NEW HEBRIDES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 17 June 1924, Page 11

NEW HEBRIDES

FAILURE OF THE CONDOMINIUM. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. Received June. 17, 10.50 a.m. SYDNEY, June 17. Speaking of the effects of the condominium in the New Hebrides, and referring to the joint court established under the convention, the Rev. E. Raff, who recently returned from Vila, .said that the composition of the court was of a fantastic nature. Besides French and British judges there was the president, appointed by the King of Spain, who also appointed the public prosecutor. Neither of these could be a British or a French subject. When Mr Raff went to the islands in 1917 the president, a Spaniard, was on leave in Spain, and he was still there. He had not visited the islands for more than seven years, so the presidency was being carried on by the public prosecutor, a Dutchman, whose duties in turn are performed by the registrar, a Belgian. One of the principal duties entrusted to the court is the settle)ment of land claims, which the court W’as preparing to hear at the outbreak of the war, but the business had been suspended owing to the absence on active service of many of the claimants and witnesses. Although the war had ended in 1918 no land claims had so tar been heard. It was common report that the French Government had forbidden the court to do so. Mr Raff also charged the French Administration with, failure to collect fines imposed on French subjects for breaches of the recruitment and grog laws. He says that the court has no power to function in purely native affairs unless the natives ask for arbitration, and the cumbrous mode of operation and opposition to the French Government make ail attempts to administer the law and justice abortive.