Europeans in South Seas

American Journalist's Opinion of Hawaii, Tahiti, and Samoa

Letter to the Editor fantastic suggestion that the islands of French Polynesia be “traded” to tne United States in settle ment of France’s war indebtedness ought to arouse the ire of anyone who has any affection for Tahiti and the adjacent groups. it is the last thing that ought to nap pen and let us hope the last thing that will. Personally, 1 would rather see Hawaii sold to the Bolsheviks and tne S&moan Mandate turned over to Kemai Ataturk. The tragic spectacle of what the Americans have done to that same Hawaii, the disgusting exploitation that has destroyed ail the' native charm of that once lovely group and banished every trace of the exotic, gives you only too clear a vision of what would happen to fair Tahiti once American acquisi tiveness got its fell clutches on her.

Whether you like the French or not, you have to acknowledge that they have done less harm to the natives of their islands, forced upon them less of the contamination of white “civilization,” than any others of the “developers” of the Pacific Islands.

And in connection with the operations of the white man in the South Seas, my confidential advices from Apia make it sadly clear that things in Western Samoa are going from bad to worse under the stupid policy of the New Zealand Labour Government, a policy that begins to make that of its predecessors, bad as it was, seem tactful and wise.

Lately, one of Morris, Hedstrom’s em ployees was pulled from his bicycle by natives and knocked down, the wife of the Chief of Police was threatened with guns and knives and her motor car damaged, and other similar affairs oc curred. Jail sentences of one and two months were all the punishments im posed by the court. “If that is the best the Labour Party can send here,” says my correspondent, one of the most pro minent Europeans in Apia, “we are in for a bad time.”

That is what I think. This “good-will” business, the asinine policy of pleading with the truculent Samoans to forgive

and forget, is certain to lead to serious trouble. Mr. Nelson, lam told, now seeks to be appointed a member of the Legis lative Council, of the Finance Com mittee and chief advisor on native affairs to the Administration. I fully expect to hear next that he has been invited to come to Wellington and graciously accept the post of Cabinet Minister for Native Affairs and the South Sea Islands.

Some time ago I went to Geneva and tried to tell the Permanent Mandates Commission something about conditions in Samoa, a subject on which their ignorance approximated that of an Aus tralian aboriginal on the Einstein Theory. On the basis of what I have just heard from Apia I am taking the matter up with Geneva again, urging them to make some attempt to learn something of the facts from sources prejudiced on behalf of neither side. For I am certain that this Samoan hornets’-nest will pre sently burst, if nothing is done to counter the damage already resulting from the N.Z. Labour Party’s folly, and let sting ing insects loose to wreak all manner of damage and very likely tragedy.

I am, etc.,

Marc T. Greene.

Santa Barbara, California, 1/9/37.