AFFAIRS IN NEW CALEDONIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 4

AFFAIRS IN NEW CALEDONIA.

A'COUNTRY OF FACTIONS. THE JAPANESE QUESTION. A well-known scientist who recently spent some weeks in New Caledonia on his way to London sends some esting notes regarding the position of affairs there. "At present," he writes, " the place seems to me to be a veritable hotbed of political intrigue. There are two parties —the one dominated by the Governor (M. Richard), the other controlled by 'La Societe de Nickel,' the rich and powerful mining company that owns the best nickel minre of the country. The two are deadly enemies. The Catholic Church sides sometimes with the one and sometimes with the other, and there a>re all sorts of side factions, etc., which would seem absurd did one not realise that it is such a small commundtv. There are all told only about 20,000 freed men in the colony, and the number is decreasing. Surely there never was .a more strenuous population. In the mines •->.ne sees a melange of Javanese, Japanese, Chinese, Tonkinese, kanakas (of all varieties), Arabs, Hindoos, convicts, etc. I am convinced there is absolutely nothing iii the Japanese scare. Everyone in Noumea shrieks with laughter at the articles thereon in the Australian and New Zealand newspapers. There are .said t:> be less than 1500 all told in the colony, as against at least six tiVias as many some years ago. I travelled by motor, trap, and horseback from Noumea riant along the west coast of the island, and saw in tlie very sparsely-populated country the mines, coffee plantations, etc., and was surprised to see how few are the Japs. Most of them are at Thao, the chief mine of the Societe de Nickel, on the east coast. Many of the New Caledonians—not kanakas, but freed French or immigrants—told me that they would like to be under our ftasr, or at least that the country would prosper much better under it. You know, of course, that a few years ago a petition to request the annexation of the island by England was signed by nearly every citizen of importance in Noumea. The great part of the island is very barren and mountainous, fit only for mining. There is no doubt if we owned it that we could make much of the abundant mineral wealth — nickel, cobalt, chrome, copper, gold, silver, etc."