FRENCH CLAIMS REVIVED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9, 11 January 1902, Page 5

FRENCH CLAIMS REVIVED.

(Received 9.15 a.m.)

SYDNEY, this day,

An article recently appeared in a French journal, published at the New Hebrides, suggesting a desperate appeal to the French Government in favour of definite annexation of the islands. Amongst other assertions made were that England showed no interest in the question except to please ardent politicians of the Australian Commonwealth, who alone opposed the Cabinet in London, in leaving France to exercise sovei> eignty over the Archipelago. That the commercial transactions with Australia would be improved by France annexing, and the weakness of the mixed Commission, is taken advantage of, amongst others, by certain Presbyterian missionaries, who disregard all remonstrances. The rights of the .French are trampled ou without remonstrance. The State Foreign Mission Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Australia has discussed the article, and a letter to the press, traversing the statements, alleges that every statement made therein in reference to Britain and the Commonwealth and the Presbyterian misionaries, is contrary to fact. If for certain Presbyterian missionaries was substituted certain French colonists, the real state of affairs would be truthfully described. The Presbyterian missionaries, in addition to their special work, always sought to .protect natives against labour traffic aggression and unscrupulous white men. Another letter from an ex-resident of the group says the agitation for French annexation is directed principally by interested officials desirous to acquire the New Hebrides as an exclusive recruiting ground for New Caledonian plantations. He suggests that it would be much cheaper now to buy out the French than ten or twenty years hence.