FRENCH OCEANIA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14339, 8 July 1914, Page 5

FRENCH OCEANIA.

AND THE RUMOURED SALE OF THE NEW HEBRIDES. Press Association—Telegraph—Copyright. Received July 8, 9,50 a.m. SYDNEY, July 8. Judge Beinfburger, of the French col onial service, cn route to New Caledonia, in aa interview said emphatically that France would never sell any of her* pcs sessions in" Oceania. On the contrary they were consolidating their colonial Empire by means of costly wifeless iustal latiou-., and the French Pacific islands were a necessary link in the chain of stations extending from Paris through these colonies. The wireless plant would have an effective range of 57UU miles. He indignantly repudiated the suggestion tha the French authorities had countenanced the sale of liquor to natives on the islands. If abuses existed in the New Hebrides or elsewhere the Government was pursuing a humane policy, and would surely suppress them. He added that there were no monetary or economic considerations at all. France could not relinquish any portion of the islands of the Pacific without staining the names of her heroic, self-sacrificing, navigators of past centuries. She could not ' stain their memory without staining the national honour. i