THE NEW HEBRIDES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 156, 30 June 1914, Page 10

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

VANISHING NATIVES.

' ■ [from OCR -own CO-RESPONDENT.) ; Sidney, Juno 24. ■ The natives of the New Hebrides are ■disappearing fast.' Mr. Edward Jacomb, ; who. is practising asa barrister at Vila, the seat of administration, told an interviewer the other day that the native population 'today - was 65,000, whereas thn estimate of the missionaries made 30 years ago was over 600,000. the natives were undoubtedly dying out fast, and unless the decrease < were arrested there would jbe'precious. few left 20 years hence. In ; the-Torres Group, where, there were thousands 20 years ago, the population was ! now only 350. 1 A great many perished mainly-from that mysterious law that |seemed to operate whenever white men came into contact with natives. In other cases they fell victims to tuberculosis and pother. * diseases. Grog was still.sold .to natives, even in Vila, the offenders being mostly French. Recruiting..-.was/a terrible evil, but the plantations '.hot!,* of course., to be kept supplied with, labour,. .On the British, plantations the boys were well ytfeat?d ! as,a. general rule) but that unfortunately was not the case on some of the French plantations, where the death-rate among the "boys" was as high as''"ls per 100, as compared with 3 per lOQon JJritish plantations. Mr. Jacomb says that the condominium has been a rank failure. "It has never worked satisfactorily and never can," he remarked. " Under certain ideal circumstances such an arrangement might have been possible, bat you must not look for ideality in the southern seas. The longer the condominium goes on the worse it gets. Everyono is tired of "it, and agreed that . a common sense government is i wanted. What do I propose ? That the group should become British, or that the Commonwealth should take it over. It depends, of course, on who has the greater interest in the islands, and I should think the Commonwealth had. The geographical position of the group and of New Caledonia as well, surely brings it within the circle of Australian interests. whether the group is to be governed by ■ jho Colonial Office or by the Common* wealth is, however, a minor point compared with the main objective. In cither case it would be British, and that would be a great achievement. The present state of affairs is wholly discreditable from whatever point of view it is regarded. "Ik seems to me that our Imperial interests are greater than the French, and that Australia's interests are paramount. British influence and British, enterprise in the Pacific are a growing quantity; the . 6ame cannot be said of the French. The fittest must survive. Of course, the French have very important interests. Nobody denies that. They have a predominance of land interests over British. But this in itself is an insufficient argument for the cession of the group to France. They have no genius for colonisation. ' French interests'have every right to expect to be conserved, but the overwhelming dominance of Great Britain in the Pacific gives us a status that cannot be denied, and that ought to be pre-eminent. One. idea that is often put forward as a solution of the New Hebrides question is the division of the group between Britain and Franco, lam dead against partition, it would not solve the trouble. In somo respects it would intensify it."