Attitude Of Mau.

Mr. Nelson Re-States

(To The Editor.) Sir,—I thank you for publishing my last letter in your issue of June 23, and for your editorial comment that you “were pleased to pass for publication this courteous and well reasoned letter”. You will admit that I have never encroached on your valuable space except to correct erroneous Impressions and references to the political situation in Western Samoa, and to myself in particular.

When you, however, after passing the above compliment, almost in the same breath proceed to charge me personally with the contents of an article in the “N.Z. Samoa Guardian” of June 9, by “P.A.”, and refer to it as one “wherein Mr. Nelson covers the same ground in very different phraseology and style,” one is hard put to it to understand the motive under lying your professedly-helpful policy in regard to the controversy in Samoa.

It must be obvious to you, and any other reader of the “Guardian”, that the article re ferred to could not have been written by me.

You have yet to prove that I possess a dual (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) personality in my writings on Samoa, or that I have ever used that particular “phraseology and style” if you refuse to believe that that article was written by the editor-publisher, Mr. Percy Andrew, whose initials were plainly inserted at the top of the article.

You charge me with “fury and aggressive ness,” also with “savagery,” in an article which you must have known I did not write.

Though I quite agree with the contents of that article, I would not have discussed the delicate situation in that style. If what you say be half correct, that “Mr. Nelson can do more than any other man to help the Samoans out of their political troubles,” and your earnest desire is really to be helpful, then why this deliberate attempt to misrepresent my intentions still further to the authorities? Are there hot quite sufficient charges of ill-will, selfishness, and other bad intentions laid (I say wrongly, with emphasis) against me already without piling on me every other conceivable ch possible? Does it not seem clear to you that such attempts cannot possibly be helpful, but rather are they likely to aggravate the situation still further, for all concerned.

If I were the sole proprietor of the “N.Z.

Samoa Guardian”, as is implied in your editorial note, it might be of interest for you to know that even then the present editor would not write to orders from anyone. The position of the “Guardian” is clearly set out in its issue of this date. You will note therein that though I am one of the three directors, I hold only one-fifth of the stock, and the policy of the “Guardian” is guided by a large number of the friends of Samoa, who have contributed to the little paper in various ways.

You state that you “are not concerned with the past" and “are anxious only to deal with the position as it is”, but you add: “the trouble is that Mr. Nelson is preoccupied with the past. with its injustices and its failures”. You then go on to say that you “have appealed to Mr. Nelson to be generous, to forget the past, and to use his influence with his fellow Samoans to bring them closer to the New Zealand Administrators, so that there may be a compromise, and a settlement, with honour on both sides. But Mr. Nelson replies, savagely, that New Zealand is making no move towards compromise. . .”

These are serious allegations, for which you have established no proof whatever. You neither defend the Mandatory’s policies, which produced the prevailing unrest, nor do you offer any sug gestion of what the Government might do to wards that compromise which you advocate.

You merely take on to yourself the privilege to criticise the attitude of the Samoans and blame me for everything which makes sensational copy for your paper.

You say that I should “forget the past”, but you conveniently overlook the fact that I am still in enforced exile from my native country and the Samoans are still being imprisoned for an obsolete polltax. It is therefore not the past, but the “living present”, which you are asking the aggrieved side to forgive and forget: but to the other side, which holds all the power and authority to wipe out the past, you offer no advice or suggestion at all. Your latest contribution, making me appear blacker than ever in the eyes of the Mandatory authorities, cannot possibly bring a solution nearer; on the contrary, it can only tend to kill any prospect of “a compromise or a settlement with honour on both sides”.

In the concluding paragraph in your editorial note, you say that it is apparent that no ‘‘real sincere effort has been made to bring the Ad ministrator and the Mau together since General Hart took charge”. The respectful and polite letter from the Mau to General Hart, on his arrival in Samoa, ‘‘setting out very clearly the conditions and terms on which they would meet and confer with him” you say “is not the correct form of approach to a powerful and proud State”. You add, and I fully agree with you. that “this frightful muddle cannot be cleaned up unless both sides meet in a calm atmosphere, with open minds, free from all ‘conditions and terms’ ”.

The Mandatory alone, and not the Mau or myself, have the power to bring such a con ference about. If you will only take the trouble to recall to mind the many representations made by myself, and by many representative persons and bodies in New Zealand, to the New Zealand Government, and by the letter of the Mau to General Hart, you will find that it is the Government which has consistently refused to convene such a meeting.

It is on record that the Government have officially rejected the overtures made towards that end on several occasions. They say it was not necessary, as the Samoans did not know what they wanted. Yet you persist to throw the onus on the side which has not the power to bring about the compromise, which you sug gest, and omit to advise the other side, which has all the power and refuses to exercise it.

Would you suggest that the treatment of the Samoans, whether or not it was deserved, was the action of “a powerful and proud State”'?

After all, the interest you have taken in the Samoan situation is only part of your own self chosen policy, and the occupation of Western Samoa by New Zealand was, and still is, only to satisfy its own pecuniary interests, which you and they may relinquish at any time. In my ease (and that of every Samoan), however, it is—for want of a better name—purely ac cident of birth, for which I have no reason to be ashamed, and a lot to be proud. We have paid dearly in life and treasure, in money and kind, in wholesale slander and universal calumny inflicted on us by that “powerful and proud State”. Yet the Samoans can never be reduced to the relative position now held by

the Maoris in New Zealand. Samoa will never become a white man’s country in population; it will always remain predominantly Samoan.

Its climate is responsible for that, not the grace of the pakeha or white man. It must, therefore, be self-evident that neither your journal nor the Mandatory Government can be more anxious to have peace and tranquillity re stored in Samoa than the Samoans or myself.

These can only be lasting if produced by a “settlement with honour”, as suggested by you, and not by the arbitrary dictation of a “power ful and proud State”.

I am, etc.,

O. F. Nelson.

Auckland, July 7, 1932.

EDITORIAL NOTE. —Owing to my absence in New Guinea, publication of this letter was de layed until August.

We regret that we attributed to Mr. Nelson personally an article that was written by his able editor, Mr. Andrew. We carelessly had failed to notice the caption “By P.A.’’; and we confess that in any event we had regarded Mr.

Nelson as assuming personal responsibility for everything in “The Guardian,’’ because we understood that he was the owner. We stand corrected, and apologise for the error.

So far as the general position is concerned, we are beginning to fear that any appeal to a spirit of reason and compromise is useless. The future lies to a large extent in Mr. Nelson’s own hands: and Mr. Nelson’s outlook seems to be dominated and coloured by his hatred of New Zealand.

Why cannot Mr. Nelson face facts? The facts are that N.Z. is complying with the terms of the Mandate, and her administration will not be seriously interfered with by the League; that the only way out of the present impasse is by a proper approach by the Mau to the N.Z.

Government; and that it is no use Mr. Nelson approaching Wellington with Mau flags flying, and an effigy of the hated General Richardson borne on the pike-staffs of the Mau phalanx.

Mr. Nelson should remember that, while he may be up against bureaucracy, he is not up against the N.Z. people. The latter believe just as passionately as Mr. Nelson in the rights and liberties of small nations. —R.W.R.