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Hon. Members : Let us have them. Tell us what has been censored. Mr. Dobbie : On the 23rd December, as is stated in the pamphlet, the directors of the Samoa, Times were asked to appear before the Administrator, Colonel Tate, and we went up there with the idea that possibly the censorship was going to be removed. Prior to that meeting I had written a certain editorial, a criticism concerning the police, who we thought were coming to the number of seventy-one. It was not very strong, but the last paragraph in that editorial was something to this effect, that the community were out of sympathy with the Administration. That particular editorial was censored. Furthermore, I was told this before my directors and in the presence of Colonel Tate : " Mr. Dobbie, if that article which you wrote up last week for the Samoa, Times had appeared in print I should have sent down a military guard to your office and had you arrested; and if you had got out of it with two years' imprisonment you would have been a lucky man." Mr. Harris: Who said that? —Colonel Tate. As I say, I have had four Censors. One in particular—l will not mention any names—would come down to my office and argue the point with me. That is not the duty of a Censor. If there is anything in the Press which he does not care about, as Censor he should carry out his duties; but instead of that this gentleman would argue the point at length. This happened time after.time. At the finish I was insulted. The position was becoming intolerable to me, and T had to inform my directors that I could not carry on. As T say, I was insulted on one occasion. This went on until that Censor gave it up. He got tired of it, as they all do. But I want to say that my last Censor, Major-General Robin, has treated mo with such courtesy and broadmindedness and tact that I would have been willing to do anything for him. I wish to pay him my respects, and to say that in my association with him he has given me a good run. Mr. Holland : I still think we ought to get more details of the censorship—the matters that were censored —if Mr. Dobbie can give us any information. Mr. Dobbie : I have certain proofs here with me that I should be pleased to submit to you gentlemen. Mr. Holland : Read them. Mr. Young : Might I suggest that you tell us whether the Censor has completely censored whole articles or expunged certain portions. If the latter, the censored parts will be sufficient for our purpose. Mr. Dobbie : I have instances of both kinds. I have here a letter to the editor on the subject, of indentured labour concerning Samoa. It commenced giving particulars regarding labour in other parts of the world. Hon. Mr. Lee : Who signed it?—lt was not signed —it was anonymous; but before the letter went into print I would have insisted on the writer's name appearing. Mr. T. W. Rhodes: Was the Censor supplied with the name of the writer?— No. This is what follows after the introduction :— Gentlemen of the New Zealand Government, what are you going to do about it ? Than Samoa there is no fairer land beneath the tropical sun. To know her is to love her. In proportion to size she is the greatest prize rescued from the Hun. She came to you willingly, aye ! joyously, blooming like the rose-garden of a connoisseur in the Homeland. What is she to-day ? The shadow of the jungle is over us :in certain abandoned plantations the jungle is here. By dint of united effort we kept the dread rhinoceros-beetle in cheek. The jungle becomes their unmolested breoding-placo, and our Native population has not merely been decimated but quadracated (Peccavi !) by an epidemic whose entrance was due to your inefficiency. Tutuila, about eighty miles away, exposed from Honolulu and Sydney, with twenty-four steamer calls in the year, kept it out; you, with half the chances of infection, failed. We want neither explanations nor excuses. He who runs may read the results. We have paid and are paying. To-day you are probably astounded at the outcry over Proclamation 65, imposed on us without our being consulted and without warning—a Proclamation meaning prohibition in three months. This can only be justified under the Hague Convention as a war necessity. But why ? The war was finished a year ago, and this action was not found necessary during its continuance. Although the white man of the tropics, deprived of . most of the comforts and pleasures of life, plagued by scores of insect pests, encountering all the business difficulties of tho Temperate Zone and many unknown there, is better for a " tonic " at the end of the long day, do not think that it is this deprivation which is responsible for the feeling thus expressed ? Not so ; this is but the last straw of the camel's load. We particularly object to being made a football for your " forty-seven warring sects." We are apparently tho bone of contention in the coming political campaign, and we must wait again until that is over. This Proclamation 65, so unceremoniously thrust upon us, seems to be another political move—the Prohibition Party, through the Military Administration, making sure that prohibition will be in effect when the oountry reverts to Civil In the meantime, we are told you are preparing a Constitution for us. We are curious to see it. How many of those concerned in its framing have ever been in Samoa or lived in tho tropics ? Or is it believed that we have no interest in the matter ? A fig for your Constitution ! What we want is a mart--a trained man—one who can distinguish between a banana and a coconut. And with him he must bring a policy—a proper policy suitable to our needs. Gentlemen of the New Zealand Government, will you help us or not ? You prate to-day of the sacred trust, you are about to assume under the Mandate. How about the trust you took over in August, 1914 ? Our needs have been laid before you repeatedly. Have you ever listened to them ? Have you in a single instance raised a hand or voiced a protest ? In the trying times of last November proffered assistance at hand was ignored, and Australia was eventually asked to and did furnish aid which, unfortunately, arrived too late. We suffered in patience during the war; we have waited patiently for one year for the hoped-for fruits of our sacrifice. Gentlemen of the New Zealand Government, the issue is squarely up to you. What are you going to do ? Mr. MoCombs: W T as that all struck out? —All struck out. I have here another one. We had down here some few weeks ago a very reputable citizen of New Zealand, a Mr. T. J. Adair, of Gisborne, who visited Samoa as a sightseer. He just came by the steamer and went back, and he gave a few of his impressions to one of the Gisborne papers, the Poverty Bay Herald. I wished to print in the Samoa Times some of his impressions. One passage here is struck out. Originally it read, " The reason for the lazy propensities of the Samoans he ascribed to the fact that each

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