THE NEW GUINEA FRONTIER.

Taihape Daily Times, 22 February 1918, Page 6

THE NEW GUINEA FRONTIER.

STRONG PLEA FOR UNITY.

H L. White collectIn opening the n- “ ion in the Mitchell Library in Sidney last week, the Lieutenant-Gover-nor ("Sir. William Cullen), said that within three days the State would celebrate the establishment of British government on Australian shores. Australia had grown and grown, until, only the other day, when a vote was taken in connection with the prosecution of the war, over a couple of millions of people—two and a-quarter millions, he believed —went to the polls. He respected, however, as the King’s representative always had done, and always should do, the freedom of those who exercised their undoubted political rights on all questions which were placed before them. His Excellency (reports the Herald) went on to speak of “this matter of New Guinea.” He said they had heard that there was a danger,of the future of that great possession being judged in the light of insufficient knowledge. There were those who proclaimed the doctrine of self-determination and the votes of the people to say whether there should be annexations or not, but there was one circumstance to which, he thought, sufficient attention had never been drawn. Australia was the one country in the world threatened with the curse of a land frontier with such a nation as Germany, in such circumstances as might be avoided. “New Guinea,” proceeded his Excellency, “has been left with divided authority, and, quite apart from the dangers arising from 'submarine ports on the coasts of New Guinea, and the constant threat of dangofr, there is this eternal rankling sore in front of us, of a land frontier, with a Power that can at any moment 'raise a qnar-

rel about mines, oilfields, or anything else that suits- its purpose. The idea, his Excellency said, of self-determin-ation in such a case where occupants like Germany were using every moment to secure their own prestige with the people was one that no Australian could contemplate with equanimity for a moment. They would be the dullcstwitted people on the earth if they forgot what had been brougHT to light during the last few months by the development of the war. They knew now the opinion of the German professor, as printed recently, of the young Australian manhood and womanhood. No language, apparently, was too Insulting to apply to our people, and a noted German literary man had spoken of Australians in the same strain. Germans poured their contempt upon Australian youths; nothing was too despicable evidently to suggest in connection with Australian women. The only difference between this

two men who had expressed themselves regarding Australians was that the newspaper man, to whom he referred, was a little less vulgar than the German university man. (Laughter.)