EXTENSION OF THE EMPIRE

Kumara Times, Issue 420, 30 January 1878, Page 2

EXTENSION OF THE EMPIRE

Sir Stafford Northcote, in a speech, at Ifixeter, plainly Im r penal responsibilities,rwitht regard to' the great work of .consolidating our vast Colonial Enipirerwithp *■ the MotheriCountry. Hedid<notihesP»i tata> )to affirm- that oip-itf thiß : • would' i depend the 1 greatness and continued' prosperity of the whole Empire. Butlte''". deprecated any further extension of its' physical limits* Too : many' new ories have W truth, • been added to ! it; and we: have enough to do tdidniinibter ( ' successfully Fiji, the Transkeij.anathe Transvaal. little.hop&therefore bf any imipjdiate annexion, of the/New i ,< Hebrides, a group of Polynesian Islands not far : froni iFjji,j have! jujt? ; oflfci eti to range themselves onder the Britiih flag. The New Hebrides are sail to; be fertile, [and its natives are | fairly civilised,,feeing already, emjbral ... .ced the cliinate is hot, ' but healthy, .and the islands abound in harbor*; '. These are'decided advantages, of hut' hardly all snfficent. A more toiigent reason ftjrannexAtion would be to prevent the establishment of a ,-French'penal''settlement on the New | Hebrides, these islands temptingly 'close, to Mew Caledonia. , TfoW further / ; impurtition of the convict elemeiitjpifc&i the Polynesian sens would, certitraly^t''' ;no toon to the uativex, but there are afc present no suspicions that the French authority mean to do an/ibiug of the kind. ... ■■■;-.>.; •■•-