NEW HEBRIDES LIFE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 220, 3 September 1929, Page 9

NEW HEBRIDES LIFE

CONDOMINIUM CONTROL ASIATICS AND TRADING. MISSIONARIES RETURN. Comloniiß vii control—British and French—of the Now Hebrides was criticised by two missionaries who arrived at Auckland last week on the mission steamer Southam Cross. The missionaries were tho Rev. A. A. Butehart and tho Rev G. Leggutt. Both agreed that the existing system of supervising the affairs of the New Hebrides portion of Melanesia was a failure. Mr Butehart drew attention to the contras! in development afforded further north in Melanesia, in the Brit-tish-controlled Solomon Islands. There progress was apparent. Mr Butehart considered steps were necessary to place tho New Hebrides and the northern portion of that group —Banks Islands—under the administration of one nation or the other, preferably Great Britain. FRANCE’S INFLUENCE. “France is now gaining most of the interests in trade and in the plantations in the New Hebrides,” he said, “British influence is vanishing and many British traders are actually becoming naturalised Frenchmen, simply because French law is more slack. France’s interests in copra and cotton development are extending.” Mr Butehart said, In discussing conditions on his mission station at Gaua Island, that Japanese “grog-traders” were also proving a hindrance to civilisation. “There are five of these Japanese trading liquor, chiefly gin, to the islanders,” he said, “and a tremendous amount of harm has been caused. Yes, a ui law has just come out forbidding the trade, but it is going on just the same. It is factors such as this that Southern Melanesia will have to overcome.”

Next, Mr Butehart drew attention to the serious Asiatic problem confronting the group. ‘ ‘ Up to the present time, the French have imported about 5000 Tonkinese from South-east Asia into New Hebrides aud the Banks Islands, ” he said. “This immigration is going on at such a serious rate that I consider the natives will be wiped out in the future, leaving the islands purely Asiatic, or will become absorbed in a mixed race.” SOLOMONS PROGRESSING. Such immigration was not allowed in the Solomon Islands under British law. Mr Butehart added that the Solomon Islanders had increased in number, but the New Hebridians, under a condominunr rule, which was not bring ing about progress, were apparently decreasing. Apart from the question of trading interests, it was urgently necessary for one nation to guard the welfare of the New Hebridians. On Gaua, where Mr Butehart has been stationed for six years, the natives are Christians outwardly, but heathens at heart. Mr Butehart attributed this to the stoppage of missionary work some years back. Occasionally violent outbreaks took place among tho inhabitants, 600 in number, but they,were usually minor differences without danger to the Euro pean residents. “There are still fighters on the island,” Mr Butehart said. “Only four weeks ago, I was called to a village to stop a disturbance. Two men were killed.” All of the 300 natives on Mota, a neighbouring island whore Mr Leggatt has been stationed for three years, have been declared Christians. The island is a quieter station than Gaua.