When the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations met at Geneva last June there were, in respect to New Zealand's mandate over Western Samoa, several petitions for the Commission to consider, in addition to the Report of the New Zealand Royal Commission on Samoa, and reports from the New Zealand Government as Mandatory.

By a properly-signed Power of Attorney I was the accredited representative of the Samoan people to represent them in Geneva and elsewhere in respect to a Petition to the League signed by 7982 male adult Samoans (taxpayers) out of a gross total of about 8500, and had myself petitioned the League against the action of the Administrator in deporting me for five years from a country where I was born and lived practically all my life.

I proceeded to Geneva in time for the June Session and prepared a commentary on the Report of Sir James Parr, the New Zealand representative to the Commission at its previous Session in October-November, 1927. Copies of this were handed by me to every member of the Mandates Commission, and in it I pointed out certain misstatements of the New Zealand representative, giving them as my reasons for pleading for a hearing, so that the Commission could, at last, hear both sides.

Following what I am led to understand is a ruling of the Council of the League that the Mandates Commission may not grant audience to other than the representatives of the mandatory powers, I was not only refused a hearing, but was not allowed entry to the proceedings, which, not only the accredited representative of the New Zealand Government, Sir James Parr, attended, but he was assisted by the ex-Administrator, Sir George Richardson, against whose actions in Samoa the petitions protested, and in which petitions he was charged with having brought about the present unrest.

Both Sir James Parr and Sir George Richardson were allowed to make further reports and give further evidence in respect to the points at issue. For these conditions, perhaps, no one can be blamed personally, except that it must now be apparent to all fair-minded people that the constitution of the Mandates Commission creates a serious anomaly, insomuch that the people of mandated territories are deprived of the right of a hearing before that tribunal, appointed by the League of Nations, which has assumed the authority to grant what is equivalent to sovereign power to mandatories over those territories and peoples.