NEW ZEALAND AND POLYNESIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4286, 15 December 1874, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND AND POLYNESIA.

. (From the Colonies, London.) Mr. Vogel, Prime Minister of New Zealand, has made a proposal remarkable for its boldness of conception, and designed to be productive of most important consequences to his own colony as well as to the entire Empire. He purposes nothing less than the annexation of the islands of the Pacific to the Empire, and their being placed under the Government of New Zealand, which with them is to constitute the Dominion of the Pacific. The proposal is grand and ambitious, and we cannot see why it should not be successful, certainly as a political, if not as a commercial enterprise. Eor some time the idea of the annexation of the Pacific Islands has been mooted ; and it is certainly difficult to imagine anything happening to them more likely to promote British interests. They cannot be left to themselves, to be preyed upon by kidnappers and marauders of every description. To have one or more of the great Powers occupying them will far from tend to promote either our interests or security in that quarter. To add to the Empire so many islands of extraordinary loveliness, luxurianpe, and salubrity of climate, will be to confer a great boon upon the British race, while it will be the very best thing that can happen to the natives now that white men are beginning to swarm in the Pacific. Since English statesmen have lost the spirit which created the Colonial Empire, it was hopeless to expect that such a grand undertaking should have been promoted by the Imperial Government. A "shoddy," money grubbing policy would have raised a howl against any colonising enterprise involving any outlay not immediately promising " to pay," no matter how certain to do so ten years hence. The Government of New Zealand, however, with a more Imperial spirit than that which has distinguished the Imperial Government, proposes to undertake this great national project. It will be, to use the Erench phrase, responsible for order in the islands, the Imperial Government incurring no liability except in the event of war with another great Power ; and then no really extra naval force would bo required, for with no addition to our present British possessions in that quarter of the globe aa large a number of war vessels would be indispensable. New Zealand knows better than any community in the Empire the difficulties of the undertaking ; she can exactly estimate the dangers of native wars ; and though she has suffered so much from them, she is not terrified liko our nervous statesmen and politicians, whose fainthearted policy with respect to Fiji finds expression in Buch warnings as "Eemember the experience of Now Zealand." Wo hope New Guinea will be included in the scheme. Should it not, we have little doubt that some of the Australian colonies, stimulated by tho enterprise and Imperial spirit of New Zealand, and desiring to supply the lack of this country and its Government in theso particulars, will endeavor to secure for the Empire that nearest, largest, and most important of all tho unoccupied territories which lie upon its confines. One most satisfactory feature in Mr. Vogel's proposal is that it shows how completely the irritation produced in New Zealand by Earl Granville's abrupt withdrawal of tho Imperial troops lias subsided. New Zealand does not merely desire to acquire the magnificent dominion of tho Pacific for herself, but for the Empire. Mr. Vogel says : "Now Zealand may earn for reluctant Great Britain, —

without committing her to. responsibilities Blie fears,—a grand Island Dominion ; may in the meanwhile save the mother country much trouble and danger and risk—the danger and risk of expenditure, which weigh so much with the rulers of Great Britain ; and when the result is secured and the commerce established, it may be recognised that New Zealand, the Colony, has done a useful work for Great Britain the Empire." Who, in the face of such splendid, irresistible evidence as this, and of numerous other conclusive proofs, will deny the spirit of the colonies, or dare to assert that they are not prepared to fulfil-all their Imperial obligations and responsibilities? It surely will not be hard to devise some method of united Imperial. action. We believe that colonial statesmanship would not prove unequal to the task. We have, greater misgivings with respect to the politicians and statesmen of the mother country, with the insularity of their views, of- which Mr. Gladstone furnishes us with such a conspicuous example. ■