NEW HEBRIDES. THE CONDOMINIUM COURT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 9, 11 January 1912, Page 7

NEW HEBRIDES. THE CONDOMINIUM COURT.

By Telegraph.— Pren Association.— Copyright.

SYDNEY, 10th January, xhe Count of Bucna Esperanza, president of the Condominium Court of the New Hebrides, has arrived in Sydney on a health trip. In an interview he said the court Was working well, and all the criminal and civilf procedure was completed. Work, however, was greatly hampered by difficulties of communication. He advocated the 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 ther6 had been considerable smuggling of liquor, and a. large number of casfiß had been dealt with; but not much was done in. tho way of selling arms to the natives. As far as the court ,was concerned, the misI sionaries had not given any bother. In an article On Norfolk Island, "Trader" writes as fojlowe in the Sydney Morning Herald about the Condominium Courts—. ¦ Perhaps the finest residence ia the island is occupied by a Spaniard— the impartial one' Who stands between the British and French judges, or rather on the heads of both, a« President of the Law Courts ; for .the law here is not au ordinary ass. It is &n aas with both its eyes outj an ass maimed in one leg and halt in the other three. A white man ie suspected of selling a native a bottle ol gih. ' He is brought before the court. The law listens gravely,' lowering six'solem"n eye-brows, and pursing its cosmopolitan mouth. Then the collective wit and wisdom of three empires are hurled at the hapless victim. First, the English mouth speaks : "Now, Puss-puss, you savee listen long me. On© week h« been go finish, you been, look 'long, Mr. — — give grog long one boy, or you no .look f" A pause— while this question to Pvwspuss is translated first into French, and then into Spanish. ' • Then Puss-pmss answers:'— "No,, master, me no been look him make 'em all the same." v Another pause, and another twofold translation. .¦ . and so on, and so on, for three days or four. Then the law, without relaxing one smallest wrinkle in that fierce triangular frown, fines the offender five pounds. Yet they will tell you gravely that the Condominium is a success—that ¦ is to say the theorist will, and the interested official. To all others it is a joke or A humbug. During 'a, two and a half years' residence in the New Hebrides the only people I ever heard pxAiee the Condominium were court officials or officers of gun-boats. Yet— and this is Bnrely rare— there is no complaint of the officials themselves ; their integrity and courtesy are praised by all. What is complained of i» simply the clumsy inefficiency of ' the Condominium. "Give us British rule, or give vA French rule," the trader exclaims, "and we know where we stand ; but as for this flabby, flat-footed, jointcontrol, the devil himself devised it. And now, in spite of all that has been, said of the cumbrous and expensive Condominium, it must , be admitted that this is neither cumbrous enough, nor expensive enough, to cripple trade. ( There is an air of prosperity about Vila; no suggestion, anywhere of real anxiety.