UNREST IN NEW CALEDONIA

Southland Times, Issue 24234, 18 September 1940, Page 6

UNREST IN NEW CALEDONIA

PEOPLE WANT UNITY WITH BRITAIN

WORK OF DE GAULLE COMMITTEES

(United Press Association)

AUCKLAND, September 17. “I am convinced there will be trouble and revolution in New Caledonia if the present situation persists,” was a statement made by one of the passengers who arrived at Auckland on Monday by the American clipper. “De Gaulle committees continue to work actively for unity with Great Britain and for trade with New Zealand and Australia in which they consider their salvation lies.”

Of the white population of 15,000, he said, 90 per cent, supported General de Gaulle. The remaining 10 per cent., consisting of 20 members of the ConseilGeneral, which governed the island, and of public officials known as functionnaires, who were sent _ out from France, adhered to the Petain Government. They strongly resented the Administration obeying orders from Vichy, which 90 per cent, regarded as dictated by Germany. One of these orders had been that all nickel production and other merchandise should be sold to Japan and this, of all the orders received, had most inflamed the people. As a result of their actions, one of which was a direct refusal to obey an order, the acting Governor, Colonel Denis, had warned the de Gaulle committees about their behaviour.

The visitor mentioned rumoured insubordination in the French sloop Dumont d’Urville, which Colonel Denis was reported to have denied. The denial was published in the newspaper La France Australe last Saturday. It was no use, he said, making such a denial; there had been insubordination by a large number of ratings sympathetic to the de Gaulle committees. They had interfered with the sloop’s engines. Some of the natives had already been involved in a struggle between the rival factions. A very small religious group had clashed with the representatives of the chief religion on the island and seven natives were known to have been killed.

The object of the de Gaulle committees, he continued, was to support the Allies with man-power or any other means to secure the island from foreign dictation or interference and to trade with Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

The blockade by the British Navy of the French coast had completely disrupted the country’s important nickel industry, and because neither New Zealand nor Australia had shipping services to the island there was now no effective resistance to the very real interest and competition of Japan. To achieve this the committees were fighting for the election of their own parliament, to appoint their own governor, to sever all ties with the Petain regime and to create closer relationships with New Zealand and Australia, who should be vitally interested in the welfare of the island because of its obvious strategic importance, never made clearer than by the use of Noumea by Pan American Airways on their South Pacific route.