PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 25 August 1931, Page 3

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

FRENCH TRLAL AND SENTENCE

BRITISH INDIGNATION

Great indignation prevails among British residents of the New Hebrides over the- public execution of six Chinese at Y ila last month, according to officers and passengers on the Melanesian Mission steamer Southern Cross, which returned to Auckland on Wednesday from a cruise in the mission field, states the “Dominion.” The execution was carried out by the French authorities with a guillotine brought from Noumea.

It is stated that protest® have been sent to the British and French Foreign (Micas by the Acting-British Resident. Commissioner, Mr R. Blandy. “Fourteen Chinese were arrested for the murder of a French planter named Chevalier,” said Mr Arthur Grove, who arrived by the steamer after eight, years’ residence in New Hebrides. “Six of the men were sentenced by the French court to death, and four to terms ranging from seven to twelve years.

“Under the condominium, a crime against a Frenchman is tried by the French court, and a crime against a British subject by the British court and where the subjects of both nations are concerned by a joint court. £f “To cany out the death sentence the French authorities brought from Noumea a guillotine, and set it up outside Vila, exactly opposite the French hospital, which contained many patients, both women and children. The condemned men were chained in a row and were beheaded by a Japanese executioner brought from Noumea.

HUNDREDS PRESENT

“I was unfortunate enough to witness the spectacle, which was too barbarous and ghastly to be described in words,” said Air Grove. “There were •several hundred people present, including natives, and the entire French population. I.thought it inconceivable that such an atrocity could be performed in a civilised community. “British people in Vila have entered a strong protest against the public character of the execution and its barbarous details. It has had an exceedingly 'harmful effect on the prestige of the white people and the British suffer with the French.

“Nothing, to my mind , could demonstrate more emphatically the failure of the condominium,” Mr Grove said. “The French Administration is entirely foreign to our ideas*- and is driving the British out of the islands. When I went there in 1923 all the big planters were British; now there are only 18 British subjects in Vila, The French are pouring into the. islands from Noumea and French officials* outnumber British officials by five to one. In my opinion a mandate should be granted to New Zealand as soon as possible; failing that, Britain Avill undoubtedly lose all control of the group.’.’

BRUT A L SPECTACLE.

Officers of the Southern Gross stated that. Avhen the mission steamer arrived a/t "Vila on 'her return vavage to New Zealand on August 8 they found the British community highly incensed with the French authorities over the executions.

“We were- told,” said one officer. That the executions Avere. witnessed by hundreds of people, including ya large number of French women and children. It was intended to be a aTudicatiou of the law. but- the manner in Avliioh it Avas carried out made it simply a brutal spectacle for the idle. The British people in Vila state that the guillotine Avas brought secretly from Noumea, in charge of four gendarmes. Had they known of the intentions of the French authorities they would have protested sooner.”