NEW CALEDONIA.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 3, Issue 136, 28 April 1860, Page 3

NEW CALEDONIA.

(From the Spectator!) We have received a file of the ' Moniteur Imperial' from Port de France, New Caledonia, the contents of which, extracted from the " Sydney Morning Herald," we have already published in our number of last Saturday. In the absence of printing materials the French, seeing the absolute necessity of a newspaper for their infant settlement, have fallen on the novel and ingenio/iis method of beginning their journal by the laborious process of lithography ; and, as " necessity is the mother of inventions," they have succeeded, considering the difficulties, in producing a very fair specimen of a newspaper for this the youngest of colonies. The " Moniteur Imperial," as may be supposed, is printed entirely in the French language for the present. We hope that they will soon be supplied with a printing press and sufficient stock of type, so as to enable them to bring out a much larger journal with infinitely less trouble. The progress of the colony of New Caledonia is, on the whole, steady and progressive, though His Excellency Governor Saisset has had a good deal of difficulties to encounter with the natives ; but by a firm policy, together with the bravery of the soldiers under Ms command and the devotedness of the settlers, he has been enabled effectually to put a stop to these barbarous outrages, which, it is a matter of regret, seem to have been fostered, if not instigated, by some lawless Europeans. A number of substantial buildings have. been put up in Port de France, excellent streets are being formed, and good roads made into the country. Great encouragement is held out by the government to induce settlers to come to New Caledonia. Town allotments of land are always on sale by the government ; and the country land, of which there is always a good supply ready surveyed for intending colonists, is sold on very moderate terms, somewhere about four shillings an acre, which is paid by instalments at periods extending over a number of years, — in fact, on the " deferred payments system." As the country is principally intended for cultivation, the quantity of land is limited to 500 acres as the largest quantity that can be purchased from the government by any one person. The government also hold out premiums to those settlers who will first raise an exportable quantity of sugar and other products and an association is formed whose object is to give the best possible directions to the settlers for the cultivation of the various articles which the country is capable of growing, A scientific body, too, is formed, whose aim is for searching out the mineral wealth of the colony, and there is every reason to believe that it is very great. New Caledonia, which is a good sized island in the Pacific, between the parallels of 20 and 23 degrees South, and the meridians of 164 and 1 67 degrees East, is fitted for growing all sorts of tropical productions. It was discovered by the immortal navigator Capt. Cook in 1774. The natives (estimated at 25,000 in number) are active and well made, of deep black colour, with curly hair ; and, as is too much the case in the islands of the Pacific, they practice cannibalism. New Caledonia is in an excellent position as regards the Panama route, which it is hoped will not be long in commencing. The French Government in Oceania ai'e fully alive to the great advantages to be derived from it 5 and have offered to contribute their quota to the undertaking, provided the steamers will touch at Tahiti, the Marquesas, or New Caledonia. This is showing a spirited example to Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. In a short time Polynesia will start into commercial existence, and they will send their valuable tropical freights to these and other temperate regions, in return for which they will take the products of these higher latitudes. There is undeveloped a vast field for all kinds of enterprise in the innumerable islands of the Pacific, as well as the Continent of South America. What is wanted is some gigantic and cheap mode of conveying the overcrowded populations of the Old World to these unoccupied sunny lands.