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to measures of self-defence on the part of the English colonies which, in the interests of friendly intercourse, it is most important to avoid. I have, &c, Governor Sir H. B. Loch, G.C.M.G., X.C.8., &o. H. T. Holland. '*» The Marquis of Salisbuby to the Earl of Lytton. My Loed, - Foreign Office, sth January, 1888. With reference to previous correspondence on the subject of the transportation of French relapsed criminals to New Caledonia, and more especially to Lord Lyons's despatch, No. 636, of the 17th December, 1886, I transmit to you herewith a copy of a letter from the Colonial Office, communicating a telegram from the Governor of Victoria respecting the recent announcement in the newspapers that three hundred convicts have been shipped from the He de Be to New Caledonia. I have to request that you will call the earnest attention of the French Government to the matter in question, and press strongly upon their attention the certainty that legislative measures of self-defence on the part of the Australian Colonies will be the necessary result of a continuance of the present system of transportation to New Caledonia. I am, &c, Salisbury .

No. 2. The Agent-Genebal to the Peemiei:. Sib, — 7, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W., 18th April, 1888. I beg to enclose a notice which has appeared in some of the London papers announcing the raising of the British flag on the Fanning, Christmas, and Pecrhyn Islands. I have, &c, The Hon. the Premier, Wellington. F. D. Bell.

[Extract from the London Daily News of 17th April, 1888.] Bbitish Annexation in the Pacific. New York, 16th April (through Reuters Agency). Advices received here from Honolulu, dated sth instant, report that H.M.S. " Caroline" returned there on the 3rd instant from a cruise of three weeks' duration, during which time the British flag was raised on Fanning, Christmas, and Penrhyn Islands.

No. 3. The Agent-Genebal to the Pbemieu. Sir, — 7, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W., 29th June, 1888. I beg leave to enclose an article which appeared ten days ago in the Times on the partition of the Pacific islands, which I think you will read with interest; together with a leader thereon in the Times of next day. I have, &c, The Hon. the Premier, Wellington. P. D. Bell.

Enclosures. [Extract from the Times, Monday, 18th June, 1888.j The Position in the Pacific. (Feom a Coebespondent.) About three years and a half ago an article appeared in the Times on the partition of the Pacific, the latest phase of which had by that time fairly begun ; for Germany had entered the field, and her rumoured designs were causing something like consternation in our Australasian Colonies. Since then the partition has proceeded apace, and already the shadow of Europe's protecting wings hovers over nearly every island-group that decks the bosom of the greatest of the oceans. It may be useful, in view of current troubles in Australia connected with the Chinese as well as with the excessive enterprise of France, briefly to review what has been done, and to see what yet remains for the three great Powers to wrangle over. The Pacific is in a different position from Africa. On that continent annexations are reckoned by the hundred thousand square miles, and our ignorance of its resources gives room for the hope of unlimited commercial and industrial development, of the construction of transcontinental railways, and the foundation of great colonial empires. The Pacific islands have certainly commercial resources worth developing; they are capable of producing other things besides copra, their present staple, in the hands of enterprising colonists. But in this direction their value as possessions must necessarily be limited, simply because the total area of the Pacific islands is itself comparatively small. If we exclude Australasia, New Guinea, and the large islands off the coast of Asia, which are usually regarded as forming part of the Malay x\rchipelago, and those attached to the American continent, the total land-area of the Pacific islands does not exceed 45,000 square miles, with a total population of probably not more than 800,000. Still, in these days of keen commercial competition even the trade of these tiny island-groups is coveted. But there are other reasons why the three great European Powers should jealously watch each other's Pacific annexations —reasons mainly connected with naval strategy, but also not unrelated to the great change in trade-routes which must follow the inevitable piercing of the American isthmus. With the completion of the Canadian Pacific Eailway, and the prospect of the telegraphic union of the Dominion with Australia, our own stake in the Pacific becomes greater than ever.

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