THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 13, 1907. CONTROL IN THE PACIFIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13486, 13 May 1907, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 13, 1907. CONTROL IN THE PACIFIC.

The Imperial Conference of 1907 has not closed without some heated discussions, among the most important of which that on the islands of the Pacific is to be included. For whatever may be the effect upon British local politics of the direct speaking indulged in by our colonial statesmen, there- is no doubt that the Colonial and Foreign Offices can have no desire to be again pilloried by Conference before the public opinion of the Empire. Lord Elgin went so far as to express his regret over the New Hebrides misunderstanding and his hope that nothing of the sort would again occur; and this after Mr. Winston Churchill/ his subordinate, had informed the House of Commons that the Colonial Office was entirely blameless and had consulted the colonies step by step through the negotiations with the French Government. If there is no other result from the Conference than a more sympathetic and intelligent treatment of Pacific problems by the Imperial Government it will have well repaid all the colonies concerned. Until there is a separate Imperial Department for the selfgoverning colonies, and until it is distinctly and definitely laid down that an Imperial Council upon which we have representatives shall be consulted before any Imperial action is taken on matters affecting our colonial interests, we must expect a considerable amount of misunderstanding and discontent.. Butwe can now expect to have some recognition by the permanent officials and political heads of the Imperial Government-that our colonial foreign

policies only. rank next , to the foreign policy of the United Kingdom itself, and are not to be overshadowed by petty projects affecting alien parts of the Empire. The control of the Pacific is of infinitely greater importance to the Empire than the control of Lake Tchad or the possession of a few miles more or less on the China Coast ; and we have made a marked step towards asserting British interest in, and British claim to the control of, the Pacific Ocean by the plain speaking of Mr. Deakin and Sir Joseph Ward as to the necessity of Imperial consultation with colonial authorities.

What we have lost in the Pacific owing to the bungling of the Colonial and Foreign Offices are known to every student of colonial history. The Samoan Islands were offered to us New Guinea was annexed when it was no man's land; the New Hebrides could have been annexed ■Without difficulty; the Hawaiian Islands were partially ours; and so on. But the Imperial Government first refused the Samoas and finally exchanged a partial interest for some worthless country in the heart of Africa ; New Guinea was evacuated and left to Germans and Dutch until it was too late to obtain more of it than the south-eastern section ; the Hawaiian Islands were handed over to the Americans without even the proviso that our colonial trade should have equal terms, and the result was that our flag was driven from the 'Frisco route ; ■ while as for the New Hebrides it is not a year since the Imperial Government had the opportunity of advantageously settling the dangerous Dual Control and failed to do so because it- completely ignored our colonial representations. Yet the necessity for obtaining and maintaining control in the Pacific and for preventing its various islands and groups from becoming naval bases, from which our coasts may be threatened and our mercantile marine assailed by alien nationalities, is as plain to every Australasian colonist as the desirability of keeping the trans-Pacific trade route open is clear to every Canadian. The Imperial Government has not yet fully learned that the British colonist is not to be classed with the alien ; subject, or his permanent policies and Imperial interests confused with the passing diplomacy by which " spheres of influence " are defined. Our Australasian development is only less important than the progress and development of England itself, and the control of the Pacific only less important than the control of the Atlantic. In the future, be it near or distant, we shall certainly find that if these colonies become what we hope they will become, it will not be possible to allow antipodean nationalities any threatening position in these waters. The more we surrender to them now the more difficult it will be to arrange with them later.' When there are 100,000,000 British citizens in the self-governing " States of the Empire, 20,000,000 of them will be living round the Pacific. The prescience of this and of similar conditions elsewhere compels;.,the .colonies to insist that they shall be consulted whenever they; arc affected by Imperial treaties, which ought never to be made by ill-informed and still less by unsympathetic officials. .