WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7593, 24 March 1886, Page 5

WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES.

[by telegraph.—own correspondent.] Wellington, Tuesday. THE SPEAKER OF THE HOOSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Sir G. M. O'Rorkb left Wellington by this morning's train for Foxton, on hie way to Auckland, proceeding overland to Waitara, and thence by steamer to Manukau. THE NEW HKBRIDES AND RECIDIVISTE QUESTION. Although the interview between Sir Julius Vogel and the French Vioe-Consul yesterday must be regarded as of a confidential character, the New Zealand Times to-day has an article which assumes the leading topics of such an interview. It certainly has the appearance of special information. If, as many persons believe, the statement is made upon authority, it would appear to have considerable importance at the present moment, as containing the latest view of the French Government upon a subject that in* tereets the whole of the Australian colonies. It is suggested that the French Government, in regard to the Mew Hebrides, contemplates nothing except what may be done in due course of law, and by an amicable arrangement between England and France. It is alleged that the colonists have made use of the reoidiviste question to forward their own objects of annexation of those islands to the British dominion. There is an affirmation of misapprehension and misconception on the part of the colonists as to the extent and effect of the deportation of French criminals to theee islands in the Pacific which belong to France, but before dealing with the particulars of such deportation the legal aspect of the question is referred to. It is asserted that France is acting within her strict legal right in using her own territory for her own purposes. It ie argued that when England used these colonies for penal settlements she did not consult any other power whether she might do so. This argument is futile, inasmuch as there were no densely-populated colonial citien and towns in those days belonging either to England or other powers. Nevertheless the argument appears to be relied upon as a precedent, although the relations of tin European Powers to the colonies, and that of the colonial lands to each other are altogether changed. It is intimated that the number of oonvicts deported from France must, in the nature of the circumstances, be very limited, the distance being so great, the transportation being difficult, and the guarding of the Deportees being bo costly. Aβ to the contamination of colonial society by the neighbourhood of a penal oolony belonging to another nation, it is disposed of by a very slight reference. Such a fear is regarded as illusory. As to the danger to be apprehended from escaped convioti), it is stated that such criminals are efficiently guarded, so as to reduce the chance of escape to a minimum ; that when a convict succeeds in making hie escape he is pursued, and in nearly every instance captured ; that a French detective is employed in Victoria, whose entire duty is to discover escapees. Iα proof of this, it is alleged that eight of such persons had been discovered in Melbourne and Sydney, and sent back to Noumea; that four were discovered in Brisbane and sent back iu the same way. Finally, it is suggested that such convicts can always be Bent back by the usual forms of extradition. Whether these explanations have been offered to assuage the public mind, which might be supposed to take alarm in consequence of the cables of the Agent-General, to the effect that the French Government had resolved to send 1000 convicts to the Isle of Pines, I cannot soy. The above statement, whatever it may be worth, eludes the source of danger, which is that these foreign criminals, obtaining a domicile in British Colombo, would furnish new motives and methods of crime to the criminal population already there.