THE NEW HEBRIDES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15649, 1 July 1914, Page 8

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

The Imperial Government is in possession of reports from British officers, who are said to have made very grave charges of slavery and corruption in the New Hebrides. These charges, it is understood, affect French subjects and officials. The claim of the London Post that the reports in question should be publish, d is sound. Our neighbours in Australia are endeavouring to securf the influence of the Imperial authorities on behalf of such a solution of dual control in the New Hebrides as will bring these islands under the Commonwealth government, and in this effort ere deserving of the hearty support of New Zealand. Under Australian control the New Hebrides would ultimately become occupied and settled by British people, the rights of- the natives being also staunchly conserved. British public opinion is lamentably indifferent to colonial interests in matters of this character, as we have learned in New Zealand from the Hawaiian and Samoan arrangements of past years. The Little Englandcr customarily assumes the foreigner to be right and the British colonist to be wrong in territorial questions, but he is usually enthusiastic enough in defence of native claims. It is very desirable, therefore, that the unquestionable advantage to the natives of the New Hebrides which would follow upon British acquisition of the group should be thoroughly understood in the United Kingdom. There can be no insurmountable difficulty in the way of satisfactorily compensating France for a surrender of her New Hebridean claims, if it is once determined by the Imperial Government that this is the only wise and humane solution of the problem.