THE NEW HEBRIDES.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 191, 14 February 1907, Page 2

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

[B/ JtJJiCXRIC TELEGRAPH — COPYRIGHX.J [PJJB. PUESS ASSOCIATION .J (Keceived February 14th, lAI a.m.) London, February 13. Mr Winston Churchill sketched the i\e\v Hebrides negotiations and declart'd that the best possible bargam had been made. He was quite certain colonial interests had not guttered. When the conveation was sent to the colonies no ultimatum Dad been presented. Government only wished them to know, alter wrestling for months with the French delegates in a vain attempt to obtain further concessions. He defended the indentured regulations as excellent, and defencible from every point of view, constituting a gieat and undeniable advance towards a humane system of labor, in contrast to the state of anarchy they replaced. The convention had r.ot prevented kanakas working in any island after the termination of their contract. He twitted Mr A. J. Balfour with rambling off to the antipodean archipelago only to discover a homely mare's nest. The Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, Colonial Secretary in the fialfour Cabinet, said that the Government, in sanctioning labor conditions in the New Hebrides, had done what they denounced the late Government for dcing in the Transvaal. The debate was adjourned. The London Times says that the Government deliberately ignored the Conference, involving the most vital interests in the Empire. Such incompetence and indifference was strange on the part of those affecting to believe that sentiment was the only possible bond of imperial unity. Sir Henry Catnpbell-Banner-man ought to be aware, when he referred to the silence in previous Speeches from the Throne about the previous colonial Conferences, that the 1897 conference was not pre-ar-ranged when Parliament was sitting, but only arose incidentally out of the presence of the Colonial Premiers at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Mr Chamberlain only suggested that the 1902 Conference meet after Parliament had assembled, but the prorogation speech of the King adequately recognised its ' imperial significance. ■