The Minister's Amazing Attitude.

Without waiting to receive the original reports from the Citizens' Committee, or to hear the explanatory remarks which were necessary to elucidate the many subjects touched on, the Minister at once started reading a long speech which had been prepared, grossly distorted the objects and aims of the Citizens' Committee, and accused its members of activities and conduct of which they had not been guilty. We were referred to, inferentially, as "a sore" which might need "the surgeon's knife" before it became "a festering wound on the body politic of Samoa." The High Chiefs present were asked would they "like a constitution similar to that granted to the Mandated Territory of South-West Africa?" An insulting comparison in Samoa which no responsible Minister would dare put to the Maoris of New Zealand. All this, and thousands of words more, were read to us from the prepared speech before we had been allowed to say a single word on the objectives of the deputation! He advised us that he would not listen to a word from the Europeans present on the subject of Native Affairs, nor would he hear anything from the Samoan Chiefs except any personal grievances they wished to ventilate.

If this was not like pouring petrol on a smouldering heap, then it was a highly incendiary attitude to take up, and, although Mr. Nosworthy was at some pains to assure us that in his coming "the Government did not send a fool here," his incredible reception of a peace-seeking deputation of the elected M.L.C.'s, responsible citizens, and representative High Chiefs, has since been widely condemned by persons of widely opposing views in politics as utterly tactless and extremely foolish.