CONDOMINIUM

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 152, 24 March 1925, Page 7

CONDOMINIUM

SYSTEM IMPRACTICABLE , DIFFERENT CODES; DIFFERENT METHODS BISHOP STEWARD’S VIEWS (BY TELEGRAPH—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) Auckland, March 23. Difficulties arising from the FrenchBritish condominium, under which the New Hebrides group is ruled, formed the main subject of an address delivered to the Rotary Club to-day by Bishop Steward, of Melanesia, in whose diocese the islands are situated.

Theoretically, said Bishop Steward, the protocol or agreement between Britain and France on which the system of joint government was founded. was excellent. On paper it was an ideal svstem, but when attempts were made to put it into operation, it was .proved to be impracticable, although he credited the official representatives of both races with the best of intentions. The interests of the two nations in the Islands were about equal, the French people having probably. a prep.onderence in area, and the British in investment of capital. It was impossible for two nations with different codes of law, different methods of administration, and conflicting interests, to work side by side in such a country. Consequently, the system is very expensive, very unwieldy, and very uncertain in its operation. Coming to specific drawbacks of the existing qonditions, Bishop Steward said there was in the group a duplication of practically every kind of official. There was an English Resident Commissioner as well as a French. There were both English and French judges, and so on in to minor offices. Then to ensure that everything was fair and square, there were a Spanish President of the condominium and a Dutch judge. Four of these gentlemen constituted a High Court and the Court was not allowed to meet unless all four were present. As, however, there was always one of them absent on leave, the Court had never met, and under the. svstem, he doubted whether it ever would meet. The effect was extraordinarily bad in that titles to land in the group were verv uncertain, and with these only the High Court had power to deal. Most of the outrages reported bv the British missionaries, said Bislion Steward were attributable to; the large class of French half-castes in. the group. The form of Government was quite unequal. While the British. Commissioner was strict in punishing anv breach of the protocol within his jurisdiction, the penalties on the side of the French were mostly, very tri-, vial. Everybody was dissatisfied with the condominium. British and French alike, and undoubtedly the natives. Bishop Steward considered that it would be even better to hand the islands over entirely to France than to, continue the present ineffective system. In that case flie inhabitants would at least know under what form of laws they were governed; and he believed the self respect of the French nation would cause them to make sure when the responsibility was wholly theirs, that nothing went seriously'wrong. Before, however, the position could be improved, the driving force must come from Austra.ia or New Zealand, the countries most closeiv interested in the future of the * S The 3 Solomon Islands were pictured, bv Bishop Steward as enjoying, under the British Protectorate, entirely dif-. ferent conditions of Government. They* afforded an excellent opening for New -Zealand capital, but were of little use to independent men of small means, except insofar as these could find employment under the planter companies Touching lightly on the work of the missionaries in Melanesia, Bishop, Steward pointed out that they direct . * and indirectly developed markets for traders, that they had abolished can-: nffiaiism in areas where once it wm rampant, and that m a general wav thev' had taught the natives to trust and welcome the white settler when he came. -