49

A.—4

It is not necessary to do more than to examine a chart of the Pacific to recognize at once what an immense area of land, the most productive, and at the same time most healthful, of any which is to be found on the face of the earth, is represented by those great islands of the South Sea with which our navigators are most intimately acquainted, and inhabited by people whose customs, wants, habits of thought and action, as well as iangirage, are closely analogous, and in some cases identical, with those of the aborigines of our adopted country of New Zealand_._ This resemblance""gives us, in dealing with them, immeasurably the start of the Australias, or any '"other people of the world, from our extensive experience of the peculiarities of their race. These islands are represented by Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, Tongataboo, Vavao, Savaii, Upolo, Tutuila, Tahiti, Eaiatea, Huahine, Nukuhiva, Fatoahiva, Hivaoa, as well as their intermediate isles, very many of which are of considerable size. We say nothing of New Caledonia, which, although subject to France, is open to our commerce. There are also the New Hebrides and Santa Cruz groups, among which are to be found great lands— Edens of beauty and fertility. Some of the South Sea islands which lie on the route between New Zealand and the Isthmus of Darien (the natural gate of the Pacific), and Are within easy sailing distance of Auckland, are unsurpassed for salubrity and productiveness, being favoured with so delightful a climate as to possess a cool and bracing atmosphere combined with all the fertility of the torrid zone. There cotton, coffee, tea, sugar-cane, arrowroot, vanilla, tobacco, opium, ginger, as well as an infinity of valuable indigenous products, can be cultivated successfully side by side with the vegetables of Europe. Such are the beautiful islands of the Austral and the principal ones of the Hervey group. Some of them are as much as thirty miles in circuit, and consist of lofty hills of volcanic debris, sloping down on all sides to the shore. They are clothed to the summit with the most gorgeous vegetation, groves of palm, orange, lime, coffee, candle-nut., and banana, which grow spontaneously ; their valleys are of deep rich soil, watered by abundant streams; they have harbours, and forests of useful timber. Their inhabitants are amiable and highly intelligent, a people who could, by encouragement and wise example, be rendered prosperous, insomuch as they exhibit considerable aptitude in the mechanical arts and a desire for the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, but who chiefly exist at present in a condition of lamentable indolence, their time being in a great measure divided between the endeavour to render themselves eligible for the office of mission teachers (an ambition which has become with them a mania), and the preparation and consumption •of intoxicating drinks. Such islands as these, lying in the midst of what will shortly become one of the highways of Pacific navigation, and presenting as they do such extraordinary inducements to profitable settlement, must inevitably, before long, either by purchase or conquest, pass into the possession of commercial speculators. In addition to these are the innumerable low coral isles which are scattered over the face of the whole South Sea, many of them "at present seldom or never visited by trading ships, and yet so intrinsically valuable that, had they been located in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, every one of them, would, have constituted before now a bone of contention, between the great maritime Powers of the Old World. ' As a proof of this, have there not been, serious political troubles in the past and down to our own day concerning the possession of the coral banks of Messina, the amber-dredgmg grounds of the Baltic coasts, the cod fisheries of Newfoundland? Many of these islands, in some cases without inhabitants, in others occupied by small communities of indolent barbarians, teem with products infinitely more valuable (from the quantity in which they are obtainable) than those of which we have just made mention. So much is this the fact that in many instances a square mile of them is even now (or can, at a trifling outlay, be within ten years rendered) worth more than the salary of a colonial Governor. When this fact comes to be generally known, it is not too much to say that at some not far distant time there will be a greedy scramble for their possession between all those cities of the Southern Hemisphere which support a mercantile marine ; and very lively will be the lamentations, and enduring chagrin, of those who shall have allowed to escape them the golden opportunity now so easily within their reach. Men having a thorough practical experience of the Pacific trade will recognize the truth of this assertion, but it is not to be expected that the general public can understand it without demonstration. Figures, however, provide a mode of argument which goes straight home to the comprehension of men of business, and furnish incontrovertible proof. In the matter of indigenous products, requiring neither cultivation nor process of manufacture, we may cite as a notable instance the article pearl-oyster shell, the demand for which has in Europe, within the past four years, 'assumed an unprecedented activity, for the reason of there having been discovered certain processes whereby it is now devoted to purposes previously unknown. The extraordinary profits which have attended the operations of Captain Cadell and other pearl-fishers on the coasts of North Australia for some time past, until their labour supplies were interfered with by the Government, has been a subject of remark in commercial circles. The same shell exists in vast quantities in various localities of the South Pacific, under more favourable conditions, inasmuch as the divers are obtainable on the spot or in the neighbourhood, with the additional advantage that the food they require is produced spontaneously on the scene of their labours, thus doing away with the necessity of transporting men from long distances, and having to supply them with the means of subsistence. It is enough to say that during many years past men accustomed to this trade have been in the habit of collecting shell and disposing of it to such vessels as might chance to visit them, at prices ranging from £12 to £20 per ton, considering themselves well paid; whereas, at the latest quotations, the market value in Europe varies from £80 to £150, and there are rumours of even much higher figures. It has been reported that South Sea shell is of an inferior quality to that of North Australia, Manila, or Ceylon. This is not really the ease, but it is quite true that some years ago Tahitian (the name by which South Sea shell has been usually known) became greatly depreciated in the European market in consequence of the merchants of that j }]ace having foolishly persisted in 7—A. 4,

..—Trade and trading arrangements: Mr. Sterndale.