HOW SAILORS WON “WAR IN SAMOA”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 348, 8 May 1928, Page 12

HOW SAILORS WON “WAR IN SAMOA”

DEFFATED AT FOOTBALL (Special to THE SUN) WANGANUI, To-day. “When we arrived at Samoa we went ashore well supplied with guns and ammunition. Soon we were approached by some leading Samoans, who challenged us to a game of football.” This is how a sailor from one of the New Zealand warships describes his first landing in Samoa. “We told them to go about their business,” he continued, “as we had more important work to do, but they only laughed and assured us that there would be no trouble, and that there would be plenty of opportunities for a game if we thought we had a team we would like to try out. “We took the field against the brown boys eventually and were badly beaten. Later, when the tanker Nucula arrived, we made up a representative team from a.ll three ships, and again were badly beaten. That’s how we won the war in Samoa,” he concluded. He said that the real cause of the trouble was a road-building scheme. There were about 37 miles of bitumen road laid down in Samoa. When it was proposed to start on these the Samoans, it is alleged, were given to understand that the terms would be much the same as any other local body would adopt in constructing roads, and that they would carry a sinking fund, and the debt would be wiped out at the end of a period of years. However, too much was asked in one lump from the people. They resented it, and, in his opinion, one argument led to another until the recent complications ensued.