NEW ZEALAND AND POLYNESIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XI, Issue 4081, 11 December 1874, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND AND POLYNESIA.

The following is extracted from the Colonbs, a very ably-written and carefully-edited publication issued in London:—"Mr. A'ogel, Prime Minister of New Zealand, has made a proposal remarkable for its boldness of conception, and designed to be productive of most important consequences to his own colony as well as to the entire Empire. He proposes nothing less than the annexation of the islands of the Pacific to the Empire, and their being placed under the Government of >*ew Zealand, which with them is to constitute the Dominion of the Pacific. The proposal is grand and ambitious, and Tie cannot ee "u hy it should not be successful, certainly I a if not as a commercial -it,,-!!!'? 1 * 80 ' or 801110 time the idea of the °, *.' lc Pacific Islands has been . lfc is certainly difficult to j. ai Ji'thing happening to them more . L ,° Promote British interests. They niiAn°l-, lM to themselves, to be preyed upon by kidnappers and marauders of every description. To have one or more of the peat Powers occupying them will far from tend to promote either our interests or security m that quarter. To add to the Empire so many lslapds of extraordinary loveliness luxuriance, and salubrity of climate, will b'e to confer a great boon upon the British race while it Mill be the very beat thing that can happen to the natives now that white men are beginning to swarm in the Pacific. Since English statesmen have lost the spirit which created the Colonial Empire, it was hopeless to expect that such a grand undertaking should have been promoted bj- the Imperial Government. A ' shoddy,' money-grubbing - policy would have raised a howl against any colonising enterprise involving any outlay not immediately promising 'to pay;' no matter how certain to do so ten years hence. The Government o£ New Zealand, however] with a more Imperial spirit than that which has distinguished the Imperial Government, proposes to undertake this great national project. It will be, to use the French phrase, responsible for order in tho islands, the Imperial Government incurrins; uo liability except in the event of war with another great Power ; and then no really extra naval force would be required, for with no addition to our present British possessions in that quarter of the globe as large a number of war vessels would be indispensable. New Zealand knows better than any community in the Empire the difficulties of the undertaking; she can exactly estimate the dangers of native wars ; and, though she has suffered so much from them, she is not terrified like our nervous statesmen and politicians, whose fainthearted policy with respect to Fiji finds expression in such warnings as ' Remember the experience of New Zealand.' We hope New Guinea will be included in the scheme. Slieuld it not, we have little doubt that some of the Australian colonies, stimulated by the enterprise andlmperial spiritof New Zealand, and desiring to supply the lack of this country and its Government in these particulars, will endeavour to secure for the Empire that nearest, largest, and most important of all the unoccupied territories which lie upon its confines. One most satisfactory feature in Mr. Vogel's proposal is that it shews how completely the irritation produced in New Zealand by Earl Granville's abrupt withdrawal of the Imperial troops has subsided. New Zealand does not merely desire to acquire the magnificent Dominion of the Pacific for herself, but for the Empire. Mr. Vogel says: 'New Zealand may earn for reluctant Great Britain, —without committing her to responsibilities she fears, —a grand Island Dominion ; may in the meanwhile save the mother country much trouble and danger and risk,—the danger and risk of expenditure, which weigh so much with the rulers of Great Britain ; and when the result is secured and the commerce established, it may be recognised that New Zea- ' land, the Colon}-, has done a useful work for Gre it Britain, the Empire." -Who, in the face of such splendid, irresistible evidence as this, and of numerous other conclusive proofs, will deny the spirit of the colonies,' or dare to assert that they are not prepared to fulfil all their Imperial obligations and responsibilities ? It surely M ill not be hard to devise some method of united Imperial action. We believe that colonial statesmanship would not prove unequal to the task. We have greater misgivings with respect to the politicians and statesmen of the mother country, with the insularity of their views, of which Mr. Gladstone furnishes us with such a conspicuous example.