Page 5 Advertisements Column 4

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1920, Page 5

system of indentured labor. PREMIER REPLIES. Mr. Massey said that on his arrival in England his first effort was to get Britain to take ovei Samoa, because New Zealand did not want it. It.was then that the mandatory system was devised. It had been said that Samoa should be left to the Samoans, but he declared the Islands could not be allowed to remain in the hands of the natives for twenty-four hours'. The position was that if we had not taken the mandate a foreign country would have got it, because he knew that the country put in the strongest claim for it. The perisd tt indenture was only for two years, and though rt was not generally known ths Chinese Government had consented to some Chinese wives accompanying their husbands. There were about a hundred wives on the way to Samoa now. He did not like the system of indentured labor, and the •jooner we got rid of it the better. The way to do that was to educate the Samoans to the value of labor. He traced the fate of the native race in the Hawainian Islands. The Samoans were of the same race, and it was our duty to see that a similar fate did not befall them. We must take up what was sometimes called the white man's burden to protect the native race, and see that no foreign Power ever got a footing in the Pacific again. Mr. Wilford opposed indentured labor, and would never support the introduction of any Chinamen or Japanese into any island under New Zealand's charge. Tlie Hon. A. T. Ngata said that in the light of the experience of the/ Maori race, the Samoans were fortunate in coming under the control of the British Empire as represented by New Zealand. srcjyron when