Massacres in the Pacific.

Hastings Standard, Issue 165, 6 November 1896, Page 4

Massacres in the Pacific.

—* New Guinea and the surrounding islands have of late contributed more than their share of tragedies to contemporary history. It was only a week or two ago that the news came of the massacre by Solomon Islands of an Austrian baron and four members of his exploring party. The loss of the mission schooner Dayspi-ing, and the fact that one of her boat's crew, of the yacht Lissie —a fate apparently brought on by the same unwarranted confidence in the good faith of the Natives which proved fatal to the Austrian baron. In one of these cases the disastor was, of course, due to what fatalists call " the act of (rod," and no human agency is to blame. But the conviction in the minds of three out of every four readers will be that this particular part of the globe is for the present better left alone, aud those who have been foolish enough to put themselves in the power of the ungentle Polynesian arc tempting Providence in a very unjustifiable way. The missionary societies which have exploited these islands will, in many quarters, be held responsible for the fate that has overtaken those win have presumed too far on the civilising agency of Christianity. There is doubt-less something to be said for the opinion which finds the missionary blatnable for the disasters of the white man in the I'aciiic. If the Christian and the Bible had not gone there, the trader and the explorer would probably have held aloft, and the massacres would never have occurred. But there is another view of the question, which has been very forcibly putby the Sydney Morning Herald, and it is that, hut- for the missionary, there would have been practically no trade with these islands. Polynesia has been made accessible to the white man, and the products of the inlands have been opened to Australian ports. The loss of a few adventurous lives is, perhaps, after all, a comparatively small price to pay for the beneiits thai; have been obtained.