NEW HEBRIDES.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18218, 31 October 1924, Page 11

NEW HEBRIDES.

CONDOMINIUM TROUBLES

STATEMENT BY MR MASSEY. (PEKSS ASSOriATION' TF.LXGBAM.) WELLINGTON, October 3f>. Iu the House of Representatives this after noon Mr J. M. Dickson (chairman of tho Public Petitions Committee 1 ) brought down a report, on an Auckland pot.ii.ioo concerning tho government of tho Now Hebrides. The committee recommended that the. petition bo referred to the Government for favourable consideration, and urged that the Government should communicate with tho Imperial Government. Mr Massoy sa.id France would never give up her territory. He agreed that the. Condominium. w;:s working unsatisfactorily, and said bo could not understand how Britain had .agreed to it. Perhaps it was a. counsel of despair to advocate partition, but it was the lessor of two evils, and he could we no other way out. "if it had not been for tho strenuous advocacy on the part of tho. Now Zealand and Australian representatives theso islands would have heen handed over to the French Government "bolus bolus." That would have meant disaster. Tho position in the New Hebrides was going from bad. to worse, after all tho work of tho missionaries during the past fifty years. Mr Isitt: Is there any chance, of the League of Nations doing anything to ameliorate conditions ? Mr Masse-y: If this had been mandatory territory it would have been different.

Mr Wilford: Thero is no dispute between tho two countries ?

Mr Massey: No. Ho added that, the matter looked small from Europe, but j.t was not small as far as tho natives were concerned. Britain had no more right to compel Franco to give up her territory than France had to compel Britain to do so. 'ft would be a good thing, and it was his only suggestion, that after the next Imperial Conference the Australian and New Zealand representatives should personally visit Paris and interview the French Government, in which way sonio impression might he made. There would ha vo to he compensation, but that could bo arranged either in ca&h or in territory.. It ought to be done in the interests of humanity and of the natives. The attitude of people who ought, to know better was most discouraging at the last conference.

Mr vv'ilford said there were hundreds of islands in the Pair fie just- as valuable sis the New Hebrides, aud it should bo jKWMbI© io arrango au exchange with FranceMr Holland opposed Air "Wilford's suggestion as ono which would abolish one difficulty by creating another. Tho people in the. New Hebrides were being shamefully treated, and every credit was due to tho Presbyterian Church for calling attention to tho matter. There was involved tho eternal question, thai, arose when white people, irrespective of nationality, set out to exploit lE-lands occupied by primitive ]>eople. The demoralisation of the New Hebridcs was net a whit worse tha.u the degradation of the Indians' in Fiji, and a section of the Froncli people were no -worse than a section of the British. The only real solution would be readied when wo were sufficiently developed to be able to form*a, real League of Nat ions that would bo in a position to take charge of backward islands and conserve the interests of the native jieople. Mr Wilford said bo did not suggest that the Froncli could nob manage tilings as well as tho British. Having an idea, that they could, he saw no objection of tho French talcing a.uothor island. AVhy should- dual control not bo abolished without blaming either French or British r Tho report was then tabled.