FRENCH AIMS IN THE PACIFIC.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 12 October 1901, Page 4

FRENCH AIMS IN THE PACIFIC.

(Special to the “ Pall Mall Gazette.”)

Paris. —The interest shown by the Federal Parliament of Australia in all that relates to the island groups of the Pacific is already exciting the deep distrust of the Chauvinists of the French Colonial party. M- Etienne, who seems to have become one of the most rest'ess spirits of this section has just published an alarmist artjele calling upon Franco to defend her threatened predominance in New Hebrides. After briefly tracing the history of this question up to the selfdenying ordinance by which England and France mutually bound themselves not to make any attempt against the independence of the islands, M. Etienne proceeds to argue that, from the standpoint of international law, the agreement is void, seeing that there is no sort of political, administrative, or other organisation to respect. In M, Etienne’s view, the French colony of New Caledonia can never be prosperous or even strategically safe until the New Hebrides become subject to France. Still there is the agreement with England in the way, and even so good a Chanvinist as M. Etienne shrinks from urging that it should be torn up without her consent.