AUSTRALIA AND NEW HEBRIDES.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16506, 25 April 1919, Page 8

AUSTRALIA AND NEW HEBRIDES.

(rnoii ocr owx correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 16. Certain missionary influences are attempting to stir up interest in' Australia in the disposal of the Now Hebrides group of islands, which are now under the joint administration of Franca and Great Britain. The plan .. to b« to arouse in Australia an .urgent demand tliat, in the pending readjustment of /world territories the !*roup shall become wholly British, and France receive compensation elsewhere. So for the move has utterly failed. A few missionaries have lifted their voices and declared that the group shall become British, but the great mas 3 of Australians are completely indifferent. ■ A few who have looked into the question have not hesitated to say that if anything is to be done with the group, it should be handed to 'Stance. Eighty per cent, of tho whites there are French, a great proportion of tho capital and nearly all the trade is indubitably French. On what ground, then, is the claim for British dominion based? Simply on the fact that the islands were first visited by British navigators and traders, and that certain British missionary organisations have considerable interests tnere. *.* Hebrides missionary who was interviewed in Melbourne could make out no better than this, yet he had no hesitation in claiming not only that Britain should have the New Hebrides but New Caledonia as well, and France given territorial compensation elsewhere. Asked whether Britain, Australia, or New Zealand should have the islands he "plumped" for Britain. Tho islands people, he savs, greatly fear the disturbing and paralysing Labour rule of Australia, and thev have no community of interest with New Zealand. llio best-informed Australian opinion is: Give the islands to France, the country with the largest interest in them, on condition that the missionaries' rights are safeguarded, so that they will not be "kicked out" of New Hebrides as thev were out of Tahiti.