DOMINION OF THE PACIFIC

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3030, 17 March 1917, Page 6

DOMINION OF THE PACIFIC

TO LINK lIP OCEANIA.

Before the Overseas Club's bran'ch in Christchurch a few evenings ago, Mr. J. B. Clarkson spoko on the advisability of Imperial action being taken to bring about a federation of all the islands of the Southern Pacific, embracing all those sub-tropical and equatorial groups which are now under the British flag, or which'may shortly coma in, such as Fiji (a Crown colony), Samoan (enemy territory in our possession), tho Tongan Group, the Cook Islands, and the more distant Solomons. Mr. Clarkson put forth as his reasons for a separate island self-governing "Dominion of the Pacific," the needs for the centralisation of tTie control of these scattered possessions, the latent possibilities of trade with and between the various island groups, and the building up of a people that will as time goes on become of service to the Empire. Mr. Clarkson remarked that Crown colonies had not been successful, and that antiquated form of government must give way to representative government, untrammelled by officialism in Downing Street, and oarried on in the manner best suited to the conditions of the South Pacific Islands. . Ho pointed out that the time •is peculiarly appropriate for the consideration of such a proposal. _ At present New Zealand is in war-time possession of the whole of Samoa, with the exception of TJpolu. whore America holds the harbour of Pago. Pago, and a restricted area of country round it. Tonga was already a British Protectorate, and might welcome the change proposed, whilst there wer« vast fields for pioneering work in New Guinea, and the Solomons. In summing up, Mr. Clarkson said that England had a very large tract of valuable country divided up into of islands, which were not progressive as the British understood progress, but which could possibly be made so by tho formation of a condominion, with sane ideas and a complete understanding of the many peoples to be co-ordinated and welded into a new and valued unit in the Empire.