NEW HEBRIDES CONTROL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17144, 25 April 1919, Page 6

NEW HEBRIDES CONTROL.

QUESTION IN AUSTRALIA. MISSIONARY AGITATION. [FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY, April 16. Certain missionary influences are attempting to stir up interest in Australia in the disposal of the New Hebrides group of islands, which are now under the jointadministration of France and Great Britain. The plan appears to bo to arouse in Australia an urgent demand that, in the pending readjustment or world territories, tin.' group shall become wholly Britain, and Fiance receive compensation elsewhere. So far, the move has utterly failed. A few missionaries have declared that the "roup shall become British, but the (Treat mass of Australians is completely different. A few who have looked into the question have not hesitated to say that if anything is to he done with' the croup, 'it should bo handed to France. Eighty per cent, of the whites there are French, a irroat proportion of the capital, and nearly all the trade is undoubtedly French. On what ground, then, is the claim for British Dominion bnsoJ?— on the fact that the Islands were first visited by British navigators and traders, ?.nd that certain British missionary organisation?, have considerable interests there. A New Hebrides missionary, who was interviewed in Melbourne, could make out no better case than this, yet he had no hesitation in claiming not onlv that Britain should have the New Hebrides, but New Caledonia as well, and that France should be given territorial compensation elsewhere. Asked whether Britain, Australa or New Zealand should have the islands, he "plumped" for Britain. The islands people, he says, greatly fear the disturb- and paralysing labour rule of Australia, and they have no community %i interest with New Zealand, The bestinformed Australian opinion s: "Hive the islands to France, the country with the largest interest in them, on coiilition that the missionaries' rights are safeguarded, so that they will not be ejected from New Hebrides as they were out oi Tahiti."