“INNOCENT REMARK”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 679, 3 June 1929, Page 1

“INNOCENT REMARK”

SIR JAS. CARRUTHERS EXPLAINS SAMOAN CRITICISM | “It was an innocent remark.” j Tliat is how Sir Joseph Carruthers i describes the statement he made ' some time ago that Sir George Rich-

ardson was Administrator of Western Samoa during the influenza epidemic of 1918. “I found I had used Sir George’s name when I mentioned the influenza epidemic of 1918, but he was away at the war at that time,” said Sir Joseph on the Niagara this morning. He also said that he had never heard any suggestion of a libel action. “If I had been notified of any impending action. I would have fought Sir George Richardson in the court,” declared the former Premier of New South Wales. Sir Joseph continued that as soon as he had discovered his mistake he wrote to Sir George and expressed his regret. “My communication was an entirely privileged one,” he said this morning. After the mistake had been made, Sir George Richardson wrote to a friend in Australia, pointing it out and asking that the letter be shown to Sir Joseph. “And now I am off to the Islands to get warm,” the energetic little man remarked. He will make a tour of the Islands, calling at Honolulu, Fiji and American Samoa. Sir Joseph Carruthers has been a keen critic- of the Samoan trouble. He visited Samoa last year and afterwards trenchantly criticised the Ad- : ministration and the Administrator, ! Sir George Richardson, saying, among other things, that the influenza epiI demic of 1918 had had much to do I with the dissatisfaction, and that Sir I George had been partly responsible j for the unrest.