THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1906, THE NEW HEBRIDES AGAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13094, 6 February 1906, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1906, THE NEW HEBRIDES AGAIN.

When the Anglo-French treaty was signed arrangements were thereby made for (lie amicable adjustment between the signatory Powers of a variety of disputed questions, intituling the control and administration of the New Hebrides. The situation in these islands was previously exceedingly strained, and although there has since been every disposition on both sides to keep the peace. it has become so much a part of the colonial policy of France to acquire undisputed control thai our French friends do not seem quite aide to understand thai we do not require courteous consideration but the frank recognition of our indisputable right-. One of the methods by which the French are working to get into their own hands the control and possession of the New

Hebrides affects the most fundamental of properties, that in land. In order to protect the interests of the natives, and to prevent the wholesale appropriation of the country by speculative companies, certain restrictions upon land transfer, as upon the sale of arms and liquor, have been imposed ; but either because the French authorities are lax and the English strict, or because the conditions in some mysterious way favour the Frenchman as against the Englishman, the fact remains that every French settler finds it very easy to obtain land, while the English settler finds land almost as hard" to obtain as if it were in the Maori Country. Obviously this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue if the Dual Control now existing is to be maintained and if the British settler is not to be driven from the islands altogether. Diplomatic negotiations on the question were initiated some time ago by the Imperial authorities on the initiative of the Commonwealth Government. "nd as a result of this a French mission is now in London to discuss the whole question of landed property in the New Hebrides with the Imperial Foreign Office. The outcome must be awaited with some anxiety, for all British Ministries appear to be strangely ignorant of colonial interests—a potent argument for an Imperial Council with a thoroughly representative standing " committee— Liberal Governments were never greatly sympathetic with colonial aspirations.

It may easily be said that there is quite no necessity for either Australia or New Zealand to trouble about the New Hebrides, seeing that both the Pacific colonies of Britain are in need of population for territory admittedly their own. But this is the argument of a Little Englander who sees no further than his own locality and than his own year. France has equally large areas of sparsely-populated country clamouring for immigrants, in New Caledonia, among other places. ' But this does not- prevent her from making every effort to acquire the New Hebrides. And why 1 Partly because of its fertile and productive lands, which only need European occupation to yield prolific returns; partly because the French Government realises that the Pacific is the coming ocean, and that the opening of the Panama Canal will place the New Hebrides — as it will place Auckland —on one of the main highways of the world's trade; and principally because the group possesses a natural anchorage, called Havannah Harbour, at which a magnificent naval base can be easily formed, while the existing naval base at Noumea, New Caledonia, has been found alarmingly unsatisfactory.. owing to the difficulty of approaching it* through encircling reefs of coral. With these strong motives for activity, the French authorities have deliberately set themselves to abolish the Dual Control and to secure unchallenged possession of the entire group. Our Imperial Government has hitherto done little or nothing to counteract this, and had it not been for colonial protests it is very possible that the surrender of British interests in the New Hebrides might have been an item in the price paid for the AngloFrench rapprochement. Yet the New Hebrides lie between the Fijis and Australia, and are regarded both by the French and the Australians as being suited to European settlement. Their fertility may be estimated from the native population of nearly 100,000, which is carried on an area of slightly over 5000 square miles. Their naval value may be judged from the persistence with which the French Government and French politicians support and encourage the efforts constantly being made from New Caledonia to strengthen the French grip. As.d because France is our friend, we need not forget that if France were inimical a naval base in a French New Hebrides would be used to support raids upon our colonial shipping and attacks upon our colonial coasts. It may not matter greatly to the Little Englander that the French should hold Havannah Harbour in the New Hebrides, as the Germans hold Simpsonshafen in New Ireland, but it matters greatly to the people of Sydney and Auckland, and to every man whose anterests are identified with the interests of these colonies.

The history of the establishment of rival European Powers in the immediate vicinity of these British colonies is recent and instructive. A quarter of a century ago, the Dutch and Spanish East Indies were the nearest foreign possessions, excepting only New Caledonia. As late as 1883, Sir Thomas Mcllwraith, then Premier of Queensland, annexed New Guinea, and it was urged that all the unattached islands in our vicinity should be brought i under the flag to prevent further foreign complications. But the Little Englander Government of the day— Lord . Derby being in the Foreign Office—the Government of Majuba notoriety, hauled down the flag and lost to the Empire two-thirds of New Guinea and all the Pacific Islands to its northward. This unstatesmanlike policy, with the bungling at Samoa, brought the German complication into our colonial policy. About the same time that Mcllwraith seized New Guinea, then no man's land, Sydney settlers commenced the European occupation of the New Hebrides, after a great struggle by the Australian Governments of the day to prevent the Imperial Government from admitting unsubstantiated French claims. During the years that have since elapsed France, Germany, and America have been tireless in their determination to secure every possible territorial advantage in an ocean which our colonies should make peculiarly British. We do not object to American annexations, infinitely preferring to see the flag of our English-speaking cousins rather than an altogether foreign one. but it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that it is most detrimental to our future peace and contentment to have either French or German colonies, with naval bases and all the paraphernalia of maritime war. within an oceanic area in which these British colonies contain the only great civilised populations. At any rate, since we must

be satisfied to allow things as they are to remain, we may fairly insistthat no further territorial aggression by either France or Germany shall be allowed in these waters, and that the New Hebrides, unless they become British, must remain under Dual Control, and must afford equal opportunity to the British settler as to the French.