PACIFIC ISLANDS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10560, 16 February 1912, Page 5

PACIFIC ISLANDS

CABLE NEWS

(United Press Association — By Electric Telegraph — Copyright.)

QUESTION OF THEIR CONTROL! A HOME OPINION. (■Received Last Night, 10.10 o'clock.) LONDON, .February 15. Sir E. Imthwin, in an article in the "Quarterly Review," on "Fiji as a Crown Colony," states that the native question is complicated by the introduction of coloured Labour, which some Australians reprobated. They also wrongly held the view that it would be. better for the Islands to be left undeveloped than they should be developed by natives from elsewhere. Manual labour in the tropics must largely be coloured. Jts importation was essential where indigenous labour was insufficient. Besides the interests of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, in the Pacific Islands, \ the-United States, Japan, Germany, and France were also concerned, and the strengthening of their positions would influence it politically. Britain should do the same. There were strong reasons why the Pacific Ispresent should not be annexed hy either Australia or New Zealand,' despite their geographical posi-( tion and commercial interests. The time had come to assist Fiji towards the ooint where it would pass from a Crown Colony and join a united Dominion of Australasia.