SAMOAN AFFAIRS.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1921, Page 5

SAMOAN AFFAIRS.

CAUSE OF TROUBLE. EXPLAINED BY MR. TRIGGS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Sydney, Sept. 7. The Hon. W. H. Triggs, in a letter to the Herald, commenting on the special commissioner’s Samoan article, says that he has not the least hesitation in saying that the chief cause of the agitation against New Zealand’s rule ie the resentment of the white residents on account of the prohibition of intoxicants. He adds that the Government of New Zealand was actuated by the highest motives in it« actions, and if it allowed resentment to influence its actions it would be false to its ideals of carrying out the government of Samoa in the best interests of the natives, as the mandate •enjoins it to do. The special commissioner, in a second article, referring to the attacks on the administration, says that an impartial observer cannot come to any other conclusion than that the diatribes, which have been so widely published to the injury of New Zealand’s reputation, have been both extravagant and unfair. The Administration is not nearly so bad as it has been painted, though it is not by any means perfect.