Mr. Nelson, Mr. Greene And

N.Z. Government.

Letter to the Editor, YOUR despatch from Apia, published in your October issue and after I left there, is a very accurate sum mary of the situation in Western Samoa as it is at the moment, whoever may have written it.

There is no longer any reason for anyone to be at all in the dark as to the position. The present Adminis trator, General Hart, although he has not altogether avoided mistakes, has succeeded in consolidating European opinion in Samoa behind the Adminis tration, and also in gaining the confi dence of a great number of the natives.

No previous Administrator was ever able to do either of those things, and it is as certain as anything can be that were the Mau leaders now left to themselves they would get together with the Administration. They are as sick as anyone of discord which only accentuates the woeful economic con ditions in the islands, and they are commencing to wonder what good has accrued to them out of the thousands of pounds they have contributed to the Mau movement. However or by whom ever all of it has been spent, not one shilling has been used to any purpose whatever in actually advancing the cause of the natives or in bringing a restoration of harmony nearer. In

fact, so far as the latter is concerned, the result has been quite the contrary.

No doubt whatever exists that the New Zealand Government is not only ready but anxious to bring about an era of amity and goodwill in Western Samoa and to make all possible con cessions to the natives to that end.

There are certain reasons why, since returning to New Zealand, I am able to make that statement advisedly. But the New Zealand Government will not treat with Mr. Nelson as the leader of the Samoans, for many specific reasons, chief of which—and sufficient if there were no other—is that he is implacably and relentlessly hostile to New Zealand and to all things British, and no “fono” in which he took part could function in anything but an atmosphere of hostility.

The Administration believes, and their belief is shared by practically every European in Samoa, that without Mr. Nelson’s activities in keeping alive the native opposition to New Zealand, that opposition would gradually, and very likely speedily, disintegrate.

No one that I know of, certainly not myself, has any feelings of personal ill will toward Mr. Nelson, but European opinion in Samoa is unanimous that he should withdraw as a political factor, and thus permit the Mau, with its constant drain on the economic resources of the natives and its dis turbing effect on affairs generally in the islands, to come to terms with New Zealand and then go out of existence.

I am, etc.,

Marc T. Greene.

Wellington, N.Z., 6th Nov., 1933.