THE CONTROL OF THE PACIFIC. King Dick Looks Ahead.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 309, 2 June 1906, Page 6

THE CONTROL OF THE PACIFIC. King Dick Looks Ahead.

MR. Seddon is alive to his opportunities. Just now he is taking advantage of his visit to Australia to sound an alarm on the growth of foreign interests in the South Pacific. To the common or garden variety of colonial politician, whose mental horizon is usually intensely parochial, this may seem the wildest absurdity. But the march of events during the last ten or fifteen years shows that it is a deeply personal affair and one fraught with very real peril. • » • It says much for Mr. Seddon's claims to rank as an Imperial statesman that he is, of all public men in Australasia, the only one who seems to concern himself with these ques^ tions. He has made up his own mind on them and feels ripe for action. He wants Australia and New Zealand to join in pressing a kind of Monroe doctrine upon John Bull. His policy is clear-cut and masterful. It is that the South Pacific shall be painted red — that the Union Jack shall be the only flag of sovereignty to> fly there. • • • King Dick doesn't, however, want to set the world ablaze for the purpose of tearing Samoa and the Marshall Islands from the Germans, kicking the French out of Tahiti and New Caledonia, and wresting the Philippines from Cousin Jonathan. But he thinks diplomacy may be used very adroitly to further the end he has in view. From time to time the various Powers are engaged in squaring up accounts, and if John Bull can only be brought by Australia and New Zealand to perceive the vastness of his interests in these seas, he may, by making judicious concessions here and there in other quarters of the globe, gradually consolidate and extend his dominion over the South Pacific. • • • That is Mr. Seddon's objective. It was also the aim of the greatest pro^consul of the nineteenth century, Sir George Grey. If he had had his way, neither New Caledonia nor the Society Islands would ever have been French. The Germans would not now be established at Samoa and the Gilbert Islands. And Uncle Sam would never have been tempted to embark upon a colonial policy by internal dissensions at Honolulu. All these things might have been averted if Sir George Grey had been allowed to realise his dream of a South Pacific federation, with New Zealand as its head and centre. • • • King Dick has taken up the selfsame mission. If he can stir up Australia to a lively interest in it, something practical may be the outcome. There must be a strong public opinion and complete co-ope-ration between Australia and New

Zealand for the movement to succeed. Why should not these conditions obtain? All our interests are m the same boat. It only needs to crystallise them into a settled policy and press it firmly and continually upon the Imperial Government to succeed at last Once accepted, it can be furthered by all peaceable means, and its ultimate, realisation will tend to conserve the peace of the world. Some wisetacres may scoff at what they term "King Dick's Imperial skite," Posterity may bless him for it.