AGAIN THE NEW HEBRIDES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12971, 26 November 1907, Page 6

AGAIN THE NEW HEBRIDES.

Once more we have merchants complaining of tho way in which Bntish traders are handicapped in the New Hebrides, by the contraband trade carried on by the French., It is an old grievance, and apparently tho latest Anglo-French Convention, which was to settlo all outstanding disputes regarding the group, has done nothing to sweep anyij the disabilities from which British traders suffer, for the very good reason that though signed a year ago. it has not yet been put in force. British subjects hare to obey tho provisions forbidding trade with the natives in liquor, arms, and ammunition, but the French still ignore all regulations. The result is set forth by a contributor to the "Sydney Morning " Herald," who deals in a series of articles with British mismanagement in the Pacific and reserves his severest criticisms for the Imperial Government's futile methods in the New Hebrides. The natives, who are desperately anxious to get both gin and guns, trade most readily with the ships that will supply them. A native will take a lower price for his copra from the trader who will pay him with cartridges and liquor. A French trader at Port Vila boasted to an Englishman who had lived for many years in the group, mat in a brief period he cleared £1000 by trading in gin with the natives. French vessels can get away with as much copra as they can hold in less time than British, vessels take to get a quarter of a cargo. Seven months after last year's Convention wae signed the position, of affairs, as described by this British trader, was that the naval officers patrolling tho group—the only British representatives that the residents see —only interfered with British residents "by enforcing regulations and " imposing fines for breaches coru"tnitted. At the samo time tho non- " British residents are allowed with "impunity to do openly the very things "that the British are punished for. " The British traders are thus handi- " capped in their business and belittled " in the eyes of their native employ"ees." Such a situation justifies strong criticism of the Colonial Office, which, as the writer referred to remarks, "goes fighting-mad over a proposal to let tho great .self-governing " colonies have their own jointly-man- " aged secretariat at the Empire's "headquarters, and remains utterly "-comatose while French ships trade in "contraband in the teeth of its own " pet convention." Some good result may, one hopes, follow the recent rearrangement of the Colonial Office, but in the meantime the opinion ie steadily gaining ground that the administration lucks sympathy with the overseas dominions and knowledge of their conditions and requirements.