NEW HEBRIDES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 9 August 1924, Page 4

NEW HEBRIDES.

DUAL CONTROL A FAILURE. PROTEST BY CHURCHES. (BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 8. “The present arrangement should not be allowed to continue. It is an abominable state of things. There is only one way out of the difficulty, and that is- to partition the islands. Let each Government, the French and British, be given its share in the New Hebrides, and probably pe would get on very much better than during recent years. I quite agree that the condominium is an utter failure. No more stupid agreement has ever been entered into, in this world than what was done in regard to the joint control of the New Hebrides, and the people at the head of affairs in Britain are getting very tired of it.” This statement was made by the Prime Minister to a deputation which waited on him this morning in regard to the failure of the condominium agreement in the control of the New Hebrides. The deputation represented the Presbyterian Church Foreign Missions, Anglican Board of Missions, Methodist Missionary Society, London Missionary Society, and the Wellington Ministers’ Association.

The Rev. G. Jupp, convenor of the Foreign Missions Committee of the Presbyterian General Assembly, said that a petition had been prepared for presentation to . Parliament, sighed by 15,000 signatories, pointing out that the aims of the condominium between France and Britain were not being adhered to, as was common knowledge. They felt that the condominium agreement must be brought to an end, ahd suggested that the only possible way out of the present unsatisfactory state of affairs in the New Hebrides' was for Britain to have sole control of the islands. Women were being outraged, illegal recruiting was being carried on, and generally the whole position so far as the natives were concerned amounted to a state of slavery akin to the conditions that existed in the old blackbirding days.