Samoa and Candour

Marc T. Greene on the Warpath

THAT peripatetic American journalist, Mr. Marc. T. Greene, who was in Paris on March 30, on his way back to the Pacific Islands, wrote to the editor as follows: — Lately I have had a couple of some what acidulous encounters in respect of Samoa, the N.Z. Government and the League of Nations.

I wrote to the Mandates Commission giving some authentic information receiv ed from confidential and reliable sources in Samoa as to just what the position is now, and also as to certain significant happenings, likewise indicating the main source of present troubles and perhaps worse ones to come.

The Secretary of the Commission re plied that said information “did not come from official sources and therefore was not admissable to th,e records of the Man dates Commission”.

“To which I answered, with candour, that so far as Samoa, at least, was con

cerned, the Mandates Commission, and the League itself for that matter, was “nothing more than a sorry farce!”

I also had a talk the other day in Lon don with Mr. Jordan, th,e N.Z. Commis sioner there. Like Messrs. Forbes, Coates, and sundry other well-meaning if not very effective gentlemen, I take it that Mr. Jordan is honest, sincere, and straightforward. But, also like the fore going:, he knows no more than a very small fraction of one per cent, above nothing at all about Samoa.

I told him that the present N.Z. pol icy there was as bad as that of the for mer Government, if not worse, and that the policy of asking a truculent people like the Samoans to “forgive and forget” was hopeless.

He declared that the “question was, what sort of government do the Samoan people want?”

I said, “What Samoan people, the na tives or the Europeans?”

He then told me all about the improved conditions of the New Zealand farmers and the good prices they are getting for butter and cheese.

Mr. A. Christie left Papua in early May for a holiday in Scotland.