NEW HEBRIDES CONTROL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 120, 23 May 1922, Page 5

NEW HEBRIDES CONTROL.

MISSIONS AND THE PLANTERS. NO CLASHING OF INTERESTS. Uteerived 9 8.111.1 SYDNEY, this day. The Bishop of Melanesia, referring to the Now Hebrides condominium, »»id it remains exactly vhcre it has olwjtys been: there will ho no settlement till the Great l'cnvers arc able tn pet away from bijfjjcr questions and find time to attend to euch smaller matter?. Aβ a rule he did not think there had been any clash between mission and rcmimrrcißl interests; the planters on the whole were » good set of m?n, and the CJovernment regulations were very stringent. The labour question wrs purely one (if the shortagr of labour. (Joverninent officials werr iigninst anything like compulsory labour, and what wa* to lie done to solve the question he did not know.-

A feature of the report on foreign missions presented to the Presbyterian Assembly in Sydney last week by Rev. R. .1. If. McCio'wan, was the criticism of alleged abuse* ill the New Hebrides. The assembly rxprosse.l itself in a deliverance as "exceedingly regretting to learn of the continuance of grave abuses in the Xew Hebrides, and instructs the committee to take all requisite steps to lmve the attention of tho authorities and the public directed to thpsC; the a*senrbly again expresses the hope that some way will be found to bring the group under the. British Crown." "We have been hoping to see the Condominium abolished." said 'Mr. iftfloivati.

'•On the British side the terms of the convention have l>een observed. On the French side them has been a disreimrd of law and order." One of their mieHionarica had written describing a heathen dance at which '"fifty bottles of the rubbish that cr>mc.3 in under the name of medicine," costing £20, had been consumed. Schools had bonn wrecked from this cause, and people had met an early death.