§ MR. J. F. HOGAN (Tipperary, Mid)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he has observed, at page 70 of the recently-issued Foreign Office Report on the German Colonies in the South Pacific (No. 382), it is stated that Mataafa and his leading followers, who were deported to the Marshall Islands in a British war vessel after the last Samoan war, are anxious to return home; whether there is any immediate prospect of these exiles being permitted to return to their own country; and, whether he is in a position to supplement the information in the Report with respect to the provision made for their religious requirements in their present place of banishment?
MR. CURZONI have seen the Report in question, but Her Majesty's Government have no other knowledge that Mataafa and his followers have recently expressed an anxiety to return home. In view of the state of affairs still prevailing in Samoa, there is no immediate prospect of their being permitted to return. Upon the third point, I have no information to add to that which was given to the hon. Member in reply to a question on March 25 last, according to which the religious provision for the exiles is adequate.