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men will come to work under the Administration, to serve the purposes of the Administration, 1 hope, within a few weeks. They will be utilized mostly for harbour-work. Then, gentlemen, you ask that we should provide for you an advances-to-settlers scheme. Ido not think at the present moment any advances-to-settlers scheme is very practicable. You know what your difficulties are; and until the labour question is settled and until you know where you stand and where we stand, I do not see how the Government of New Zealand can supply New Zealand money by way of advances to settlers. But we will take this into earnest consideration. I will report to the Prime Minister and to my fellow-members of Cabinet what you have said to me with regard to advances to settlers, and the matter will be further considered when I get back to New Zealand. Then, on page 23 you ask for the appointment of a local Secretary of Labour. I should like from you some explanation of the purposes for which a local Secretary of Labour would be required. There is already a Chinese Commissioner, who is the go-between from the Chinese to the employers and the Government, and I cannot myself at present —I do not know whether my fellow-members can; we will discuss the matter among ourselves —see any necessity for a Secretary of Labour, and we do not want to appoint officers who are not necessary. Then you ask for a scientist to advise in the matter of fertilizing. New Zealand is prepared to do all that it can to provide you with scientists for agriculture, or horticulture, or stock, or any other urgent necessity of the country. We brought down with us several experts. They are here to see for themselves and to report to the Government when they get back to New Zealand. We are anxious to help you to develop the country, but if we cannot act as quickly as you think we ought to act you must remember that our means are limited, and we can only do that which is possible. What is possible for us to do to help you, either with respect to agriculture, or stock, or anything else, the New Zealand Government are only too anxious to do, and I am sure members of Parliament will endorse this. Then you ask that two planters should be elected on the Administrator's Council. Perhaps I had better leave this until we come to the Legislative Council, which we will deal with later on. Then, on pages 23 and 24, you promise us loyal support. Before Igo back to deal with the general question of labour I want to thank you all for the promise of loyal support. We cannot do our duty, nor can you who are settlers here do all that you ought to do for the advancement of these islands, unless there is co-operation. We are anxious, now that we are here, to remove any ill feeling if there be any. We are anxious to bring you all together, to unite you as one community with the Administrator, in order that we may all put our shoulders to the wheel and do our duty to the Samoans, and do what we white men ought to do for the development of this country. But we cannot do that unless we pull together. We cannot do it if we are all pulling different ways —and there has been a certain amount of pulling different ways. May 1 ask you that, as a result of our visit, this should be put away, and that we should join hands and do all that we can to conserve that which is best in the Natives, and to make this land what it ought to be. Now I come back to the general question of labour. You will gather from what I have said that the New Zealand Government are anxious to help you with regard to labour. Since the Armistice we have communicated over and over again with the Imperial Government, and after a great deal of pressure and correspondence we again induced them to approach, the Chinese Government. As a result the Chinese Government did consent to the further indenturing of Chinese labour, and then the question cropped up in our House of Parliament; and we are like you —we have different opinions; we do not all agree about indentured labour. It was towards the end of the session. The Prime Minister was very anxious to get the session finished. The election was pending, and he gave a promise, and the promise has to be fulfilled. It was that whatever further Chinese labour should be indentured at the present moment should not bring the number of labourers in Samoa above the number that were then here, or about that number. He further asked members to come down to Samoa to see the conditions for themselves. We are here for that purpose, and we are under a pledge to do nothing more than that until the next session of Parliament. We are going back now, all the members who are here, having seen your island and having heard what you have had to say. I am unable to tell you what the opinion of all the members of Parliament may be to-day or when they get back, to New Zealand. 1 believe that most of them—l do not say all —must have been impressed with what they saw yesterday and what can be done by cultivation. We have also been impressed, and very much impressed, by what may happen if there is not sufficient labour to keep your lands cultivated. We must discuss the question in Parliament. lam unable, therefore, to give you more than my own opinion-, and that, I believe, is endorsed by the members of Cabinet. We believe that it is necessary —absolutely necessary —in the interests both of the Samoans and of the white people that provision should be made, somehow or another, for the necessary labour, at any rate to keep the plantations that have been cultivated up to the pre-war standard, and if possible to provide sufficient labour for the further development of your country. I want to say to you what I said to the Samoans. As I read the Mandate the islands are committed to us, it is true, in the first instance, to conserve the Native interests; but they are also committed to us in care for the rest of the world, and I personally do not believe it possible or right that rich islands like these in the Pacific, which produce things that the inhabitants of the world require, should be left uncultivated. That is my own opinion. I cannot go further than that. I think you may rest assured that we are very much in sympathy with you, and that we will do whatever we can to get you out of your trouble and to make your lands produce all that they ought to produce. But the matter must stand over until the next session of Parliament, which will be held at the end of June. The question will then be dealt with, and you will know from the legislation, or whatever may be done, what the mind of the New Zealand people upon the subject is. Perhaps I can take this opportunity to explain what the position is with regard to the Mandate. We have not received the final instructions with regard to the Mandate. The Mandate commits these islands to the