NEW HEBRIDES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1334, 11 January 1912, Page 5

NEW HEBRIDES.

THE CONDOMINIUM COURT.

Bj rolcersob-Prc.s (Eec. January 10, 7.50 p.m.) , Sydney, January 10. The Couiit of Buena Esperanza, president of the Condominium Court of the New Hebrides, has arrived in Sydney on a health trip. In an interview ho said the Court'was working well, and all the criminal and civil proceduro was complotcd. Work, however, was greatly hampered by difficulties of communication. He advocated tho appointment of a Lower Court to deal with police cases, which would allow the Joint Court to concentrate on important matters. .Referring. to the liquor controversy, he stated that in the past there had been considerable smuggling of liquor, and a large number of cases had been dealt with, but not much was done in the way of selling arms to the natives. As far as tho Court was concTrhed, tho missionaries had not given any bother. • ■ ■

"A MAKESHIFT. ARRANGEMENT."

A writer in tho London "Morning Post of December 1, states: "The peoples of Australia and Now Zealand, self-con-stituted wardens of tho marches of the Pacific, think seriously that the British trovernmciU is both ignorant and unsympathetic regarding the position in .thiat Ocean. True, their Imperialism is somewhat intolerant, indeed, almost truculent. They would never be fully satisfied, I am convinced, unless nil foreign l'owers we.ro swept out of the South Pacific, with tho possible exception of the United States. That aspiration, of course, cannot be gratified; but it can be humoured, hud a settlement of Colonial boundaries between Great Britain and France affords a good opportunity for drawing one thorn in the Pacific—tho New Hebrides co-Dominion. Great Britain and France rule the Now Hebrides jointly. It is a makeshift arrangement and a bad one. It is unfair to tho native population. With two masters, two conflicting masters, this poor child among the people of tho earth has no alleviation to his puzzled misery. The French way of making a Kanaka n pood citizen differs materially from the British way. The Gorman way is again different. There is no need here to argue as to which is ttio best way. But certainly a mixture-of any two ways is bnd. In Samoa the co-Dominion was a' ghastly failure. In the New Hebrides the conditions are not so bad, but they are not at, air satisfactory so far as the natives are concerned. Another objection urged in Australia against the c<i-Doininion is that it fetters the trade with the islands, of which at one time the Commonwealth ha«l almost the monopoly. The British share in the co-Dominion insists on certain regulalions'against the supply nf firearms and iire-wiater to tho natives. Tho Australian trading firms are willing to admit that these regulations arc in themselves reasonable onovigh. But they claim the French traders do not observe them, and arc not coin-polled by their Govonrmcnts 11 observe them. Consequently, the trader under the British flag is <at a serious disadvfintaee. It is not really 'necessary to examine into the evidence for and against this sfaitemsnt. It is sufficient to say that such complaints seem to be inevitable wherever a co-Dominion has boon tried in tire Pacific, and probably they nro inseparable from, such a- system. 'Die remedy is a partition or on exchange giving to one Power solo authority."