THE PACIFIC TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 October 1915, Page 8

THE PACIFIC TRADE.

GERMANS IN SAMOA, STH?S TO CONSERVE BRITISH INTERESTS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Oct. 20. Early last month the German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung published a communication from a German resident in Samoa, regarding the condition of affairs there under British rule. "In Samoa," the correspondent said, "the British officials are trying to direct all the trade to Australia and neighboring British colonies. The German settlers and natives who live near them are convinced that the conquest of the islands is only temporary, and that Germany will soon recover possession. There is no German in Samoa who believes that Germany will be beaten. They all believe that Great Britain and her allies will be (beaten, and that they will have to pay enormous indemnities to Germany." The German writer added that for the rest the German settlers, "who are allowed to trade not only with natives but with British ships entering the harbors of Samoa, have nothing to complain of. Only the Governor and the German officials are kept prisoners on the island of Motuihi, near Auckland, and they appear to be comfortable enough, from the report of the German ladies who were sent home." The Prime Minister (Right Hon. W. F. Massey) mentioned to-day, in connection with thi9 matter, that the German traders would not have quite so much liberty in the future as they had had in the past. Mr. A. Matheson, the

special officer who had been sent to the islands by the Government, would exercise a general supervision of the operations of the German traders and see that they did not overstep the marks which the British were entitled to impose under present conditions. There was no doubt that these traders had enjoyed very wide latitude since the occupation of Samoa by New Zealand troops, though the Administrator, Col. Logan, bad done his best to prevent trading with the enemy. Colonel Logan, the present administrator of Samoa, left the Dominion with the first Expeditionary Force as a New Zealand officer, but he is now working under the Imperial authorities. He receives his instructions from London through the Governor of New Zealand. Some people are under the impression that German Samoa has been annexed to the British Empire. This is not the ease. The territory has merely been occupied, and its fate will be determined at the close of the war.