THE NEW HEBRIDES.

Waikato Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8081, 18 December 1906, Page 3

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

♦■ r A GERMAN INTRIGUE. COLONIAL OFFICE ACTION. MELBOURNE, December 1. A sensational story is current showing that Australians narrowly escaped receiving an unpleasant surprise respecting the New Hebrides early in the year when Germany or German agents almost acquired possession of several plantations with the object of enabling Government to claim equal considerations with Great Britain and France in the future control or partition of the Islands. Only prompt action by the Colonial appears to have saved the situation. The proposal to establish ft joint protectorate by Great Britain and France apparently suggested that Germany might gain another foothild in the Pacific by buying estates in the New Hebrides before the convention had been signed. The convention, when nearly completed, hung fire for several months, when it was rushed through, and signed so quickly that the Commonwealth and New Zealand could not thoroughly criticise its provisions. From what has since been learned it appears that these German designs fcrced the hands of the British and French Governments. Whilst the convention was in course of.being drawn up two strangers who concealed their nationality landed in the New Hebrides and began overtures for the purchase of estate*, offering sums much in advance of current values, but before the purchases had been concluded it whs found that the strangers were representatives of a German syndicate financed by rich men connected with the Pangerman League, if not by the German Government itself. When the news of the signing of the convention arrived these strangers quietly left the group for the Far East.