Will Still

A After

Will Still Needed

STERN Samoa wants local utonomy while still remain ng under the protection of Zealand, High Commissioner Powles said in Wellington ly aid that there had been some im that New Zealand was ig ahead too fast in grant e Samoans independence, but far better to grant autonomy Dn than too late.

Zealand could be proud of its n policy. There would be r amendment to the Samoan lis year, and if everything smoothly the New Zealand iment would be prepared, by to establish a full Samoan t with a Samoan premier, t care had been taken with Dlitical progress of the ns and it was now time to trate more on economic This did not mean that onomy had been neglected, ire were many problems still olved.

Powles said he wished there ore private capital develop n Samoa. Ons problem dis ng investment was the re e of the Samoan leaders to ireign capital poured into the s owles went to New Zealand Iks with the Minister of d Territories, Mr. T. L. laid, on Samoa’s future, and wit NZ Government experts mce, education and health

In Leaders “Strongly

Disagree”

AN leaders have expressed tnselves as being in dis eement with Mr. Powles’ nt that the people of i Samoa did not want com independence, but “local ny while still remaining ;he protection of New Zea toa Tualaulelei, a prominent leader, when he heard of wles’ statement, called all members of the Executive including the two Fautua, emergency conference, f the meeting, the Acting commissioner (Mr. T. R. was called in, and is be o have been asked to cable iflrmation that the state is made, and for clarification the meeting, neither of the ied Samoan leaders, Tupua

Tamasese and M. Tualaulelei. would comment on Mr. Powles’ statement as published except to indicate their strong disagreement.

Controlled By 1954

Convention

Mr. Powles said later that his re marks may have been misunder stood in Samoa.

The situation as between NZ and W Samoa is governed by the Con stitution Convention of 1954, unanimous resolutions of which provided that there shall be main tained, indefinitely, a special re lationship between New Zealand and Western Samoa; and that this should eventually be based on an arrangement somewhat similar to

that which exists between Britain and the Kingdom of Tonga, sub ject to the provisions of the UN Trusteeship. t The new Vicar Apostolic of New Caledonia, Bishop Pierre Martin, is expected to arrive in Noumea, by Qantas, on March 29. The Bishop, 46 years of age, was consecrated at the Cathedral of Fourviere, in Lyons, France; and succeeds Mon signor Bresson, who has been in ill health for some years t The coastal motor ship, Havanah, recently took 31 leper patients from the Loyalty Islands for advanced treatment at Ducos Sanatorium, in New Caledonia.