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Samoa Under the Sailing Gods

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In the meantime I had gone ahead with my newspaper campaign in London, which included, before the end of August, articles in The Times, Daily Herald, and Foreign Affairs, letters in The Times, Daily News, and Manchester Guardian; and the Daily News was also supplied with telegratms from Samoa, most of which passed through my hands. Many other newspapers, of course, of their own accord, took the subject up.

On July 28th the High Commissioner for New Zealand in London, Sir James Parr, issued a manifesto published in The Times and Manchester Guardian, to the effect that until almost the other day his Government had been praised as a model mandatory, and he hoped with justice, for it could not be denied that General Richardson's administration had been characterized by a remarkable progress in health, education, and in the social welfare of the native people under their rule.

"We have been complimented time and again by the League of Nations, and responsible and well-informed visitors have page 230declared publicly their admiration of the work of the Administrator, General Richardson. But the other day a cloud appeared in the Samoan sky, and in some quarters all our good deeds are forgotten in a moment. What is the position to-day? Just this—that General Richardson's administration is being challenged by a small coterie of Europeans, not of the highest standing, who are members of what is termed a Citizens' Committee. It is this small knot of Europeans which is responsible for the present agitation. They are inspiring many of the telegrams which are coming to London…."

Sir James Parr denied the existence of any real discontent.

The effect of this manifesto was rather weakened by a pronouncement about the same time from Sir Joseph Carruthers, a former Prime Minister of New South Wales, who stated that it might seem an impertinence on his part to criticize Samoan affairs, but one accustomed to British justice was so surprised at what one found there that one could not keep silent. "Samoa was being governed by something worse than martial law, by something resembling, in fact, the methods of Moscow." The arrest and banishment to Apolima of certain chiefs, Sir Joseph said, had nearly provoked an armed rising. One of these was Faumuina—the former leader of the Fetu.

In an ill-written paragraph purporting to explain how the trouble in Samoa was engineered, the British Australasian and New Zealander, a London publication, stated: "Besides this, there is the fact that the campaign against the Administrator is financed and supported by publicity in England, by two ex-traders, whom the Administrator asked to leave Samoa, and who are now in England." This apparently had reference to me. I know of no other ex-trader from Samoa who was in England. It was news to me that I had been asked to leave Samoa. Not one penny, I might state, was expended in publicity. This information, it transpired, had been furnished by the New Zealand High Commissioner's Office in London.