§ MR. JOHN REDMONDasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the case of the Samoan woman, Manaema, whose lands in Samoa were seized of Messrs. W. M'Arthur and Co. of Auckland and London, has yet been fully considered and decided upon by the Imperial Government, to whom it was submitted by Sir G. D. De Veaux, High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, in January 1884; whether it is a fact that Messrs. W. M'Arthur 1390 and Co. in realising a claim against their agent, Mr. Frank Cornwall, entered on and took possession of Samoan lands and plantations which are still legally vested in the Samoan people, and sequestered or destroyed the produce of several plantations; whether they put these lands, 250,000 acres in all, and including several plantations in full working order, up to sale and bought them in themselves at a price of £1,500, although some of the lands were legally settled in February 1879 by deed and by consent of the Samoan people on the Native woman Manaema; whether, on attempting to take possession, they were resisted by the Native Governor, who declared the lands belonged to the Samoan people and were free from British control; whether the Native owners offered to satisfy Messrs. W. M'Arthur and Co.'s claims, but their offer was refused, as the firm preferred the land; whether the agents of Messrs. W. M'Arthur and Co., in taking forcible possession of the said lands, maltreated the Native woman Manaema and others, drove them from their houses, and seized their furniture and clothing; whether the British authorities in Samoa supported the action of Messrs. W. M'Arthur and Co. and threatened to burn the villages if the Natives did not yield up their lands peaceably; whether the Government intend to redress the grievance of Manaema and the people of Samoa; and, whether the Messrs. W. M'Arthur and Co. of Auckland and London in question are the same firm whose agent in Samoa, according to a Despatch of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 18th October 1878, had practised cruelties in conducting the labour trade of the firm, and had been responsible for outrages upon Polynesian labourers upon their Samoan estates?
§ MR. EVELYN ASHLEYThe hon. Member's Questions seem to have been taken from a certain Petition drawn up by Mr. Cornwall, to which Her Majesty's Government has replied that there is no case for their interference. I may say, however, that most of the allegations of the Petition have proved on inquiry to be inaccurate as far as Cornwall is concerned, and the matter, put shortly, resolved itself into this. Cornwall, being a debtor to the firm of M'Arthur and Co. to a large amount, and being pressed for some payment, mortgaged his land 1391 to them, and when a foreclosure took place turned round and said that the lands did not belong to him at all but to his Native concubine, named Manaema and that they were Native Lands. He stirred up the Natives to take this view, and to dispossess by violence the representative of his creditor. The High Commissioner, on his visit to Samoa in 1882, imposed a fine for these acts of violence, but without in any way deciding on the title to the lands in question. Messrs. M'Arthur are the firm referred to in the despatch of 1878, and their so-called agent, owner of the estate on which the labourers were employed, was this same Mr. Frank Cornwall.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDMight I ask the hon. Gentleman further, whether the decision of the Government was given upon the question, and whether it was communicated by them to the people interested? With his permission, I will say that the reason I ask it is, that a letter was despatched on the 11th January, 1884, stating that the matter was still under the decision of the Imperial Government.
§ MR. EVELYN ASHLEYI can make no reply, except that our decision has been forwarded about a couple of months ago. I may say that the hon. Member was inaccurate about the date.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDMight I ask the hon. Gentleman if this letter has been brought under his attention—
Government House, Melbourne, 11th Jan., 1884.Sir,—I am directed by his Excellency the Acting High Commissioner to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th December, and beg to inform you in reply that the question of the action taken in the case referred to was one involving a decision of great importance to the whole Colonies. For this reason his Excellency has referred the matter to Her Majesty's Government for their decision, and is unable to take action until their decision has been received.(Signed) W. HARTINGTON.
§ MR. EVELYN ASHLEYThe date is 1883.
§ MR. A. M'ARTHURI very much regret having to trouble the House about a personal matter in which hon. Members can feel little or no interest. But as the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Redmond) has in his Question indirectly made serious charges against my brother, who is unavoidably absent to-day, myself, and the members of a 1392 firm in Auckland with which we are connected, but in the management of which we have not personally taken any part, I hope the House will permit me to make a personal explanation, and I will engage not to occupy more than a few minutes of its time. Allow me to say, in the first place, that if the hon. Member had had the courtesy to speak to me on the subject I could have given him information which would have saved him the trouble of putting such a Question on the Paper, and saved me from the unpleasant necessity of making this explanation. For I hold in my hands documents proving unmistakably the incorrectness, not to use a stronger word, which I believe I would be perfectly justified in using—of the accusations contained in the Question against W. M'Arthur and Co., of Auckland. These papers are too voluminous to trouble the House with; but they can be seen by the hon. Member if he wishes to see them, or by any other hon. Member of the House. With regard to the purely commercial portion of the Question, it is sufficient to say that the case has been three times decided by competent tribunals—first in the Consular Court, afterwards in the Supreme Court of Fiji, and finally by the Governor and High Commissioner, and in each case decided in favour of W. M'Arthur and Co. The hon. Member's Question is intended to produce an impression that land was bought very much below its value, that resistance was offered by the Natives, who offered to satisfy the claims of M'Arthur and Co., but that this offer was refused by the firm, who preferred the laud. We are informed, and the documents in my hands prove, that the reverse is the fact, that the King of Samoa sent one of his chiefs with instructions to the native governor to render all necessary assistance to the agent of W. M'Arthur and Co. in obtaining the deeds of the land, and that, so far from the firm preferring to seize the land, they offered long after they had taken possession of it in self-defence to return it to Cornwall for £3,500, which was only equal to a composition of about 10s. in the pound on the amount due by him. This liberal offer he refused, leaving no option but to retain the land. Every business man in this House will perfectly understand that the locking up of capital in land, 1393 however cheap, is a drawback from a business point of view, and the firm would have been much more inclined to take even a composition in cash than have the land on their hands. The most serious imputation, however, contained in the hon. Member's Question is that referring to the mal-treatment of the native woman Manaema, and to cruelties in conducting the labour trade. With regard to the native woman Manaema, I hold in my hand copies of depositions sworn before the Acting British Consul showing that the statements made respecting the harsh and improper treatment of Manaema are utterly false; that she was kindly treated and made no complaint till some months after, when she did so presumably at Cornwall's instigation; and that she herself a fortnight after the alleged mal-treatment thanked W. M'Arthur and Co.'s agent for his kindness to her in this matter. And lest the hon. Member should feel it necessary to take the trouble to put a Question on the Paper insinuating that these copies are forgeries, I may inform him that their authenticity is guaranteed by a notary public in Auckland, and that the Acting-Consul certifies that the men who made the depositions are well known to him as persons of good repute and worthy of credit. There is, also, not the slightest foundation for the charge of ill-treatment of Polynesian natives. One of M'Arthur and Co.'s vessels certainly made one, and only one, voyage with natives from the Line Islands down to the plantation. But this voyage was undertaken long before any dispute with Cornwall, and while he was the sole owner of the land; and the correspondence of the firm shows conclusively that M'Arthur and Co. had no control whatever over the Natives after landing them on Cornwall's property. Some months afterwards complaint was made that the Natives were not well treated; and M'Arthur and Co. at once wrote to Cornwall remonstrating in the strongest terms. Finally, Cornwall left the Islands for Europe, without making any provision whatever for these Natives, and M'Arthur and Co. advanced nearly £500 to feed and send them back to their homes. In the matter of bringing these people down, they acted entirely at Cornwall's request and as his agents, and after landing them had no further con- 1394 trol over them or him whatever. The hon. Member has treated me with scant courtesy; but I will not do him the injustice to insinuate that he has given publicity to these calumnies knowing them to be untrue. On the contrary, I believe he has been grossly deceived by vindictive and unscrupulous men, respecting whom I will only say that, had their character and conduct been as well know by him as by the majority of the people of Auckland, he would not, I believe, have troubled the House with such a Question. I think, however, I have a right to complain that the hon. Member, instead of endeavouring to ascertain the truth, followed a practice which has recently become too common— under the guise of a Question, to bring charges injurious to the reputation of Members of this House, and frequently of innocent persons who have not an opportunity of defending themselves against imputations either totally untrue, or so highly exaggerated as to be nearly so—a practice which I do not think I use too strong language in describing as a breach of the Privileges of this House.
§ MR. SPEAKER, interposing, said, it was sufficient for the hon. Member to make a disclaimer upon the Question. Perhaps he would content himself with having done so in the most public manner possible.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDI will ask the indulgence of the House to make a personal explanation. It will not be a tenth part as long as that of the hon. Member. I wish to say that I did not bring these charges without sufficient justification. The hon. Member says he has documents to prove his case. Well, I am also in possession of documents to prove my side of the case. I suppose it would be out of Order to go into them now in the House. As, however, I am not justified in bringing these charges, and then not reading them, I am quite willing to move an Adjournment in order to go into them. Otherwise, I shall take the earliest opportunity of showing my justification by going into the whole of this matter. I shall then show the hon. Member that I was not guilty of bringing forward recklessly charges which had no justification. I have an affidavit from, the Native people themselves. I have statements from the official despatches of the Colonial Office; I 1395 have affidavits from, gentlemen interested in the matter; and I have the legal opinion of some of the best-known legal firms in the whole of New Zealand. Fortified, therefore, by the whole of these proofs, I am not in a position to withdraw one of the accusations which I have made.