THE NEW HEBRIDES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19201, 18 June 1924, Page 6

THE NEW HEBRIDES

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. REDUCED TO A FARCE. Preis Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. SYDNEY, June 17. Speaking of the effects of the condominium in the New Hebrides, in referring to the joint court established under trie convention, the Rev. E. Raff, who recently returned from Vila, said the composition of the court was of a fantastic nature. Besides French and British judges, there was a president appointed by the King of Spain, who also appointed tho Public Prosecutor. Neither of these officers could be a British or a French subject. When Mr Ralf went to the Islands in 1917 the president, a Spaniard, was on leave in Spain, and ho was still there. He had not visited tho islands for more than seven years, so the presidency was being carried on by the Public Prosecutor, a Dutchman, whose duties in turn were performed by the registrar, a Belgian. One of the principal duties entrusted to this court, continued Mr Raff, was the settlement of land claims, which the court was preparing to hear at the outbreak of the Great War; but business had been suspended owing to the absence on active service of many of the claimants and witnesses. Although the war had ended in 1918, no laud claims had so far been heard. It was common report that the French Government had forbidden the court to do so. Mr Raff also charged the French Administration with failure to collect fines imposed on French subjects for breaches of the recruitment and grog laws. Ho said the court had no power to function in purely native affairs unless the natives asked for arbitration. Its cumbrous mode of operation and the opposition ol the French Government made all attempts to administer the law and justice abortive. (