THE NEW HEBRIDES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 262, 9 November 1906, Page 5

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

CONVENTION PROVISIONAL. CONCLUSION HASTENED. OWING TO "EXTRANEOUS INFLUENCES." (By Cable. -Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 9.0 a.m.) LONDON, November 8.

The New Hebrides Convention has been issued as a Parliamentary paper. "The Times" says the Imperial authorities commi:ted a grave error at the beginning of the year "in agreeing to hold a joint conference regarding the New Hebrides without consulting Australia and New Zealand. If Australasian representatives had attended the conference tlie natural mistake of agreeing to the municipal provisions of the Convention might not have been committed: The conduct of the negotiations without Australasia was wrong in principle. It hopes that Mr. Deakin at the Imperial Conference- will not waste time in recrimination, but will devote his energies to insisting upon the creation of some permanent means of communication between the Commonwealth aud the Foreign Office with a view to preventing a. recurrence of a similar sacrifice of Australian interests and aspirations. "The Times" says that the New Hebrides Convention simply confirms the protocol of February 27, and its immediate signature before amendment was due to a fear of the introduction into the N_w Hebrides question of extraneous influences, and to that extent the Convention was only provisional.

The "Pall Mall Gazette" emphasises the need for means whereby tho colonies shall be able to participate in the settlement of questions of colonial interest.

"The Morning Post" says that Australasian thinkers see the local inconveniences of joint control, but find it difficult to appreciate the much more important problem of Great Britain's relations to the great Powers, who are much nearer England than the New Hebrides arc to Australia.