Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1879.

Evening Post, Volume XVII, Issue 372, 19 March 1879, Page 2

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1879.

PROPOSED ITALIAN COLONISATION OF NEW GUINEA. ?

The news which appeared in our special telegrams last night of the intended Italian expedition, under Menotti Garibaldi, to colonise New Guinea, is, we fear, the prelude to a story of disaster, if the enterprise is persisted in. The energy, the perseverance, and the courage of Garibaldi's son will not be disputed or doubted by any one, and amongst the three thousand compatriots who are reported to be willing to follow him to New Guinea there will no doubt be a large admixture of equally adventurous and gallant spirits. In New Guinea, however, they will have to fight more dangerous and more deadly enemies than the red started followers of this leader's father ever met on the battle-fields of Italy. It is no reproach to the Italian character to say that it has never yet dis- \ played any genius for the heroic work of colonisation. The conditions of life, the habits of thought and action of the Italian are totally opposed to the foundation of those traits of character essential to the successful pioneer of settlement. He has not the dogged perseverance, the faculty of making the best of everything, and of bearing hardship and discomfort while working doggedly on which are necessary to ensure success in settling any new country. We have had a email number of Italian immigrants in this colony, and a considerable number of them are now established amongst us as good citizens, fairly successful in different walks of life, but the experience which we have gained of the Italian as an immigrant all goes to show how unfitted he is by temperament and education to be thrown entirely on his own resources under perfectly novel conditions of life and in an entirely new and unsettled country. It is true that the climate of New Guinea may suit those who have been bred under the sunny sky of Italy better than it would those fresh from a more northern olime, but it must not be forgotten that even the acclimatised settler in Australia, the man who can stand the heat and unhealthiness of Queensland and the northern territory, shirks the climate of New Guinea, and if he seeks it usually suffers. The experience of the Dove expedition as well as the one which sailed from this port some time ago, is by no means in favor of tho possibility of a successful European occupation and settlement of New Guinea, and if Menotti Garibaldi and his followers | have been led away by the somewhat overglowing accounts of D'Albkrtis, we trust that the Cousuls of his I Majesty the King of Italy in Australasia will take care that the would-be adventurers amongst his subjects are fully informed as to the history of these later expeditions before they commit themselves irrevocably to a scheme which there is too much reason to believe must certainly result in disaster if persisted in. If Menotti Garibaldi and his followers wish to emigrate, they might, we think, find either in Australia or in New Zealand fur greater inducements, far greater assurances of comfort, freedom, health, and prosperity than any which New Guinea can possibly offer them. For instance, in the northern pub of this Island they might find conditions of soil and climate by no means dissimilar to those of their native land, and might enjoy under most encouraging auspices, and with* out any danger or discomfort, the very pursuits to which they have been trained, and in which they are skilled. There is a splendid opening in the North for the profitable cultivation of the grape and the

olive, and even the highest aspirations for liberty of thought and action of the most devoted Gabibalihlin would be gratified in this Colony quite as freely as in New Guinea, and much more safely and com fortably.