HOTLY ATTACKED.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11883, 20 January 1914, Page 5

HOTLY ATTACKED.

NEW HEBRIDES PRESBYTERIANS.

REPLY TO MISSIONARIES.

Prtsi Association—Electric Telegraph—Copyright. SYDNEY, Monday.

The Presbyterian missionaries of tho New Hebrides are hotly attacked by Mr M. R. Laussel in "La France Australie," published at Noumea, New Caledonia. He says:

"To ruin French colonisation by every possible means, and remain solo masters of the archipelago is the aim of the heads of these Presbyterian movements. The Rev. Messrs Gillam and Paton, their efforts having failed miserably, in these islands before the firmness shown by the colonists and the growing .contempt of the natives, now try to make their cause a national one. People are assisting in the odd and unexpected spectacle of a nation in the process of formation, which does not succeed in colonising its own territory, crying noisily for the annexation of a few islands without taking the opinion of the colonists installed there."

Replying to Mr Glynn's (Federal Minister of External Affairs) eulogy of the Presbyterian missionaries, Mr Lavs sel says that the Presbyterians' religion is the only means of gaining the confidence, respect, and, above all, tho natives' money. For sixty years they had regularly brought the New Hebrides into contempt of all justice and all molality by their excesses, and this is borne out by the indignant protests of the colonists. v

"Reduced to slavery in their school?, and dispossessed of all his property, tho unhappy Kanaka is obliged to work for a master whom he detests and fears. Fatly paid comfortably housed, visited by Burns-Philp vessels, the Presbyterians should be able to do useful and durable work. In the southern group, where they are the sole masters, one finds only misery and ruin. Tho immorality among the Kanakas is frightful. On the other hand, tho Catholic missionaries have gained the esteem and affection of tho colonists and the natives. "

For a long time past there has been an undercurrent of hostility between the French colonists on the one side and certain missionary interests on the other. As long ago as August, 1910, M. Colonna, the Doputy French Resident at the New Hebrides Group, which is jointly administered by Great Britain and France, in welcoming M. Martin, who was then recently appointed to replace M. Nouffiard as French Resident, declared it was fortunate that M. Martin had been appointed to the head of affairs, because the situation was grave, and there was a struggle taking place between the settlers and the Presbyterian missionaries. M. Colonna added: "We must unite against these missionaries, and, if necessary, start a Holy War." M. Bourdois Mayor of Vila, said he thought the pretext under which the missionaries work was false philanthropy. They were able to act in all security, he might almost say with the protection of tho Governments. "It is time," he continued, "to unmask these so-called men of God, who pursue the ruin of their fellow-men under the guise of preaching to tho natives. They are not only enemies to colonisation, but are acainst the work of civilisation, by preventing natives and Europeans coming together. We ask the natives to be free to work with us. " On the other hand the missionaries, led by the Bishop of Melanesia, formulate grave charges of lax administration, and all sorts of irregularities— buying of native women, illicit liquor traffic, and slave conditions of employment. These charges have recently been revived by Mr Gillam and Mr Paton, who urge the early abolition of the Condominium.