THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9056, 17 May 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1888.

Another notable event in the history of the Pacific Islands has occurred in the annexation by France of the whole group of the Society Islands. In the circumstances it seems to have met with the approbation generally of the Europeans interested in the tra.de of those islands, and probably will be better for the islanders themselves than the state of lawlessness existing among them in the past, even although their initiation into liberty, fraternity, and equality has been by the baptism of fire. Nevertheless it will be with a sense of deep regret, that every man with a love of the British Empire—and desirous of seeing the influence of the flag for liberty, justice, and mercy, extended over these new lands—will reflect on the negligence that has needlessly allowed so many islands and groups of islands to pass under the control of other powers. No doubt this group, so near to Tahiti, naturally followed the destiny of that beautiful island, and the group of which it is the chief ; but the bargain over the New Hebrides, which has broken the treaty assuring the independence, of the group which has been now annexed, need never have been struck had the British Government not persistently turned a deaf ear to those who, knowing all the circumstances, had many a long year ago foretold what was coming, and urged and pleaded that the Islands of the Pacific should be brought under the protecting flag of England. At that time the scramble for unannexed territory had not set in. France, and still more Germany, raised no claim to interpose, and the islanders generally were favourable ; and, had the advice of Sir George Grey, and others capable of taking a comprehensive view of British interests in these seas, been listened to, we should have had no anxiety now regarding places of arms set up by foreign Powers in the Pacific ; and all the great expenditure in naval and land defences with wliich the colonies as well as the Imperial Government itself are busying themselves, would have been entirely uncalled for. No wonder that sometimes colonial indignation boils over at the cold indifference that has been shown by England to the future interests of

British settlement in the Pacific, and no wonder that regret is awakened afresh as we see groups of islands successively passing away to increase the strength , of foreign Powers in these seas. By this latest annexation France is put in possession of every island having a harbour in Eastern Polynesia; and when the Panama Canal is opened there will not be a single port in those seas into which a British or Colonial vessel can put, except under the French flag. Whether such a state of things is not a costly price to pay for the independence of the New Hebrides, can admit of no doubt. It seems evident now that, without any interference, the French troops would have been obliged to abandon the New Hebrides Group, so unhealthy is it, and so unsuitable for any permanent European settlement; and yet, to save the independence of those comparatively worthless islands, in deference to the demands of the colonies, England has allowed the abrogation of the treaty that would have saved these fine islands of the Society Group from annexation. There is something as humiliating as it is touching in the unwillingness evinced by these poor islanders to believe that England had abandoned them ; and something coldblooded in the indifference with which the British Government left them to their fate without a word of warning, which, if it did nothing else, might have saved them from bloodshed, and from raising their feeble hands against the overwhelming power of France. The whole latter history of the transactions of the British Government in the Pacific has been a record of dishonour, and when in this instance, as in many others, we find Imperial relations fixed without being influenced in the least degree by the representation of our interests, he must be a very short-sighted man who can doubt that events are hastening either to the creation of some form of Imperial Council at which the voice of the colonies will be heard, or to the disruption of the Empire. No rightthinking man in the colonies desires the latter course; but that it is the inevitable alternative to the former, the events of every year are more convincingly proving.

As to the more immediate effects of the annexation of the Society Islands, they are an improvement on the condition of things existent. Even the Englishmen in the group and in the trade are pleased with the change, for it is a singular thing that though nearer, as we are supposed to be, in blood and in institutions to the Teutons, the authority of the French Government in the islands of the Pacific is everywhere and always much more grateful to British subjects engaged in trade there, than is that of the Germans. In so far the change—if change was necessary to foreign domination—has been an improvement in the interests of order and safety and commerce ; but, none the less is it to be regretted that over that wide tract of ocean lying between us and that future great thoroughfare of the world's traffic —the Panama Canal—there should now remain not one solitary port or harbour of refuge in which our steamers can shelter or refit under the British flag.