that the seal ms not to be broken till release was jranted by the authorities here. The documents were in the hands of an oJlcial of the department. Mr. H. E. Holland: The secretary of the administration? Mr. Coates: Never mind; it is an officer. Mr. E. J. Howard: Have you not broken the forms of the House? Mr. Coates: I think you will find the course taken is right. It is for the House to say. MORE ABOUT MR. GURR The Minister of External Affairs, tie Hon. W. Nosworthy, has not finished with the subject, either. He took opportunity in the House to-day to refer to the cable recently received by the Hon. O. F. Nelson referring to E W. Gurr. and his past political ramifications. “The statement that E. W. Gurr mu dismissed from office by the United States Administration in Americas Samoa,” the Minister said, “was taken from an official document dated •Government House, Naval Station, Tutuila, American Samoa. October 1, 1926, by Governor F. Bryan,’- and reads: Tie (Gurr) was dismissed in 1908 for malfeasance in office.’ “Governor Bryan informed me during my recent visit to American Samoa that Gurr’s re-entry to American Samoa would be prohibited. I have never on any occasion stated that Gurr was deported from American Samoa.” In referring to the chief Lago Lago (previously Afamasaga), the Minister said that the Administrator of Samoa was advised in writing by the Governor of American Samoa some years ago that Lago Lago would not be permitted to return to American Samoa should he at any time wish to do so. The Minister then went on: “In spite of the fact that the American Governor is now reported as stating that the native cfc,iefs were punished for conspiring to kill other chiefs and not for participating in the political troubles, the official document of the American Government describes the trouble that arose in American Samoa ia 1920 as political unrest, and the chiefs as disloyal in that they had established a so-called "committee” with headquarters in Pago Pago, through which they planned to run the Government. “Also the ‘O Le Fa’atonu,’ of March, 1)28 (which is described in the press uports as the official organ of the tnited States Government in Samoa), reports that on March 9, these ‘political prisoners’ were pardoned. “It Is therefore Impossible to reconele the articles published with the official records of the United States