HOW PRANCE GOT NEW CALEDONIA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1297, 24 July 1886, Page 3

HOW PRANCE GOT NEW CALEDONIA.

(Melbourne Age )

Although Australia may feel huni- I Hated by tha action of <h * Imperial Go ▼eminent In relation to France and the I Naw Hebrides, it may perhaps find ■ mething to admire in the conduct of I great Britain *hen France annexed New Caledonia, whence the Dives and I Magellan haro now shaped a course for I the islands above referred to. New Cale- I donia—as perhaps 'very few of us V- ow, I while diseasing this last compl'catlon—discovered by Captain Cock In 1V74, was so named because of its resemblance, in I hla view, to Scotland. It was duly tiken possession of by him for George the I Third. D war at one time I”- I eluded in the commission of ths Governor of New South Wales, and afterwards in that of Sir Qeosge 1 Grey as Governor of New Zealand. In j 1854 the French took possession a period I when France snd England ware in a joint I festive snl fighting mood and th* French j alliance had to be maintained. Hearing that military barracks, Ac., Ac., were being I erected preparatory to their occupation by I a French force, Sir George Grey went I down and informed the French admiral J that New CVedonia wa« British territory. Possibly the French admiral j thought that as England had snapped I up New Zealand, which Franca had well J nigh annexed, the New Caledonia affair 1 might not much matter ; at any rate he would not go, and when Sir «enrg« Grey reoorted the case to the Colonial Office his commit! on was cancelled, so fa' as concerned New C. ladonl?. To bo sure, the Australasian Colonies have since sprang up into a vigour and I vitality unknown in the last generation, bat if they will only bo good enough to remember that— if in a lesser degree—their interests, which they nsturally think should be regarded as paramount, may very possibly be auboidinated to considerations of European importance—(as in 1854, when France might have annexed the New Hebrides as well as New Caledonia without challenge or question, seeing that her alliance whatever it may be now, was then indispensable, whatevethe price paid) - much vexUion of spirit may be spared. New Ca’cdonia was a British possession to a’l intents and purposes : nevertheless, it was abandoned wUh tha usual re mt, as we now pie to those who make unreasonable concessions in order to concilia'e political

flier,dship. As to the “ understanding,” we night know by ihis time that diplomatic understandings, declarations, conventions, even treat io*. art j meant to be binding only eo long as they are not burdensome,,