Treatment Of Half-Castes In Samoa.

Vigorous Reply on Behalf of Mr. Nelson.

The following reply to an article in the September issue, dealing with Western Samoa's half-caste problem, has been received. The writer is Mr. Percy Andrew, of Auckland.

The Pacific Islands Monthly has become quite a useful organ for the ventilation of the views of the European community in Samoa, where they clash with the bona fide interests of the native Samoans. When the Euro peans (including the half-castes) have dared to criticise the Administration, they have been called “foreign agita tors’’ and reminded that the primary duty of the Mandatory was to promote the welfare of the indigenous popula tion and to hold “Samoa for the Samoans.” When, however, the Euro peans have been encouraged by arbi trary and drastic laws to support un conditionally the wiles and whims of the military dictatorship, they have be come quite a factor and quoted as a significant portion of that small min ority which the Mandatory is pleased to call “loyalists.”

The half-castes or “local-born Euro peans” have always been a pawn in the game, to be used by the Government and the whites as suit their own in terests best. That section now forms the subject of another new bogey or phantom styled “the half-caste prob lem.” In an article “Specially written for ‘The Pacific Islands Monthly’ (September 21st) by a Samoan (white) planter,” the so-called “problem” is discussed under the caption “What is Western Samoa doing for its 3800 half-castes?”

A perusal of the article in question quickly shows that the writer must have been one of the signatories to the petition asking for the sub-division of the ex-German Estates among the white planters, who are now said to have been mostly “local-born.”

Sir George Richardson’s belated out burst in the interests of the half-castes receives favourable comment, but noth ing is said of why the same gentleman did not carry out that scheme which he now advocates when he had full power and authority to do so, and why he did not allow the higher positions in the Administration to be open to all according to merit instead of according to colour? It is not too late to make this change even now. Would “Samoan Planter” go to this extent?

Mr. Nelson’S Attitude.

The concluding paragraph of the said article states: “Strange to say, Mr. O.

F. Nelson, . . . who has devoted so much time to the furtherance of the Mau movement, has never paid much attention to the future of the Samoan half-castes, nor has he advanced any practical ideas or suggestions for the solution of the problem.”

Talk is cheap, but actions speak louder than words. The only large con cern in Samoa, where the highest posts are filled by half-castes and Samoans, is that of O. F. Nelson and Co., Ltd.

It has always been Mr. Nelson’s policy to employ no other than “local-born” (full, and part Samoans, especially the latter) where such was possible. One has only to visit the Head Office, and branches of the large commercial con cern which Mr. Nelson, by his own en terprise and integrity, has built up in

Samoa and elsewhere, to find that this is true, in substance and in fact.

Preference To Samoa-Born.

At the Parlamentary Joint Commit tee on the Samoan Petition of 1927, Mr. Nelson was asked by the present Chief Justice of New Zealand, Sir Michael Myers, then counsel for the Government, if it were not a fact that he gave no employment to white men where half-castes and Samoans were available, and Mr. Nelson admitted that such was his policy.

The same question was repeated to Mr. Nelson at the Royal Commission in Samoa the same year, and on both occasions the purpose was evidently to prove that Mr. Nelson had no love for

white men and as such he was pre judiced.

When Mr. Nelson left Samoa a Board of Directors controlled the Company’s affairs during his absence. Three mem bers of that Board were half-castes and only one was a white man; the whole four received equal salaries. The engineer-in-charge of his mechanical Engineering Department was a full Samoan at a salary of about £450 per annum. The leading positions in the Company’s Head Office and Branches are mostly half-castes and Samoans, without prejudice as to colour or nat ionality as to the rate of pay received in any other case.

Cheap Government Labour.

Compare this with the Government rates of pay where the lowest-paid white medical officer in Samoa receives £625 per annum and the highest-paid native medical practitioner receives £136! The Secretary of Native Affairs is listed at £660, while the two High Chiefs Mailetoa and Mataafa as Chief Native Advisors to the Administrator get £132 each; which munificent allow ance was raised from £50 per annum during Colonel Tate’s regime by the

persistent urgings of the same Mr. Nel son, as both Col. Tate and the Hon.

Malietoa would admit.

It is therefore, absurd to give Gen eral Richardson credit for all his big talk of things he should have done and did not do and to say that “Mr. Nelson has never paid much attention to the future of the Samoan half-castes, nor has he advanced any practical ideas or suggestions for the solution of the problem.”

Those interested in the new bogey “problem” should now advocate the adoption by the Government and other concerns in Samoa of Mr. Nelson’s “practical ideas” in the advancement of the half-castes and Samoans. If that were done, the question now re ferred to as a “problem” would soon pass away, there would be no Black and Tans in Samoa, and all or most of the big jobs in Samoa would be filled by half-castes and Samoans.

Even New Zealand has found it necessary to get Sir Otto Niemeyer from London to advise the Government on financial matters, and Professor Hornell from Sweden to point out the costly mistakes of the New' Zealand electrical engineers in Arapuni, etc. Mr.

Nelson has proved what can be done by half-castes and Samoans, and it is for the Government, and the corre spondent of the “P.I.M.,” to follow his example as an earnest of their pro fessed goodwill to the Samoans.

The one problem which dominates Samoa is New Zealand.