CONFEDERATION AND ANNEXATION. NEW HEBRIDES GROUP AND FRENCH CONVICTS.

Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1884 Session I, A-03f

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1884. NEW ZEALAND.

CONFEDERATION AND ANNEXATION. NEW HEBRIDES GROUP AND FRENCH CONVICTS.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

The Eev. A. J. Campbell (First Convener of the Heathen Mission Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria) to the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone.* " If I can only make them see the facts, I do not think there need be any fear as to the result."— Rev. J. MeKenzie, British Commissioner, JDechuanaland. To the Eight Hon. W. B. Gladstone, Premier of Great Britain and Ireland. Will you allow a stranger from the antipodes to go with you into the quietness of your chamber, and to put before you, as a Christian statesman, the case of the New Hebrides from a Christian point of view ? Our Colonial Governments have asked you to annex these and other Polynesian Islands to the British Empire; but it appears that, so far as the New Hebrides are concerned, you are not free. You are fettered by an understanding with the French that both nations shall respect their independence. Then, what is to be done ? One of my favourite maxims in the conduct of this world's affairs is, that whatever thing a man or a nation may be called to do, there always is at least one right way of doing it. I believe that there is a right way for the British Government to deal with this case; and, if you will accept the construction which I shall put upon your understanding with the French, I think that I shall be able to show that the demands of the colonies, and the difficulties of the situation, can be met in no better way than just by giving such effect to that understanding as the very peculiar circumstancea of the case require. 11. The grounds upon which our Colonial Governments urge that the New Hebrides should be brought under British control, and placed in definite relation to Australasia, are not the creations of their own brains: neither are they the offspring of a lust for territorial enlargement; much less do they proceed from a desire to secure these islands as a hunting-ground for the labour traffic. They rest, in the first place, upon the way in which God has shaped this portion of the earth— placing this continent in lonely possession of the south-eastern hemisphere, and studding the ocean to the left and to the north of it with innumerable clusters of islands. And they rest, in the second place, upon that marvellous course of events, shaped by the same Divine hand, which has brought a few'thousand persons from the uttermost bounds of the earth to this land, and has spread them over the empty face of it—a man to a mile—and has greatly prospered them, and has inspired them with the ambition of becoming a strong nation : not altogether for selfish reasons, but that, in the name of God and of their gracious Queen, they may keep the peace of the world throughout this wide dominion of the sea, which covers more than a quarter of the area of the globe, and has for its stable centre no other seat of power but this. But now, inasmuch as these grounds have a Divine root in them, you will not think that I am wandering from my point of view (the Christian one) if I put them before you by way of introduction. I confine myself, of course, to the New Hebrides. 1. The first ground is the proximity of these islands to Australasia. They are within 900 miles of New Zealand, and 1,200 miles of the Australian coasts. To you, Sir, this may seem a very long way indeed. But compare the bulk of Australia with the bulk of Scotland, and you will find that the New Hebrides are proportionately nearer Australia than the Old Hebrides are to Scotland. , 2, The second ground is their position m the great highway of our ships, and those of New Zealand, on the American, Chinese, and Japanese routes. As ports of call, coaling-stations, and harbours of refuge, it is of great importance that these islands should be in our hands. From that point of view, they are of no infportance whatever to France.

*. _____ II ... - — * Reprinted from the Melbourne Telegraph.

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3. Auckland and Dunedin, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, and Melbourne—all British cities—are the natural commercial ports of the New Hebrides. No other nation can carry on such a mutuallybenoficial trade with them as we can do—as we are even now doing. 4. With a sea-board of 7,000 miles (equal to a diameter of the globe), we are bound to develop a sea-loving and sea-going population. It may be true that at present our colonial boys don't bend that way. I don't wonder. The conditions of life are made very easy for them on the land. Fathers don't hold the rod of authority over them:, scheolmasters daren't. And to be a larrikin and buffet the police is a much more, heroic tiling in tli"eir"eyes than to be a sailor-boy and buffet the waves. But this must be brought to an end.;: And, as we shall certainly degenerate from the true British type if we neglect that part of man's rule and conquest, you will do us a national service, and will encourage maritime enterprise among us, if you enlarge our outlying interests, and put us into some permanent relation with these islands. 5. In times of war, the New Hebrides, if in the hands of a hostile Power, would be a source of great danger to the Pijis on the one side, and to Australia on the other. The enemy's ships would sweep the seas of our merchantmen, while her marauding bands (of convicts, probably) would be let loose upon our defenceless coasts. So obvious and threatening is this danger felt to be, that all thoughtful men among us believe that in some way (they don't know how) these islands must pass under the virtual control of British Australasia. " Can any one doubt," asked the venerable representative of New Zealand at the recent Convention, " that our sons, in some future generation, shall be the rulers of these southern seas ? " These are the general grounds upon which our statesmen urge the annexation of the New Hebrides to Britain. But there remains that specific ground which has recently emerged in French legislation —whose root is by no means a Divine one, but a very devilish one —and which, if it stood alone, would have compelled the immediate and energetic interference of the British Government. Let us not be charged with hard-heartedness because we have set up such a strong front of resistance against the coming of the French recidivistes. GoC. knows how we do pity that wretched portion of our fellow-creatures who bear that dreadful brand. And if the French Government had been yearning over their lost children, and if, believing in the adage, "In sole et sale omnia existunt," they had been anxious to try the recuperative power of the sunshine and the sea-air of these fair islands, we might have sympathized in the experiment, even while we predicted its failure. But when it is confessed by the French Press that New Caledonia is not to be used as a reformatory for recidivistes, with restraint and moral discipline, and Christian appliances, but is to be a mere receiving-house, into which month by month that stream of human corruption is to be poured, and from which it is to be allowed to flow away wherever it pleases, is it any wonder that a great cry should have gone up to Heaven against the perpetration of such an unheard-of outrage ? The fact is, the cry would have been immensely greater, if the whole thing had not seemed to many persons so impossible ag to be altogether incredible, and utterly untrue. In.the New Hebrides, however, it is believed to be undoubtedly true; and the thought of it has cast a chill of terror over those brave men who are doing your work and mine, and the work of the Christian Church, in these islands. Upon them the first blow of this calamity will fall. For the New Hebrides lie alongside New Caledonia (within a day and a-half's sail), and, being more or less civilized, will offer safe and inviting cover to the French vagabondage. The first wave that leaves New Caledonia will flow upon these shores, carrying the contagions of vice with it, and spreading desolation over the fields that are rapidly whitening to the harvest. 111. Now, therefore, let me tell you in a few words the story of the New Hebrides. In 160G, Don Quiros, the Spanish explorer, landed upon one of the northern islands of the group, which still bears the name he gave it, " Espiritu Santo." He was enchanted with his discovery. "It eclipsed that of America," he said. He founded a city, the New Jerusalem, at the mouth of a river which he called the Jordan, and appointed alcaldes, ministers of justice, and other Pioyal officers for the infant city. Of all of whom, however, Cook could find no remains—no trace, even, of the New Jerusalem—when he visited the islands, in 1770. He gave the group its Scottish name, but whether or not he planted the British flag upon it I cannot say. The first missionary visit was paid to the New Hebrides by John Williams in 1839. He placed native teachers upon Tanna, and then sailed for Erromanga, where ho was murdered. During the nine years following, the islands received occasional visits from the London Missionaries, and additional teachers were introduced. But they made little way: indeed, go hopeless did the work become, that it was resolved in 1847 to withdraw the teachers and abandon it. But no man likes to beat a retreat; and, one of the teachers having expressed a willingness to remain on Aneityeum, it was resolved to give it another chance. Thus the door was kept open. And in the meantime, God was preparing a man to enter it. John Geddie had come from Nova Scotia to Samoa, and was waiting there for his marching orders. "I will go to that hopelesslooking field," he said, and he went. It was a tremendous peril. W Then he landed on Aneityeum (28th May, 1848), with his young wife and two little children, lie landed among a race of maneating savages, and there was not another white man or woman within a thousand miles of them. We count our British soldiers brave: will they beat the daring and nobleness of that self-sacrifice ? And God wonderfully blessed his work. Mr. Hardie (London Missionary Society), who visited Aneityeum in 1854, tells us that at that time, only six years after the commencement of the mission, 2,000 of the Natives had openly renounced heathenism and embraced Christianity, and that thirty schools were in operatfen. "The Christian party," he says, "has gained a decided ascendency all over the island; their ancient customs arc everywhere on the wane. War, cannibalism, and heathen orgies may now be reckoned among the things that were. The Natmases (little gods) are being everywhere cast away, and for eighteen months no case of strangling has occurred.'1

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Let me explain this last allusion. The condition of a people-may be gauged by their homes.. In what kind of family order do they live ? You may judge of the condition of the Aneityatnese by this fact: that they had no word-in their language for "wife." They called a married woman "Naheka," which means a slave. While her husband was fighting or feasting, she was drudging in the house or the plantation. So darkly, so heavily life pressed upon her, that it was not uncommon for the poor wretched creatures to cast themselves from some beetling rock into the sea. When a girl was married, instead of the marriage-ring being put upon her finger, the marriage-cord, was put upon her neck—a necklace which was never, removed : which might be beautified with ornament, but must, be strong enough to strangle her with when her husband died. For the Aneityamese woman was not loosed from the law of her husband by his death ; she must follow him into the other world, and be his slave for evermore. And this murder of the mother must ba done by the hands of her own son; failing him, of her own daughter. That dismal rite, Mr. Geddie, we have seen, had succeeded in utterly abolishing. Let me give one other instance of his success. When the first teachers settled in Aneityeum they found very few children in the district. The explanation was that Yakauna had killed and eaten them. He was a sacred man—a dreaded disease-maker, and a voracious cannibal. He used to lie in wait for his victims, spring upon them, and murder them. His sacred character shielded him from, reprisals, and so he went about like a ravening beast of prey. Towards the close of 1854, he mado a profession of Christianity—with what benefit to himself I do not know, but with very decided advantage to the people of the district, who declared that " now they would sleep in peace." These were the kind of devil's works which Mr. Geddie set himself to destroy, and against which his coadjutors and successors have been making victorious warfare—sometimes through dreary nights of storm and repulse, sometimes amid the favouring smiles of Heaven, until now they seem to be on the very eve of vast enlargement and a glorious harvest-day. And it is in their name, and on behalf of the Churches which they represent, that I now venture to submit a plea and a proposal. IV.—The Plea. During the last thirty-six years, the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia (now merged in that of Canada), the Beformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland (now merged in the Free Church), and the various Presbyterian Churches of Australasia, have been carrying on Christian work in the New Hebrides. Thirty European missionaries, with their wives, have been engaged in it. Of these, five have died in the islands, and five have been murdered, including Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, and the younger Gordon, who came from Nova Scotia to take his brother's empty bishopric, and fell, as his brother had fallen, under the savages' clubs. Besides these victims, eight native teachers have been killed, so that no less than eighteen persons have given themselves to death or martyrdom for the sake of these poor islanders. There are at present twelve missionaries, with their wives, at twelve different stations, and so soon as new men can be obtained, they will be planted in the yet unoccupied islands. Upon these missions, including mission houses and mission ships, we have expended over £150,000. The present expenditure is about £6,000 per annum. I admit that for this large expenditure we have nothing to show in the shape of material returns—nothing but the graves of the dead, and the grey hairs of the living. We have acquired no land beyond what was necessary for mission purposes. We have engaged in no trading speculations ; and, if the people have sent us rich gifts of arrowroot, the profits of it have been expended in providing them with the Word of God in their own tongue. Further, it may be true (as a recent visitor to the New Hebrides alleges), that the islanders have not been lifted very high in the scale of civilization. They still prefer basking in the sun to working hard, and living in huts in preference to living in big houses. It may be also true that the men have not yet grown into keen politicians, nor the women into fine creatures. These are not exactly the things which the missionaries have tried to do for them. But they have tried, and not altogether in vain, to put down their murderous propensities, and to make them truthful, honest, chaste, with some fear of God about them, and some giving of their hearts to the good. Christ. And the way in which they have tried and have succeeded in doing this was thus finely put by one of them. "Our endeavour," he says, "has been towards a life so full of kindness, uprightness, and sympathy with them, that we may be as dim lights of the glorious Light we seek to introduce." This, then, is our case. Thirty-six years ago, we annexed, not the New Hebrides Islands, but the New Hebrides Islanders, which is a much greater matter—not in the name of Britain, but in the name of Christ, which is a much greater name. We claim a prescriptive right to the possession of these people for Christ. We claim that we have a right to hold them within the lines of our Christian teaching, without molestation from any cause, or from any quarter. Especially we claim that we have a right to be protected from the atrocities of the labour-traffic on the one side and the intrusion of the French upon the other. And we claim both these things under the terms of the .understanding between the Governments of France and Britain. That understanding provides that the independence of the islands shall be respected. Wliat does that mean? Surely it means something more than that these islands will not be annexed. Surely, if there is any sense or honesty in the stipulation, it means that both nations will keep their hands off the people and off the islands— will let them alone. But, in the first place, the labour-traffic is a gross violation of that understanding. Great Britain says, " I won't take these islands," but she comes and takes the helpless islanders.* By tens and hundreds she coaxes or coerces them into her labour ships —bribes and buys them ; seizes or sinks their canoes, and catches the natives in the water, and shoots them if they try to. escape. Shoots above them—that is what is ordered; shoots at them —that is what is

* I say she does it, because Queensland and Fiji are portions of the British Empire, and are governed by laws passed by, or with the consent of, the British Sovereign.

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done. Then she huddles them into the ship's narrow hold —a mass of naked humanity, chiefly men, with a sprinkling of women, however, and with indescribable results : treats them humanely or cruelly, as the case may be, and, if they live out their three years' bondage (their death-rate is five times that of the white population), sends them with £18 worth of tobacco, hatchets, muskets, and gunpowder back to their own islands, where their friends, according to island custom, immediately relieve them of all the fruits of their toil: or, if it is inconvenient to send them to their own islands, lands them on some neighbouring island, occupied probably by a hostile tribe, who fall upon them, rob, and murder them. Ido not say that all. the labourers are obtained in this wicked way ; but I affirm, and am ready to prove, that at least one-half erf them are. We are told, " These things—some of them, sometimes —may be done ; but they are notoriously illegal." That does not mend the matter. The trade, which is inherently and necessarily bad, is legal. " Yes; but under severe restraint"—which no one regards—" and heavy penalties" —which are not, cannot be enforced, if the trade is to be continued in existence. The first principle of it is, " Black labour must be procured." The second, "It must be procured honestly. There must be no force or fraud, no bartering, no bribery, no butchery." But these two "musts" cannot be got to work together : they are mutually destructive. The captain of a labour ship takes your license to trade, and laughs at your restrictions. "As if it were possible to get the black boys without cheating and kidnapping, and a bit of shooting now and then." The experiment was tried. A ship was put into the handa of an honest captain, who was to walk strictly within the law. It returned, lam told, after six months' cruise, with twenty boys, value £460. Another labour ship, starting about the same time, and working after the ordinary fashion, returned in three months with 173 boys, value £4,000. What is the use of passing laws, at that rate ? Then, look at the class of men who are running this trade. They are not all British sailors, but, with a few exceptions, they are all said to be—l wish I could use a gentler word—ruffians. And yet these are the men to whom is committed a duty of inconceivable delicacy and difficulty, involving the highest human rights and Divine moralities —a duty which they make no pretence of denying they can fulfil in the one part of it, only by transgressing it in the other. In like manner, and in the second place, we claim protection against the intrusion of the French. And it is surely no very extravagant construction which I ask you to put upon your understanding with them, when I ask both them and you to allow it to cover that claim. Observe, the New Hebrideans are not like our aborigines, wandering tribes. They are all landowners, with homes and holdings of their own : and you must respect their territorial rights, if you are in any true sense to respect their independence. But the French are making strenuous efforts to get a footing in these islands, with the ultimate view (who can doubt ?) of inviting a French protectorate. Take, for example, the transaction in regard to the little island of Iririki, in Pango Bay. This island had been acquired some years ago for mission purposes, but was not yet occupied. A New Caledonian company, which is said to have purchased large tracts of land in various islands, coveted it, and forced the original owners of it to re-sell it to them. Commodore Brskine investigated the matter. He found that the second price paid for it was three sovereigns, a quantity of tobacco, and a quantity of dynamite, and that the natives did not wish to take the things, but the Frenchmen threatened, if they would not, to throw them into the sea, and take possession of the island. The tobacco had, of course, been smoked, but the gold and dynamite were brought to the Commodore, and then returned to the French. He also reinstated the mission in possession—under what authority I do not know, unless he took my view of " the understanding," and held that it had been violated, and that it was his duty to restore the status quo —his duty, also, as a righteous man, to put down a piece of flagrant wrong-doing. While writing these lines, my eyes have fallen upon an article in the Nao-Caledonien of 2nd April, which discloses in bold words the aims and plans of the New Caledonian colonist. It refers to the visit of M. Cormeaux to the New Hebrides, and " the demonstration which he obtained of the importance which French interests have acquired in these places," and anticipates with evident satisfaction the impression which his report will make upon the French Government, and the necessity which it will feel itself under of abandoning its present policy, and taking possession of the whole group. It thus alludes to the coming of the recidivistes : —" These convicts, who will be for New Caledonia a veritable social danger, making it uninhabitable, have only to be diverted to the New Hebrides—to certain islands where they will be in nobody's way—where the soil returns a hundredfold," in which case, " New Caledonia may serve France for purposes of transportation for a hundred years ; otherwise it will not serve her for five." "From a political point of view," it thus sums up, " leave England to seize on the New Hebrides, and it is all over with French influence in Oceania; but with New Caledonia, the Now Hebrides, and Tahiti, the steamer route through the Panama Canal is our own—France will be mistress of Oceania." V.—The Pkoposal. Thus an extraordinary interest gathers round the question, " What is to be done with the New Hebrides?" I respectfully submit these two proposals. In the first place, let all attempts to regulate the labour-traffic be abandoned, and let it bo abolished. After due notice—so many days, or weeks, or months—let it come utterly, and for ever, to an end. There will be no real hardship. There will be eventual and permanent gain to the sugar-planters by its abolition. The moment that it has been made certain to them that that source of supply is absolutely cut off, they will turn to other and more fruitful quarters. 1. Had the Queensland aborigines been wisely handled from the first, they might have furnished a valuable contingent to the sugar-labour market. That source, however, except in a veryinconsiderable degree, is now out of the question. 2. But Chinese labour is available to an indefinite extent; and although a barrier, in the shape of a £20 poll-tax, has been imposed, a concession might be arranged for sugar-labourers. They

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might be treated as if they were (metaphorically) in bond, and pay the poll-tax only when they quitted the plantation. But even with the tax, the Chinamen would not cost more, in the first instance, than the Kanaka. It is true that he would demand bettor food and higher wages; but he would thrive much better and do much better work. 3. There can be no doubt, however, that by far the best source of supply for our planters will be found in India. The coolie trade is a well-ordered and, I believe, unobjectionable trade. In Trinidad, for example, there are 30,000 of them, permanently located, and,, kindly cared for to some extent, at least, by Christian teachers from our Scotch schools in India, sent there by the Presbyterian Church of Canada. These men settle down, I am told, to steady work. Why should not Queensland go to Calcutta and Madraa for their labourers ? And, if they will bring with them some of those highly-trained youths from our seminaries, they may depend upon it, the cost of such superintendence will repay them a hundredfold. lam all the more encouraged to press this suggestion, because I have just learned the fact (which I mention in anticipation of all possible objections) that, at this moment, there are 400 coolies on their way from the Hooghly to Fiji, and that 800 more are to follow. They are to be carried, I believe, for £4 or £5 per head; *and a coolie, let it be observed, being a British subject, can neither be excluded from Queensland by law nor handicapped with a heavy poll-tax. I have said that the sugar-planters will not suffer in the long-run. lam persuaded, from my personal knowledge of some of them, that the majority will rejoice in the transition from the Kanaka. to the coolie. For, while they do not hold themselves responsible for the evil development of the trade, the evil of it is pressing heavily upon them. They are so scatterred, however, that they cannot take united action in regard to it. But when decided action is taken ab extra, lam sure that they will thank God for it: only, while it is 1 prompt in decision, let it be considerate in execution. The Western Pacific Commissioners have not recommended the extinction of the trade. "They recommend a laborious effort, and the construction of a costly machinery, for its better regulation. But the universal opinion here is that, by how much the more strictly you regulate it, by so much the more surely you extinguish it. One is almost tempted to ask: Is that the Commissioners' policy ? Do they want to extinguish it ? But are they not taking a very roundabout and expensive way of doing it —sending so many officers to the islands to strangle this crooked thing by attempting to straighten it ? Would it not be a manlier, and infinitely cheaper, plan for you, Sir, to put a summary end to its existence ? " Two days after our deputation," wrote Charles Kingsley, " the Sewers Commission, that bane of London, awoke in the morning, and behold they were all dead men. Lord Palmerston had abolished them by one sentence the night before." If you cannot slay the labour-traffic in that peremptory way, do, Sir, take up your pen and record sentence of death against it, without mercy and without hope of reprieve. The colonies will not oppose the execution. They will applaud it. They feel deeply the wrong that is done to their good name by the deeds of blood which are enacted in that trade. They believe that it is a shameless, licentious, murderous trade, hateful to God and man. Put it on its trial in Australia and it will be doomed to-morrow. Both our leading statesmen in Victoria, Mr. Service and Mr. Graham Berry, have emphatically declared that one of the impelling causes for urging on Federation is the power which a united Australia could bring to bear in securing its extinction. In the second place, and in regard to the intrusion of the French, I am oiraid that that matter will not be so easily dealt with : at least, unless my postulate is conceded, and your bargain with the French is held to imply that you and they will let both the islands and. the islanders alone—the British taking no more of the people, and the French taking no more of their lands. I say " taking," for it is notorious that no fair value is given for them (a few pipes of tobacco, " The Vagabond" says). But even if a just price were given, and no compulsion employed (as in the case of Iririki), the people are, for the most part, incapable of making a bargain about real property. This ought to be recognized. During the next fourteen years, the full benefit of the understanding of 1878 should bo guaranteed to the New Hebrides, with this accepted interpretation of it: that the people shall be treated as minors, who can neither sell their labour to the British nor their lands to the French. Occupation (if given to a limited extent or for a limited time) should in no case be allowed to grow into ownership. A system of this kind has been set up in the Fijis—set up, however, with a rigour which may have been necessary at the outset, to check the earth-hunger of white men; but which, as it involves a strict and perpetual entail, will require to be modified if these islands are to make any social and economic progress. For this reason I have suggested that the understanding and the status quo should remain intact for fourteen years. And for this further reason : We have been at work in the New Hebrides for thirty-six years. In fourteen years, we shall have reached our jubilee. By that time, if present encouraging prospects hold good, we shall hope to have pervaded the whole group, to have emancipated the people from their savage and foul customs, and have given them some taste and relish for the truth and the mercies of God. Then, let them be declared to have reached their majority ; let them ask for annexation if they wish for it; or, if they prefer it and are fit for it, let them set up for themselves, under a general guarantee from the great Powers. Meanwhile, if these three things are done—if the labour-traffic is suppressed, and landalienation is prohibited, and "the understanding" is reduced to the terms of a definite treaty—■ neither Great Britain nor France need spend a shilling in sustaining the mutual protectorate. Neither Commissioners nor Governors are needed. " Then, who is to control their affairs? You want to keep them in the hands of your missionaries, do you? " Yes. That is exactly-what we want: and the man must be a fool who thinks that we can have any other motive for wanting that except the good of thf poor islanders. I do not ask any civil recognition of our missionaries. Ido not ask that they should be clothed with any such civil authority (for example) as was put upon Livingstone, or as was put the other day upon McKenzie. All that I ask is, that they shall be let alone, and allowed to go

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on with their work till it is finished. Although all the wisdom of French and British statesmen were concentrated upon the question, " What is to be done with the New Hebrides ? " I am persuaded they could find no better solution than that. There is floating in my memory just now the distant recollection of a story which I heard from the lips of-Peter Latrobe, who use to visit Edinburgh on behalf of the Moravian Missionary Society. He told us of a certain West India island which had been purchased by 8, Danish merchant, who, when he came to consider how he was to govern it—by magistrates, soldiers, or police—determined to govern it by Moravian Missionaries.... He placed fourteen*of them over the negro population; but the malaria cut them down —tv/elve-out of the fourteen. He then removed the people, in whole or in part, burned their plains, consuming the poisonous vegetation and converting it into magnificent top-dressing for his sugar, and then replanted it with canes, and negroes and Moravian missionaries, who now found it a healthful, and made it a happy, home. Here was a Government by missionaries instead of magistrates. It was, I believe, an eminently successful mode, as it was unquestionably a very economical one. As to the recidivistes : their coming will breed "tremendous mischief, not for Australia only, but for Britain, and, in the end, for France. The first consequence will be a very determined effort on our part to counteract the evil working of. the scheme. Whether these efforts are successful or are baffled, there will grow out of them a passionate hatred of the French, and an uncontrollable hostility to their presence in these seas; and this will lead in the end, however remote that end may be, to their expulsion from New Caledonia. Are the French so firm in their national stability— are they so girt about with friends—that they can afford to lose the friendship of Great Britain, or venture to provoke an open rupture with her ? And for what ? For the achievement of a stupendous piece of international wrong-doing. Sir, we are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves. How are the French going to fulfil that great commandment towards us? Thus—(l) They are going to give us 60,000 Frenchmen for our neighbours—not industrious peasants, whom we would welcome and seek to love, but the 60,000 worst men they have, the very dregs of French scoundreldom. (2) These men are to be put down beside us, as near as they can be put, right between Fiji and Australia; and they are to be put there—not as convicts under coercion, but as colonists, practically free. (3) As New Caledonia does not want them, and cannot sustain them, they are to bo encouraged to go to the New Hebrides, where the Caledonian Company (in the hands of Mr. Higginson) will assist them to plant sugar, cotton, coffee, &c. (4) The labour they require will not need to be imported. It is lying at their hand. The natives will do their work —unwillingly, it may be, and under terror of the lash and the revolver. But these men will not stand upon trifles ; and (5) when they are ripe for it, and when the " understanding . has become (and has been allowed by Britain to become) a hollow sham, or when England has accepted the bribe, suggested by M. Courmeaux, of being allowed to take peaceable possession of New Guinea and New Britain, then the French flag will be hoisted and the French authority established throughout the New Hebrides. And thus a French colonial empire is to be built up in the Western Pacific which shall outrun and overawe this Australian Dominion. Was ever so insane and flagitious a scheme hatched on this side of hell ? An empire whose builders and makers are to be, not heroes, but criminals—untameable in France, but whom these warm skies and freedom, and ownership of land, and power of slaves, is to convert into orderly and honest men, and from whom are to spring the founders of a great nation! You have not forgotten, Sir, the tragical story of the "Bounty"—how the mutineers perished on Pitcairn Island, one by one, by their own or their comrades' blood-stained hands, till John Adams only was left, who, finding a Bible, managed to spell his way out of his utter wretchedness to the cross of Christ, and became, in the most marvellous fashion, teacher, minister, reformer, and patriarch of the little community whose descendants are now flourishing in Now Norfolk. But what would Adams and his community have been to-day without that solitary Bible ? Now, the recidivistes are going to bring here all their wickedness and murderous passions. I doubt whether they will bring even a single Bible to give any one of them John Adams's blessed chance. Here I was about to conclude, but I find that I must advert to certain statements of M. Courmeaux, who has finished his very perfunctory tour of inspection in the islands, a,nd has assured us, through the Daily Telegraph of yesterday, 28th April— " 1. That the New Caledonians are, with a few exceptions, opposed to the transportation of the recidivistes to their colony. "2. That he is himself strongly opposed to it, and rather wishes the present convict element absorbed. " 3. But that, if possession of the New Hebrides is obtained by the French—which he thinks, as above mentioned, may be accomplished by friendly arrangement with Britain and mutual annexation—in that case, convicts might be introduced into the islands. " 4. Australia has nothing to fear from the recidivistes, as the system of precautions will be very stringent; and * "5. The number ajnd danger of escapees are greatly exaggerated by us. During the last eleven years, forty-two escapees only have reached Queensland, nearly all of whom have been captured and taken back to New Caledonia." Upon these statements I remark— , ' 1. The people of New-Caledonia, while opposed to the recidivistes coming there, are anxious that they should come to the New Hebrides. (See Neo-Galedonio?i, 2nd April.) This, Britain must prevent. 2. The very same paper which publishes M. Courmeaux's assuring figures in regard to escapees, contains the announcement i^iat, the day before, one vessel brought twelve of them from Brisbane to Sydney, en route for Noumea; and the Telegraph of this morning states that there are 247 escaped convicts known to be in the colonies at this moment, and 160 more suspected convicts, together 407.

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3. Lord Lyons, British Ambassador at Paris, has informed our Agent-General that the passage of the obnoxious Bill is certain, and that all he could extract from the French Prime Minister was a vague promise that the number would be reduced (from 60,000 to, it is understood, 23,000), a promise which persons who are presumed to know utterly discredit, and state to be impossible of fulfilment, in consequence of political combinations. Now, I ask, is it likely that M. Courmeaux's single protest will arrest the-progress or the execution of the Bill? Is it likely that the French Minister will surrender to h*3 single opinion the belief, with which, Lord Lyons says, " they are permeated,'-'that by following British precedents they may eclipse even British success ? For, strange as it may seem, they ask, with the simplicity of ignorance, " Was it not precisely in this way that the Australian colonies -.vero built up—with the same base materials, by the same foul hands? " I answer that nothing can be further from the truth. It is not possible to conceive two systems of transportation standing in more glaring contradiction to each other. Why did Britain send her convicts all the way to Australia? *Was it not to get them beyond the limits^of civilization; to put them in this great vacant land, where they could do no harm, where there was not a single nation that could be contaminated by their presence ? Then, they were placed under a stern military regime upon the one hand, and means of secular and Christian instruction were provided on the other, both of which, I must repeat, in the face of M. Courmeaux's statements, will be unprovided for in this case. Besides, in those old Draconian days, transportation was the penalty for very trifling offences. The majority of persons transported were not recidivistes. They were criminals (who used to be hanged before transportation was introduced) like the starving woman who lifted a piece of cloth from a counter, but, being observed, laid it down again, and was hanged for it; or the girl, twelve years of age, in whose bosom were found three counterfeit shillings, and who wa3 burned to death for it. Those who have read the pathetic story of "The Convict Ship," must have a lively recollection of the many cases of reformation which signalized the wise and Christian methods of the doctor who was in charge. No! this colony was not built up by convicts. God took that matter into His own hands. In the time of great industrial distress at Home, He opened the eyes of men here to the treasures that had been hidden from the foundation of the world, and brought forth at first a mighty flood,. and ever since a perennial stream, of people to these shores; of whose intelligence and industry I might say much, but shall content myself with recalling this pregnant fact, that as soon as they had acquired a kind of national personality, and had become sensible that they were now to be responsible for the shape and moral texture of their national character, they overtured the British Government to discontinue transportation to these colonies, and persisted in their opposition with an earnestness (statesmen called it obstinacy) that secured success. And yet, in the face of all these most pregnant facts, wo are told that Franco is merely following in the steps of Britain. It would ba well for her to consider how the kingdom she is about to establish as her representative in this hemisphere will compare with the kingdom which Britain has established. Which is likely to be the more prosperous ? Which the stronger ? Which house will stand the firmer ? That which is built on the rock or in the mud; that which is built up in righteousness, or that which is compounded of white men's crimes and black men's blood? Once more, then, I ask, What is to be done with the New Hebrides ? And once more, on behalf of my clients, the people who live in them, I answer that the right way is manifestly this : that the British Government shall put its foot down upon the solid facts of history which I have stated, and shall let it be clearly known to France, that there is to be no further interference with either the islands or the islanders —with either their labour or their lands—and shall also declare that if there is, or if the recidivistes in any number, or in any way, are allowed to settle on the New Hebrides, the understanding of 1878 shall be ipso facto at an end, and the islands shall be taken under a strict British protectorate. VI. But now, finally, I admit that my whole pleading hinges upon my construction of that under' standing, and to you that construction may seem to be inadmissible. I shall not dispute your judgment. But, abandoning the lower ground of diplomacy,. I shall ask you to accompany me to that higher ground which I intimated my intention of .occupying, and to look at the matter from the Christian point of view. And here I shall have your full and perfect sympathy. But I claim the sympathy of France as well. France ana1 Britain are both members of the great Christian commonwealth. To neither of them is it possible to violate the dignity of their high calling, as Christian nations, by setting up, alongside the throne of Christ, the throne of iniquity, which frameth mischief by a law. And what is the will of Christ in regard to the heathen, which all Christian nations are bound to, and the duty which they fulfil ? Is it not, that those who have the light shall spread the light till the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord ? I know that men despise these sunken savage tribes. " Why make so much ado about these poor creatures, who are dying off the face of the earth ? You can teach them, nothing—you can never make right men and women of them." And if I believed that the people of the New Hebrides were less than men—that they had no part in man's sin, and no share in Christ's salvation—if they had been exempted from His possession and excluded from our commission—l would not feel that I had any serious duty toward them. But they are under the empire of sin and death, even as we are, and they are included by special grant (Psalm ii. 8) in the kingdom $i Christ. Therefore, of whatever character or condition they may be —lovely or unlovely, -a noble race or a very contemptible one—because Christ does not despise them, I dare not: because he says, "Go to all nations, and preach the Gospel to every creature," you, and I, and all Christian men, are bound to carry on the work among the heathen till we have finished

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it; and, "while we carry it on with the one hand, we are not at liberty to counteract it with the other. It may be true that, under the destructive influences of the labour-traffic and the traders, and the diseases which they generate, and the rum, and revolvers, and dynamite which they dispense, the natives of the Now Hebrides may be dying off the face of the earth; but woe be to us if ire torture them instead of comforting them on their dying bed. And as to their incapacity to learn. They are not more stolid than our Australian aborigines, whom Kingsley, in one of his national sermons, places at the vejy bottom of the scale of humanity, "if indeed they are to be called men." And yet, a few years ago, the Government Inspector of Victoria reported that every one of the children in our aboriginal school at Eamahyuck (there were eighteen, I think) had reached the highest possible standard—a feat which was accomplished by no other school in Victoria; which shows that, if these Papuans can go down to the bottom of the scale, they have not lost the power of getting to the top of it again when they have the chance. And will you not give our poor people in the New Hebrides the chance ? The night is breaking up all round them. The beautiful light of the morning is spreading over their mountains. Never were the islands waiting so anxiously for the messengers of peace. They are stretching out their hands to you. Will you not cover them with Britain's soft, strong wing ? Now, Sir, forgive me if I have put too sharp an edge on any of my words ; and forgive me, too, for the preposterous demand which I have made upon your leisure. I am, &c. A. J. Campbell.

By Authority: Geoeqe Didsbuby, Government Printer, Wellington.—lBB4.