THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, 14th MARCH, 1902 FIJI, AND THE NEW HEB RIDES.

Southland Times, Issue 15184, 14 March 1902, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, 14th MARCH, 1902 FIJI, AND THE NEW HEB RIDES.

Tuere is at the present time some j talk and deliberation going on on the subject of Fiji and the J.ew Hebrides Islands. The former is a Crown colony, and the question is whether it should continue such or be incorporated either with Australia or with New Zealand. The population is chiefly native, the whites forming a small percentage of the whole. The natives are anxious for a change. They complain sadly of the incubus and tyranny of the situation. They are dominated by officials and made to do all manner of work, road-making and repairing, digging gardens, procuring fish, growing rice, &c, and a great variety of such labour as they are capable of, w ithout anything whatever in return, not even their food. They have sent by Mr Berkeley a petition numerously signed to be forwarded to the Home Government by our Governor here, or to be conveyed by our Premier when he goes to the Coronation, and praying that the colony may be annexed to NewZealand. The Australians think it ought to gravitate to the larger body, and are anxious to secure its trade. How it is to become a part of the Commonwealth without serious disturbance of its main industries is not very clear. Australia insists on its " all white " scheme, and the great sugar industry in Queensland must be carried on without Kanaka labour, and if it cannot it must go. Even the Japs that are employed in the pearl fishery in Torres Strait must find another place. Sugar and cotton growing are two of the largest industries in the Fijis, which are conducted almost exclusively by Malay labour, the native Fijians being entirely unfitted for the continuousness and regularity required in such labour. These natives are of the same race as the Australian natives and, like them in their ways, utterly impatient of the restraint of systematic labour of any sort. It Will take generations to accustom and reconcile them to such mode of life. They are more likely to disappear altogether before thpy learn fco run with fche current of civilisation. New Zealand, on the other hand, would not interfere with their cotton and sugar growing by any labour available. The place ia also much nearer to New Zealand than it is to Australia. We also could supply them with products such as grain more cheaply than Australia can, and receive in exchange their sugar and their coffee and their wealth of tropical fruits, which Australia can grow and is growing within its own bounds. As for theae natives coming over here like Chinamen and competing with our labourers, there is not the remotest chance of it. The only thing that would induce them to leave those shores would be the assurance that they could live in peace and comfort without any labour at all. It is not at all certain, however, that their present relation to the Empire will be altered. It is the desire of the English Government that all natives shall be treated with humanity and strict justice and with a view to the improvement of their condition, and there is no reason why that should not happen in the case of a Crown colony like Fiji, if the administration were only committed to the hands of men that could be relied on for capacity, integrity and humanity. How the Home Government will determine cannot be predicted. They will be guided by what they may judge will best contribute to the well-being and prosperity of that colony. Ifc is surmised that it may be attached to this colony as there are no obstacles on the score of race and sugar labour. The other group of islands mentioned — the New Hebrides— stands on a different footing. These islands are neither French nor English. There is a dual occupation, though not, strictly speaking, a dual protection. The natives and their interests are certainly not protected. The French have it in view to obtain, if possible, the entire control of them. By a creeping, insinuating process of occupation they are doing their utmost to obtain a preponderating hold of the land on which to found a claim for an exclusivo protectorate. They are multiplying traders and occupants of one name or another, going through some form of purchase of lands from the natives and paying them in gin or rum, gunpowder, _*c. The British traders are prohibited from selling drinks or gunpowder to the natives. The French have no scruples on that head. On a pretext of some purchase of that kind they took possession of the ground occupiad by one of our missionaries, and in his absence burnt down or otherwise destroyed the house he had erected on it. The British have expended a good deal of labour and money in trying to bring these islands under tho influence of civilisation and Christianity, and with most gratifying results, but if this Frenchifying process is to go on the labour will have been in vain, and the future of these island . will be very different from what has been hoped for. They lie near to the French New Caledonia settlement, where the French have their great penal establishment. They have made of that large aud

beautiful island a refuse beap into which they throw the dross of their home civilisation, converting the place into a centre of corruption and a social and moral nuisance in the South Pacific. France is anxious to spread her influence and power in the South Pacific as far as ever she can, and will use every effort to induce the English finally to retire from the New Hebrides. That would be a triumph, but if that cannot be achieved, to vex and thwart British efforts there is something not to be neglected even if no other advantage were to be gained As for a joint management, or even amicable co-existence within such narrow limits, they are of -a sanguine temperament that can look for it The Australians are strongly averse, as are also the people of this colony to the New Hebrides falling under, the sway of France, which would probably mean a further extension of that convictism which it will ever be the aim of Australia to see wholly and finally repelled from this side of tlie equator. The French in the New Hebrides will have to reckon with the public opinion of the Commonwealth and New Zealand, which they cannot altogether afford to despise if they hope to have a permanent place in the Southern Hemisphere. The French and English Governments are at present endeavouring to amend matters, which perhaps may result in some degree of temporary harmony, but no solution can be deemed permanent or satisfactory that does not exclude the mischief of French interference with the benfeficent process that has been so far advanced, and that cannot be without the exclusion of the French. The British Government are quite well aware of the fact, bat the petulance and tenacity of the French are nut very easy to satisfy. A similar difficulty exists in Newfoundland, and the British Government, in the existing state of her affairs, will have to be satisfied with some modwt rivent/i, pending an opportunity of having tlie interests separated in space.