NEW GUINEA.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2244, 7 May 1881, Page 3

NEW GUINEA.

We (“Australasian”) observe with regret that an attempt is being made in Now Zealand to equip another expedition to New Guinea. The promoters were connected with the disastrous trading expedition which left Wellington some two years ago with the intention of forming a settlement in the neighborhood of Astrolabe Gulf. It says a good deal for the hopefulness of human nature that a scheme for the settlement of 20C0 men on a comparatively unknown island should be ever seriously considered after the repeated failures which have occurred during the past few years, and more especially after the crowning disaster of the New Ireland colonising expedition. The difficulties in the way of colonising a tropical country like New Guinea are not only those incidental to a climate unhealthy to Europeans, and in which they cannot safely labor. The aboriginal inhabitants are very numerous and warlike, and oven if they were subdued are quite unaccustomed to persistent labor, and as they have not yet emerged from the thraldom of the stone age, are necessarily ignorant to a degree that would prove exasperating to a more favored race. It must also be borne in mind that the old idea of New Guinea as a sort of modern Eldorado is being fast disabused. The country may be—-pro-bably is—rich in minerals; but they are quite undeveloped, and so far any miners who have prospected there have failed to establish the fact that auriferous deposits exist in payable quantities. The products of the country may become a source of great commercial wealth, but they are scattered over so large an area that their value as articles of commerce is still problematical, But, apart from these considerations, wo desire to direct attention to the warning words of one who speaks from recent experience of the grave difficulties attending any permanent European settlement in New Guinea. The Rev. George Brown, who for years has been in charge of the Wesleyan mission on Duke of York Island, and whose disinterestedness in offering advice on such a question may bo admitted, has thought it necessary to warn the public against participating in the projected Now Zealand expedition. He contends that the climate is utterly unsuited for Europeans, and wanting native labour all colonies formed in such places must necessarily fail. He unhesitatingly predicts that any scheme, the success of which depends upon the active labor of the colonists themselves in clearing the land, or upon the employment of the natives themselves, will necessarily break down. Speaking aa one who knows at least something of the difficulties and dangers of such settlements, he does not hesitate to assert that the some causes which were fatal to the Port Breton colony exist also in that part of New Guinea which is proposed for the settlement of the New Zealand party. Even if this warning be disregarded, the promoters would do well to remember the emphatic declaration that Sir Arthur Gordon addressed to the Melbourne adventurers who in 1878 contemplated the civilisation and conversion of Now Guinea natives. He warned them that if they voluntarily placed themselves in positions of danger in a savage country they did so at their own risk and peril, and could not expect the forcible support of the State, whose sheltering protection they left. We hope to hear that prudent counsels will prevail, and that for the present, at any rate, the natives of New Guinea may be allowed to enjoy their own savage independence.