Copra not the Cause.

The Prime Minister says-and he knows it is false-that "the Administrator's experimental native copra-selling policy was largely responsible for the present movement." The Prime Minister knows that the Administrator did not start handling native copra until March, 1927. He knows the trouble in Samoa began long before that. My first complaints to him were made in September, 1926, and the trouble was well started before then.

The Prime Minister also knows that the Administrator's dealings in copra were mere retaliation against myself. I gave it on oath that before the Administrator started handling copra I received a warning through Judge Woodward to stop advocating the cause of the Samoans, or the Administrator would buy native copra. Judge Woodward has not dared to go into the witness-box to deny this. Judge Woodward is the Chief Judge of the High Court in Samoa, and has distinguished himself by his political electioneering on behalf of the Administration, and his assaults on members of the Mau, for which he has been haled before the Junior Judge and fined; his counsel, Mr. Klinkmueller (a German solicitor), pleading guilty and asking for the maximum penalty to be imposed in order to prevent the facts being given in evidence.

It passes my comprehension how the Prime Minister can expect to get away with such patent falsehoods as have characterised his public utterances on Samoan affairs. That the Government should resort to such methods must convince reasonable people that the Government's case is hopeless.

The Royal Commission concluded its sittings on the 27th October, and hastened back to New Zealand. It was thought that the reason for the hasty appointment of the Commission, and the manner in which it rushed at once to Samoa to carry its work out with extraordinary speed, was to enable it to report to Parliament before the session closed. But on returning the Commissioners took things in a leisurely fashion, strongly contrasting with their impatience in Samoa, and their report was not signed until November 29th. Parliament adjourned on December 5th, without an opportunity of discussing the evidence on the petition, or the report of the Royal Commission, and members expressed the opinion that the Government was shirking the Samoan issue, and evading the subject being discussed by the elected representatives of the people. No other conclusion can be drawn from its tactics.

As soon as Parliament was dissolved an official summary of the Commission's findings was broadcast, in which everything condemning the Citizens' Committee and the Mau, or in praise of the Administration, was given full prominence, but the illegality of cancelling traders' licenses, and the issue of the Book of "Laws," containing many mere resolutions, were kept in the background. This summary was published in Apia on December 9th, and on the 14th the Administrator requested me to appear before him under the Samoan Amendment (Deportation Without Trial) Act of 1927.