Mau Outwitted

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 412, 21 July 1928, Page 10

Mau Outwitted

A' ew Administrator's Triumph

QUESTION OF SALUTES How the quick wits of his wife enabled the recently-appointed Administrator of Samoa, Lieut.-Col-onel S. S. Allen, to outwit the Mau on the King’s Birthday, is told by the Suva correspondent of the Melbourne “Herald.” According to his story, the incident was a triumph for Colonel Allen, and a triumph, too, for the Mau, because of the fine sporting spirit in which they took their last-minute defeat. Solid in their demand for a change of Government, but still determined to show no disloyalty to the Empire, the Mau secretly planned to dispense with the usual ceremonial on the King’s Birthday, in which, during a march past, the Administrator and the flag were invariably saluted. Working with the utmost secrecy, the Mau planned that the march-past, should be staged before the arrival of the Administrator, so that the police, soldiers and citizens would have to salute the flag only. So good were their preparations that even on the morning of the march past the Administrator, who was at Government House, did not know of the plan. While the Administrator was at breakfast, a visitor from Apia arrived at 7.45 a.m., to say that the march past was timed for S a.m. Apia was four miles away, and Colonel Allen was in a morning coat. For the moment he was nonplussed. Mrs. Allen did not stop to think. She called to an aide to get the car from the garage and she herself rushed in to get her husband's official uniform. Precisely at 8 a.m. the head of the Mau procession reached the saluting base before the flag. Almost simultaneously the highpowered car drove up and Colonel Allen stepped out. The leader of the procession did not see the Administrator until he turned his eyes to salute the flag. But he never wavered, and the rest of the procession, seeing that the Mau had been ouwitted, made the best of a bad job, and saluted the Administrator, too. The Mau leaders were the first to congratulate Colonel Allen on his action.