NEW CALEDONIA.
We Bubj^\ l a-feifr-"J.aBBSgHsT-froiii; i al' : ;^ few; passages from a 'letter,; of t]be< 14 " Gladstone Observer's; " ; cor- >% respondent:—- ■■'■'-• ''MSH- '>':•'''. '» You want to know something fcbdut these Fronchmen, and I have very little to tell. The fact is, we haye very few Frenchmen here in business. Of course we have a crowd' of conviots, soldiers, and a few Government officials; but our business people are mostly English, . at all events not French. Mr Strokarck who was once a Gladstone man, hojpg an excellent position here, and is much liked, although he is a German. That brings me to the war. We are really . terrible. We have, like the * immortal Six Hundred,' cannon to the right of us, cannon to the left of us, and cannon . in front of us. Forts, earthworks, and nondescript floating monsters, are being ' constructed with all possible vigor. v Here, I am afraid to ask what for. What is there here worth the while of the Prussians or any other man to come so far to take? Warlike stores, a few old guns, perhaps a plant of gold coin, and some steam despatch boats, aie hardly worth the notice of cv'en a filibuster. " But for the convicts we should not want the soldiers ; but for the soldiers we should not want so much of our beef and mutton. The country, if it is ever to be , improved, will be settled by British and Germans, or Anglicised Frenchmen. The few French civilians here appear to me io be rapidly adopting the modes of thought and habits of Messieurs leg Anglais. Judging from the conversations I have had with the officers of the steamers running between here and New South Wales, the most grievous feature of the war is the neutrality regulations,, which prohibit French armed vessels remaining in British ports longer than 24 hours at one time. I have seen none of them weeping over the downfall of. Napoleon ; yet they have not imitated the Paris mob in tearing down the Imperial arms. A friend of mine, though, the other day, quietly removed the *'N" from his sign in anticipation or fear, I did not ask him which. The Au Revoir, from your port with sheep and cattle, dropped on some of us rather unexpectedly. The prices fetched, if I am correctly informed, were not enormous — not up to those fetched at Puebe, on the other side of the island by the stock wrecked in Captain Hughan's vessel. lam told the cattle averaged about £7, and the sheep about 12s.
NEW CALEDONIA.
Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3103, 20 January 1871, Page 2
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