A Final Protest.

The outstanding feature of these farcical proceedings, under the disgraceful Act of 1927, was the fact that General Richardson was the informant, prosecutor, jury, and judge, all in one. He refused to make any specific charge and called no witnesses whose evidence and credibility might be tested on oath.

Finally, as Judge, he wrote us three days later (December 19), stating that "after carefully considering the written statements and verbal 4 evidence'" he was satisfied we had "not disproved the 'charges,' "and on the 22nd December, 1927, the deportation orders were served on us. Before leaving Samoa I addressed the following protest to General Richardson:—

Apia, Samoa, 5th January, 1928.

His Excellency, The Administrator of Western Samoa, Apia.

Your Excellency,—I strongly protest against your order bearing date of the 22nd December, 1927, requiring me to depart from Western Samoa, and to stay away for the term of five years. My protest is based on the following grounds:—

(1)	No definite charge has been laid against me.
(2)	Your notice, dated 14th December, received by me on the 15th December, at 10.30 a.m., ordering me to appear before you on the 16th December at 9.30 a.m. could not have permitted sufficient time to prepare adequate and proper defence.
(3)	Your Excellency's decision is not based on evidence. No evidence of any sort was given except the statements-written and verbal-of myself, which were entirely in my favour. I was not confronted with any witness to enable any cross-examination. No oath was administered during the proceedings held before Your Excellency.
(4)	I have committed no offence against the laws of the land-not excluding the law passed by the New Zealand Parliament on 5th August, 1927.
(5)	Your order is based on the fact, as stated by Your Excellency, that the Government cannot function. Whilst I neither deny nor admit this statement, I desire to point out that such situation cannot be attributed to any action on my part.
(6)	I have never sought to prevent or hinder the due performance of the functions and duties of the Government. The responsibility for this situation rests with your Administration.
(7)	If the charges made by Your Excellency against me were based on fact, I have no doubt that a prosecution would have been brought against me under the existing laws of the Territory.
(8)	I have not been given the opportunity of having my case dealt with under the ordinary rules of law and procedure-rules that have taken centuries to perfect-rules page 44 that protect an accused person under the laws of England, and should not be set aside by any Act of the New Zealand Parliament, or the newly-granted prerogative of the Administrator.
(9)	No man should be punished, or his liberty interfered with, for actions not committed by him, and in any case, the Act under which your order is based does not contemplate the past.
(10)	While I and others have been subjected by Your Excellency, without proper trial, to a most grievous punishment for allegedly disturbing the country, yet Your Excellency has requested me in effect to "pull the country together."
(11)	I will depart from Western Samoa under this Protest, and in so doing I call Your Excellency's attention to the fact that I do so for the sake of preserving the peace of the Territory and avoiding a possibility of a more violent protest than embodied in this notice by those who recognise the unjust treatment meted out to myself and others. Nevertheless, this protest is entered without prejudice to every legal and political right of which I am possessed, in order to obtain redress for your wrongful order and to restore my status in the Territory and elsewhere; to obtain full compensation for any financial loss sustained by me; to refute the unfounded attacks on my loyalty to the British flag, and to assure my return to my beloved country.

I am, Your Excellency's Obedient Servant,

O. F. Nelson.

Against the sentence of General Richardson there could be no appeal in Samoa, or in New Zealand, where the Prime Minister was replying to slashing attacks from his own press supporters with the ridiculous statement that the steps taken to deport us were "not in any way a punishment for a crime or an offence"! The only possible course for us was to appeal to the League of Nations for the justice denied us in what Mr. Coates calls an "educated democracy"! So I am issuing this record on the eve of my departure for Geneva, and leaving it to the enlightened and unbiased citizens of Mr. Coates' "educated democracy" to give their verdict on his administration when an early opportunity offers.

We have every faith in the righteousness of our cause, and await that verdict of the people with every confidence. Autocracy and tyranny may hold sway: coercion and oppression may obtain for a while; and liberty may be crushed to earth for a space: but in the end Truth and Right must triumph, and Justice reign supreme—even in Samoa. The New Zealanders are passionately proud of their island home, and have reason to be. They enjoy a splendid heritage from such sturdy democrats as Sir George Grey, John Ballance and Richard Seddon, and no one regrets more than we do that so humane a people are now being blamed for the mad folly of its politicians and their hopelessly incompetent administration. In consequence of this New Zealand, as the mandatory responsible for Samoa, has now to appear before the civilised nations of the world, and the bar of public opinion, to defend the cruel, degrading, and senseless military dictatorship imposed on a noble race, with whom she should have been proud to be associated in the sacred trust reposed in her by the League of Nations.

I now see a rainbow of hope in the fact that the military dictator (General Richardson) has retired, the head of the controlling department in Wellington (Mr. J. D. Gray) superannuated, and the constituency of the responsible Minister (Mr. Nosworthy) wiped out by a providential act of the electoral boundary commissioners. The disappearance of this Big Three, who were primarily and mainly responsible for the impossible policy adopted, paves the way for a friendly rapprochment and a new era of peace page 45 and goodwill. The Samoans are not a nation to nurse resentment or harbour vengeful feelings against their oppressors. To undo the harm caused will take time. Patience, tact, justice and honest sincerity of purpose may win back their esteem which has been forfeited. But never again, I trust, will an appeal for the exercise of these typical British traits be necessary in an enlightened community like New Zealand. I hope and pray that I may be spared, ere long, to return again to my Island Home, and my mother's people, and find peace, prosperity, and progress in full sway, and our British flag once more regarded in Samoa as an emblem of Truth, Freedom, and Justice.