SAMOANS WERE DECEIVED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 332, 18 April 1928, Page 1

SAMOANS WERE DECEIVED

MISSIONARY’S OPINION

INTERESTS OF THE NATIVES “There were only two organisations in Samoa that really studied the interests of the natives —the Government and the Christian missions,” said the Rev. U. Darwill, who lectured at the Beresford Street Congregational Hall last evening on “Christian Missions ar.-l the Government in Samoa.” “The new organisation that has sprung into being proclaims itself the champion of the people. “The natives followed a movement, the significance of which they could not understand. Suspicion was enthroned and grievances became easy to manufacture when the natives were informed —as they had to be—that their grievances were without foundation, suspicion passed into hatred.” Mr. Darwill has been seven years in Samoa as agent for the London Missionary Society. He is returning to the Islands by the Tofua after spending his vacation in New Zealand. Samoan political discontent, he said. | was based upon dissatisfaction with economic conditions, which, in the opinion of a small non-native section of the community, was a result of the administrative policy. The position now was that all grievances had fused into one and the natives were desirous of getting rid of the white man altogether, so that they might govern themselves —a result that was certainly not foreseen by those who fomented discontent in the first place. The New Zealand Government was now faced with the difficult problem of averting civil war and pacifically asserting its authority. General Richardson had earned the respect and trust of the natives. In the new' Samoa his work would count more than that of any other man.