THE FRENCH IN THE PACIFIC.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6536, 7 February 1882, Page 6

THE FRENCH IN THE PACIFIC.

Mr Ooutts Trotter has called attention through the Times to a matter of coniiderable importance, which has as yet excited but little notice-—viz., the recent proceedings of the French in the Pacific. The story of Queen Pomare and her griefs is an old one; a popular Tahitian ditty records our discomfiture on that occasion, and only, a few months ago the French definitely annexed the whole of that group. But it seems their intentions do not stop there. Mr Trotter has just received a. letter from a well-known resident in thotie parts,’whose name, as a trustworthy authority, he encloses for the Times' ,private satisfaction, stating that in August the Hugon, man-of-war, .Captain Menard, visited the principal islands in the Austral and Hervejv groups, telling the people that,no w that Tahiti is French, sey must divert thither their present trade with New Zealand, which is worth £60,000 a year ; that Great Britain had undertaken not to interfere with French action anywhere to the east of Samoa, and had lately oeneured Captain Medlyoott for saluting the Baratongan flag! Be that as it may, he added, what is more material, that the French Admiral was on his way, and that they would have to accept a French Protectorate. Captain M£nard told his correspondent that they were adopting this' policy in anticipation of the opening of the Panama Canal. In connection with this subject the Times remarks :—“ Avery philanthropic mind is entitled to shudder when it hears of European invasions of Polynesia. The end is only too plain. Whatever the improvement in the capacities of the soil, the original tenants are certain not to survive to reap the benefit. In the Leeward Isles it is especially lamentable that any European State should covet dominion. The islanders have received as much of the advantages of Christian civilisation as they are fitted for the present to imbibe. They are self-governed, contented and prosperous. A heavy burden will weigh upon the conscience of a nation, whether English, French, or German, which offers to disturb their condition. With all respect to France, Frenchmen cannot ha credited with possession of the art of recompensing Polynesians for the loss of liberty. They are more likely to encourage native propensities for desultory lethargy and destructive license than to implant the sturdy self-reliance which alone can save a native community. Catholicism, which, as Mr Trotter has pointed out, has regularly in the South Seas prepared the way for the French flag, whether waved by M. de Chateaubriand or by M. Paul Bert, is, with all its self-devotion, ill adapted to counteract the social evils following in the track of the Catholic missionary's countrymen. The development of natural resources by French capital is, though possibly good for the world, an equivocal blessing to Polynesians. French planters do not, like the Spanish conquerors of the New World, work out the lives of Society Islanders in their fields. They are supposed to be less tender to the natives of other groups, whom they import to supply the place of their indolent subjects. Melancholy evidence to that effect was adduced in the summer in our columns. We attach more weight to the absence of all reason why islands already a model for friends of Polynesians to admire and imitate, if they can, should be interfered with, than to the appeal our correspondents have made to English cupidity and jealousy. If the Leeward Isles or any other isles be indispensable coaling stations on the new route, England and New Zealand and Australia need have no fear that-they will be excluded from the use of them, Englishmen, who within the last few weeks have been stretching out their hands to seize upon kingdoms in Borneo, cannot with decency grudge French - men a few coral rooks in the Pacific. Political moralists can scarcely approve of these purchases of bodies and souls of peoples, whether the price be a pension to a fictitious Sultan, or a gallon of mm and a pair of second-hand epaulettes to a naked Polynesian. From the point of view, however, of European International equity andof British interests there is not much cause for this country to agitate itself. Bather it might be grateful to France for challenging a share in promoting the trade and communications of the world by seeking on occupancy which would cost it no little labour and expenditure to establish and realise. If New Zealand or the Australian Governments have coveted the position, they were as free as French captains to acquire it. They will have ground for complaint only if the last of the three objections to the French encroachments can be substantiated, and if they be not consulted before it is waived. France, it is contended, a generation ago compromised the Tahiti dispute with Lord Palmerston on the terms that Frenchmen should abstain from annexing or even protecting the southern Society Islands. Although a few months since a French officer, with the impulsive ' patriotism of his country, is reported to have erected the national standard on one of the group, on being reminded pf the treaty obligation he at once removed it. The tree-

pass, such as It was, seems to have been meant as a precaution against imagined German ambition, not against England. Until the agreement between France and Great Britain be rescinded by mutual consent it both remains in force and there ie no ground for apprehenaion that France intends to violate it. According to a rumour reproduced in an extract by one of our correspondents to day from a New Zealand journal, overtures have been oemmenced or entertained by the British Foreign Office for a surrender of (he restriction upon French freedom of action in the south-east Pacific in return for French concessions on the Newfoundland fishery question. Probably there is little foundation for the belief that such a bargain haa been mooted ; there |ie much lese for apprehending its conclusion. Frenchmen, in the first place,oherishanhistorioaleffeotionfortheNewfoundland fishery rights which would render their Government very reluctant to barter the rights away for isles in the Paoiflo. It would he as little inclined to (he exchange as would be Lord Granville to accede to it without having guarded himself against subsequent' protests on the part of the splendid dominions for which the Foreign Office really holds snob a stipulation in trust.”