NEW CALEDONIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 19 June 1907, Page 3

NEW CALEDONIA.

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY. - ' TAHITTANS IN A STATE OF ANARCHY. Sydney, June 18. Noumean files publish a circumstantial statement that an agent of the Commonwealth was iu Paris some time ago trying to purchase New Caledonia for Bixty million pounds. A Noumean correspondent states that the French gunboat Zcedce and the cruiser Catinat have left Noumea for Tahiti. The object of the visit, he adds, may be in connection with the forthcoming national fete, hut it is a coincidence with the state of affairs that suggests a more" grave reason. Sydney, June IS.

Commenting oil the reported attempt to purchase New Caledonia the Noumean newspaper Bulletin du Commerce declares that m view of their abandon- I ment and contempt for their rights New Caledonians are not doceivod, and only I know that the declare! ion that New Caledonia and Tahiti are for exchange fbr money is approved by some members •;f the French Ministry arid Parliament A Noumcan correspondent says that according to reports which have reached Noumea the population of Tahiti are in a -state bordering on anarchy, as a result of the recent Ih l :'vy increase in tax- . ation, which, owing to acute financial depression, they are unable fo meet. (New Caledonia, for so many years a French penal settlement, lias an area o! . 7650 square miles, and a population of about 51,000. " The penal population is about 1000; since 1898 no convicts have been sent to the colony. Tahiti has an area of 600 Bquare miies and a popula- » tion of 11,000.)