Criticises

W. Samoan Head

The Critics

Some parts of the 36-minute,

jport-to-the-nation, radio speech

t Prime Minister Mataafa of /estern Samoa caused em arrassment in the New Year, t was thought that his remarks

re re largely off-the-cuff and un

etted by advisers.

EVIDENTLY smarting under the .J constant complaints of the two )cal newspapers that there is too luch Government talk and not nough action in development, he ished out at the newspapers in par icular and critics in general. He aid, in part: . . . ‘■We find many of these criticisms a the two local newspapers stating hat the year has passed without see ng any steps taken by the Govern nent for development. It is also said hat it is very slow, together with everal unfounded and false criticisms.

“Let it be remembered by our >eople that our boat is still sailing lowly. It is better to act and proceed :autiously, bearing in mind one of he true sayings that ‘Rome was not milt in a day . . .’

"Go Elsewhere!"

“I would therefore ask that if you, ;he critic, is either a gentleman or lady from outside —why do you not »o away from our State? You may »o and serve your Government and /our country where you were born, thus leaving our Government to be run with the knowledge granted us by God.”

The longer established newspaper, The Samoa Bulletin, commented that the Prime Minister’s 1963 speech was difficult to reconcile with the speech he had made a year earlier, at Inde pendence, when he had appealed for tolerance in all things. The Bulletin went on: ‘“ln other democratic countries there is always [Parlia mentary] Opposition ... in Samoa there is only one party and it is the duty of the newspapers to criticise and to object to the exclusion of the public from knowledge of what their representatives are doing.”

Western Samoa at present is going through a phase of political develop ment where the Government regards

everything short of enthusiastic ap proval as destructive criticism border ing on the subversive. If it is to de velop into a real democracy it will outgrow this phase. Meantime, the newspapers are a natural target for Government displeasure.

Harder to understand is the Prime Minister’s reference to “gentleman or lady from outside”. The two news papers are locally owned and the people most closely concerned in de termining their policy are Western Samoan nationals—either because they were born in Samoa or because they gave up their original nationality at the time of W. Samoan indepen dence.

Norfolk Man For Fiji

Mr. Brian a’B. Marsh, who, for the past two-and-a-half years has been Norfolk’s Agricultural Officer, will leave on February 10, ac companied by his wife and two children, Jennifer and Peter, for Suva, where he will take up a new appointment as Soil Conservation Officer with the Fijian Government.

Before going to Norfolk Mr. Marsh was a Soil Conservation Adviser with the Western Australian Department of Agriculture. His wife, who holds a degree in Zoology, shares her husband’s interest in underwater swimming.