THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1907. THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13846, 8 March 1907, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1907. THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.

It is by no means easy to perceive ill what way the solution lies of the problem that is presented in tlio tendency which, according to a statement that has been made before the Weslcyan Conference at Sydney, exists towards the Orientalisation of the Pacific. If the figures that were used by the Rev. Mr Burton are approximately correct, they indicate that in a period of five years tho Indian population of Fiji has nearly doubled itself. In 1901 the Indians resident in the group numbered 17,105, while the population of native Fijians was 94,397. Upon the basis of the calculation Mr Burton, lias made, that the Indian population is increasing by 3DOO and the Fijian decreasing by 2000 in. each year, it will only be a matter of a dozen years before the Indians will be as numerous in the islands as the natives. Possibly the case is less serious than .the representations that have been made on the subjcct .by Mr Burton suggest, but the fact that the Indians have established themselves in large numbers in Fiji and that they are obtaining a footing in other islands of the Pacific is incontestable. When, however, Mr Burton, in effect, asks the Australian colonies if they are not going to see this movement stopped, he propounds a question which, we fear, they are powerless to answer satisfactorily. They have no authority to interfere in the administration of islands which are under the Crown system of government, as those of Fiji are, or under the joint control of two or more nations, as those of the New Hebrides are. The most that they can constitutionally do is to direct the attention of the British Govern-

r —- . ment, -with all the force they can ■command, to the existence of such a condition of things in these groups of islands as, in their judgment, represents an undesirable and. dangerous movement. And no more favourable opportunity for impressing the minds of responsible British statesmen with a sense of the disquiet which the presence of an increasing Asiatic population in the Polynesia of the Pacific incluces in the Commonwealth can be offered than that which will be afforded at the approaching Colonial Conference at Home. It. may be reasonably ' apprehended that if the islands to the north and north-cast of Australia are to be overran by the surplus population of any portion of Asia, there is no effective guarantee that Australia- itself may not become the objective to which the immigration of tlio coloured races of the Oriental nations may ho directed. But the problem is one which 1 may prove very embarrassing to Imperial statesmen. Iu the first place it is to bo recognised that the climate of most of the islands of the Pacific renders it impossible that they can be cultivated by the white man and that they are only fitted to bo the homes of coloured raoes. And it '<' may probably bo urged also that it would be inconsistent with the policy of the Imperial Government '"' to place any restrictions upon the migration; of British Indians from their own country to other lands ■where they may be employed under conditions which will probably not involve competition on their part with white labourers. Furthermore, it may conceivably be suggested that after all it is preferable, even from the Australian point of view, that these islands should be peopled, more or less, by British Indians than that they should be the goal towards which-either Ja-pau or China might direct any portion of its teeming population. The Sydney Daily Telegraph perceives, however, in the i growth of the Indian population of tho islands a foreboding of the ini creasing imminence of "tho yellow peril." Upon the conviction that the danger that the countries of Eastern Asia may, seek to dump colonies of their people down in 1 Australia is a growing one, our contemporary points out) that white 1 settlement is not proceeding in the Commonwealth as rapidly as is ■ desirable for the .protection of the interests of the Australians themselves. At the present time, as we observed the other day, the failure on the part of Australia to ■ colonise the Northern Territory effectively has left there a door standing invitingly open to the Japanese and Chinese, separated from it by only a few days' sail. As a matter of fact, according to some authorities, the white population in that portion of the Australian continent, is now outnumbered by the Chinese to the extent of nearly five to one. It is high time, in view of all the circumstances, that the territory was removed from , out of the control of South Australia, which, as the Sydney Morning Herald says, has not been able in the course of thirty-five years to plant sufficient people iu it to make out anything like a presentable case for effective occupation, and that the Federal Government should take the area within its jurisdiction, with the object of its being settled and rendered less vulnerable to attack "by either a peaceful or a hostile force of invaders. The fact that an area of half a million square, miles of land lies temptingly unoccupied in that part of the Commonwealth which faces exactly in the direction where danger is most likely, to arise constitutes the chief menace to the safety of Australia.. Aud it is unquestionably a grave menace. The Federal authorities cannot well disregard' the existence of the peril to which in this respect the Coinmon--1 wealth is exposed. The , Sydney Daily Telegraph emphasises the argument that it is by white settlement only that Australia can be saved from au experience of being over-run, similar to that which, according to Mr Burton, tho Pacifio islands are now suffering. White settlement to any sensible extent, however, can only be effected. ; through immigration. Unfortunately the Labour party, which is the most influential of all tho parties in Federal politics,, is unfavourable to immigration. It is to be hoped, however, that, with a due appreciation of tho importance of the issues that are involved, ■• this party may take a broad view of the requirements of the case in tho Northern Territory and that it may unite with all patriotic Aus--1 tralians in providing the only means ( that can be effectively employed to ' preserve that large tract of waste but cultivable land for a white popu- ! lation.