"ENEMIES TO CIVILISATION."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 903, 24 August 1910, Page 5

"ENEMIES TO CIVILISATION."

FRENCH ATTACK ON MlS- •'■'.' SIONARIES.' By.Vfldeerapll—Presa Association—Copyright. Sydney, August 23. Continuing his speech of welcome to M. Martin, the new French Resident in the New Hebrides, M. Bourdbis, Mayor of Vila, said he thought the pretext under which the. missionaries work was false philanthropy. They were able to act in all security,' he might, almost say with the protection of the Governments. "It Vis time," he continued, "to unmask these so-called men of God, who 'pursue tho ruin of their fellowmen under the guise of preaching to" the natives. They are not only enemies.to colonisation, but are against the work of civilisation, by preventing natives and Europeans coming 'together. -.We ask the natives to be free to work with us."

M.. Martin said he already convinced 'that the labour question would prove the most important. Chinese were unsatisfactory, as also were Indians and Indo-Chinese. They should consider the Japanese, as they were suitable. The matter should. be placed before the authorities in France.

' MISSIONARIES DEFENDED. (By Teleffru.pii.—Pres'a Association.. ChristchuTch, August 23. Regarding the cable. messages referring to the missionaries in New Hebrides, the Rev. T. Tait, of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, states that the situation is evidently one. resolving itself fnto a difference of ideals—the ideal. of tho Christian missionary, and the ideal of the French, trader. "Our missionaries," he states, "are certainly beyond reproach, and the cabled remarks which cast reflections upon them have evidently been made in a moment of excitement. Time and again our missionaries have had trouble with the French traders, especially in the matter of supplying the natives with liquor. Our missionaries naturally, seek to safeguard tho morals of the natives, and, in doing this, they come into collision with the policy of the French traders. Had it not been for the heroic and persistent'efforts of these same missionaries the lives of tho traders, in some of the islands at least, would he unsafe."