The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 1911. AFFAIRS IN NEW HEBRIDES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7872, 7 August 1911, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 1911. AFFAIRS IN NEW HEBRIDES

French officials in the New Hebrides seem to have peculiar ideas of what constitutes smoothness in Island life. Tho French Resident Commissioner in that group on his visit to Sydney on Friday reported that affairs in the New Hebrides were “ going on smoothly,” and that there was no friction. Yet tho very same cable message conveying this news also brings intelligence (published in to-day’s issue) of a cannibal outrage on tho island of Maewo, said to have been due to the kidnapping of natives by tho French. A few days ago wo were informed from Sydney that a chief, known by the comic opera name of “ Thingeroo,” had sworn to exterminate all whites and friendly natives in the island of Espiritu Santo, and had already made a start by killing eight people. This Maewo affair is reminiscent of the “ blackbirding ” trade of the seventies and eighties, when violent and fraduleut kidnapping of natives and murderous retaliation on the whites were matters of constant occurrence. It indicates that many of the New Hebrideans, lilco the Solomon Islanders, are still as savage and untamable as they were in the days of Alvaro do Mendana, Quiros, Cook, and La Perouse. In spite of missionaries and trade goods and rifles and rum and other blessings of civilisation they are cannibals still. In this latest instance a number of natives who had been recruited at the island murdered and ate tho two white men of the small French vessel which obtained them, and also slaughtered the native crew; “ Kidnapping is given as the cause of the outrage.” The history of the New Hebrides since the time white men first went there to trade—in the old sandalwood days—is a record of similar tragedies—-boats cut off, white and native sailors oaten, even ships captured and all their crews destroyed. New Zealand vessels frequently suffered. For instance, in 1879 the mate and three of the crew of the Auckland schooner Agnes Donald were cut off and billed at the island of Aragh, which is close to Maewo. That was in tho years when scores of colonial craft were engaged in recruiting Melanesian labour for the Queensland and Fiji sugar and cotton plantations. No doubt the next step will be simple enough. A British or a French man-of-war will run over to little Maewo (Aurora is its chart name), fire a few shells into the bush, land a party of bluejackets and marines, kill a few pigs, and set fire to the native huts. But as the Maewo cannibals will be safely hidden in the jungle on the hills the satisfaction in this form of “ utn ” will be small. The whole system of government, or rather nongovernment, in the New Hebrides at present is most defective and unsatisfactory. The dual method of control, by concerted action between tho English and the .French authorities, doesn’t work out at all well. British subjects and French are under two different sets of law. Britishers axe forbidden to trade firearms and liquor to the natives; Frenchmen are under no such restriction. French vessels, again, recruiting Kanaka labour for New Caledonia for the plantations in the more civilised islands of the New Hebrides, are permitted to carry on their work in any way most convenient to them, irrespective of the rights of the natives. It is little wonder, therefore, that reprisals are frequent, and that the Melanesians are not always particular whether they avenge themselves upon the guilty or the innocent. The present faulty system of control over the group cannot be carried on much longer. Traders, missionaries, and natives axe alike dissatisfied. Australia is more closely interested In the group than we are just now, for Sydney has most of the British trading interests in those troubled islands. But an attempt is now being made in Auckland to revive trade between that port and tho New Hebrides by way of Norfolk Island, and a steamer is to be placed in the running. Thirty years ago or so many an Auckland schooner laid a course northwards for tho New Hebrides as soon as they cleared the Hauraki Gulf, and it is quite possible New Zealand may yet again have considerable trade with the group. In the meantime, it is desirable in the interests of all British colonies in this part of the Pacific that there should be a more stable and

effective form of government in the Now Hebrides —preferably wholly British. It was understood that Sir Joseph Ward intended to discuss the matter with the Foreign Office in London, so we may perhaps hear very soon what the result of that discussion