AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2490, 15 April 1893, Page 3

AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW.

Sidney, April 12. Sir J. B. Thurston, High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, has been interviewed by the Presbyterian. Ho stated that some time ago he issued a regulation imposing a tine of £lO or three mouths’ imprisonment on British subjects found guilty of sedition against the Government of Samoa, but Mr R. L. Stevenson the novelist, was completely mistaken in supposing that this regulation was levelled at him. Sir John was of opinion that there would be no lasting peace in Samoa until intermeddling in local native aftairs was put down with a strong hand, whether such interference came from Mr Stevenson or any other person. He gave an unqualified denial to the statement that he had attempted to deport Mr Stevenson from the island, or had interfered with him in any conceivable way. Sir John stated that misleading cables from England, regarding this question, in conjunction with the retirement of Chief Justice Cedercrantz through the action of Mr Stevenson and others, would greatly increase the resistance of Mataafa and his followers towards the Government of Samoa. Referring to the fact of the late King George of Tonga having appointed the Rev. Shirley Baker one of the executors to carry out the provisions of his will, Sir John said that the will was made before Mr Baker’s dismissal. Replying to a question as to whether he would allow Mr Baker to return to Tonga, to execute the will, he answered that Mr Baker was at liberty to act as advised, but if he was well advised he would keep out of Tonga. Sir John refused to give credence to the recent cable message stating that the German Consul was deporting American missionaries from the Marshall Islands. On the subject of Kanaka labour, he said that he regretted very much that the traffic had been renewed by Queensland. He had every faith in the good intentions of the Government of the colony, but ,he feared that it was practically impossible to recruit in large numbers and carry out the regulations effectively. He believed that large departures from the islands were fraught with injury to tha people, but under the new regulations the opportunity for wrong-doing in connection with the traffic was much diminished as compared with what had been possible jn the past.