PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
Reference :-
TRC.O.885
18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Fourteenth Day.
9 May 1907.
BRITISH
INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC. (Mr. Deakin.)
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impossibility of severing the interests of the Empire into those which could be allotted to the United Kingdom and those which should be allotted to its Dominions beyond the Seas. As a matter of fact, we have all but one interest, though this may be modified by the claims and interests of the several parts. But no gain possible to the flag in the Pacific which is not of great moment to Great Britain as well as to Australasia. I do not pretend to apportion the relative values of gains or losses, that would be an idle task.
But we may fairly assume at least an equality of interest in matters affecting the Pacific.
Owing partly to the dominance of a certain school of political thought in the United Kingdom, which so far as appearances go has much diminished in authority, there was a time when the anxiety of public men in this country was to avoid under any circumstances the assumption of more responsibilities and a great willingness to part with any that they possessed. I do not know how far that school is still represented, nor does it matter; but there never was a time when a similar school of thought existed in our new countries. From the very first, the earliest settlers even when they were few in number, were large in their ambitions, not for themselves but for the country to which they belonged, and for those who were to come after them. That was the original cause of difference of policy. Thus the opposite points of view of those who live by the Pacific Ocean, as is our case, and those on this side whose shores are washed by the North Sea, have been the chief ground for difference. But what is sometimes forgotten is that in the very earliest periods, when the British flag was first carried into these seas, there were British statesmen who entertained the largest ideas of the scope of our authority in the Pacific. I think it was when Governor Philip was sent out to the Colony of New South Wales that his Letters Patent not only included Australia, but what were termed the adjacent islands, and although these were the days before steam, at least one of his successors held that "adjacent islands" extended to Tahiti, naturally including all the groups between. At all events, the New Hebrides were distinctly included within New Zealand in the earliest days of that Colony, and our title to them was only abandoned in 1840. The prevailing attitude of mind here is fairly expressed in a despatch published in a Blue Book relating to the New Hebrides this year, relating to the Convention with France. It appears on page 64, where a despatch of Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, of October 31st, 1903, is quoted. In reply to a paragraph in a letter which I had written, commenting on what I termed "the inaction of the Imperial Government," I was directed to this document, as expressing the views which are still held. In this despatch it is pointed out that a vast extent of territory in the Pacific Ocean has been definitely brought under British control during the last 30 years. It must not be forgotten, as I have already said, that it was indefinitely under British authority before that; but the statements here made show what parts were definitely brought under British control during the last 30 years. Reference is made to Fiji, part of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and the Ellis Islands, and the Cook Group, most of those acquisitions having been made as is admitted mainly (sometimes entirely) of the interests and sentiments of Australia and New Zealand. Now that is perfectly true. But for the action of Australia and New Zealand, there would not be an island to-day in the Pacific under the British flag. I am old enough to remember the long agitation which led to the annexation of Fiji which was very nearly allowed to slip through our fingers. I remember only too well the warnings transmitted to the Imperial Government with reference to New Guinea when we were assured by the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Derby, that there was no intention on the part of Germany to annex any part of that island. It was in this faith that the flag hoisted without authority by the Governor of Queensland, the British flag, was hauled down.
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Sir WILFRID LAURIER: By whom?
Mr. DEAKIN: By order of the British Government. Immediately afterwards one half of that very territory which we had just been assured was not going to be touched was appropriated by the German Government. Then, because under pressure of public opinion that Minister for the Colonies was forced to take over the fraction left, that is cited to us years afterwards as a proof of the spirited policy pursued by the British Government, What is true of this island is true of the Solomon Islands and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Whatever losses there are in, the Pacific-and there have been others have been due to neglect here. Every single gain has been due to pressure from Australia and New Zealand. Consequently, whatever credit is due for the acquisition of these islands rests on the other side of the globe and not on this. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that a feeling has boen created and still exists in Australia-an exasperated feeling-that British Imperial interests in that ocean have been mishandled from the first? It is more by good luck than by good management that we retain even the islands that we possess. That is to be remembered, in coming to the consideration of the recent developments to which these remarks are a prelude, because, unless you understand that, from the point of view of Australia, we once had the Pacific within our grasp, and have retained nothing of it without constant protest and exertion, while we have lost a great deal which we might have secured, our sentiment, which is apparently quite unappreciated by the press and public men of this country, will never be understood. Here we are represented as a grasping people who, settled in Australia, a territory still too large for us, are reaching out in a grasping spirit to add to it merely because we are in Australia. That exactly reverses our point of view. We practically had these islands, or most of them, almost as much as we had Australia in the first instance. It is not a series of grasping annexations that we have been attempting, but a series of aggravated and exasperating losses which we have had to sustain. There you have our two absolutely opposite points of view, the point of view of our part of the world and the point of view in this country, and it is only because it is necessary, as it appears to me, to make that fundamental contrast of. attitude understood, that I have ventured to detain the Conference by referring to it.
Let me now approach the latest illustration of our misfortunes in the New Hebrides. Ever since I have been in public life this group has presented vexed problems to Australia. It was only after a very long struggle that in 1887 we were able to obtain a means by which the titles of British settlers there could be officially recognised. We wished some foothold given to those early and enterprising men. In 1887, as is now well understood, when the first of these Conferences assembled, the project quite favourably regarded by the British Government included the surrender of whatever rights were possessed in that group. It was only on account of the very vigorous opposition to that suggestion offered by Australasia that the islands did not then pass entirely under the French flag. That was another experience which has not been forgotten, and is not likely to be forgotten. The intention in 1887 was that some arrangement should be arrived at with the French Republic in reference to the future of these islands. When the Conference of 1897 met, the only reference to them that I remember, states that no decision had been arrived For ten years the matter had been allowed to rest. In 1904 an agreement between the British and French Governments was signed which provided for a settlement of matters in dispute between them all over the world, in Morocco in particular, in Africa generally and elsewhere. Again the New Hebrides only appeared in a footnote indicating that something was still expected to be done. It requires to be remembered
at.
Fourteenth Day.
9 May 1907.
BRITISH INTEREST IN
THE PACIFIC.