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18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

Fourteenth Day.

9 May 1907.

BRITISH INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC. (Mr. Winston Churchill.)

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should welcome the opportunity, but very often having twenty questions a day to answer in the House of Commous, it would not he á very easy matter. In the meanwhile, that not being a possibility, we have to go to the documents which are before us from our responsible representative abroad.

Mr. DEAKIN : Quite so, and I have not said a single word that conveys a suggestion of anything else.

Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL: I should be very sorry if the answer I gave in any way appeared detrimental to the interests of the Dominion affected and was at the particular time contrary to the fact.

Mr. DEAKIN: It has been detrimental; these answers are also cabled out, and our people cannot understand how it happens. It has had a very bad effect here because it is one of a strain of the same sort of misrepresentations.

I take it that what we are entitled to expect on these matters is that somebody in a great office like this should be kept sufficiently well informed of our ordinary public matters so as to be able to put accurate answers into the hands of Ministers.

Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL: I think it would be a great advantage. I very much regret that I have to go to Manchester almost immediately, but I think it would be a very great advantage if our attention was drawn by letter and despatch to any inaccuracies in these statements.

Mr. DEAKIN: A letter takes nearly five weeks to reach us, and five weeks to get back, that is nearly three months, by then the whole thing is dead.

Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL: True, the distance is one of the most difficult facts that we have to deal with in the British Empire.

CHAIRMAN: If we could all moet across the table like this these unfortunate happenings would be avoided.

Mr. DEAKIN: I have finished with that matter, Mr. Churchill. I have no desire to revive these incidents except as warnings for the future and in order to explain the feeling that exists. Lord Elgin may think that on this matter I hold strong views. I do, but they are shared by thousands. On this matter I am certain that you cannot find a newspaper in Australia that has a word to say in defence of our treatment in relation to the New Hebrides. I am now speaking of the way we are treated quite apart from all issues as to the merits of this and that Article of the Convention. All of those I dismiss. They are settled and accepted for the present, but you cannot find a newspaper of any shade of politics of the least importance that upholds your action. It is unfortunate; it is to be avoided. The maintenance of a good understanding is impossible when all public opinion and the Press become adverse. Especially when we are unable to follow our invariable habit of defending in public any statements made by or on behalf of the British Government. Could it be supposed by us to be necessary to talk about what we have dono in these islands? We are paying an extra. subsidy to the only line of steamers which plies there, and which would not

ply there at all but for them. We paid them air extra subsidy for the assistance in the New Hébrides, of our settlers, the British settlers. We induced those steamers in consequence of our subsidy to lower their freights for maize 75 per cent. Those settlers have been sending their maize to the markets of Sydney at only 25 per cent. of what they paid before we inter- vened, so that we are not only helping them by a grant, but reduce their freights to 25 per cent. of the ordinary rate. Yet it is alleged here that we have never lifted a finger for them but only to tax and impede them.

We became indirectly the controlling power, although not the owners, of certain lands in the New Hebrides, and we made these available for British settlers at the nominal figure of a shilling a year for 50 acres. That was in order to give those who had not sufficient land there, or others they could bring with them, an opportunity of making a living in the group. What has the United Kingdom ever done for its settlers outside its territory to compare with this?

I have now finished the story of what we did for the settlers in the New Hebrides, and why we resent a good deal of the criticism to which we have been subjected in regard to them. It may be said, "Now, you "have got your Convention with the New Hebrides, what more remains to be done in the Pacific ?" Well, to that personally I can give no answer. If I could give an answer I should not think this the place to give it, but I can give no public answer. There is a certain degree of instability still in regard to a number of groups of more or less importance. What the result will be of the colonization which has been recently attempted by another Power, or by other Powers, it is too soon to say. What with Canada on one hand, Australia on the other, and New Zealand in a very important inter- mediate position, the interests of the Empire in the Pacific can never grow less, and the opportunities that may be afforded in the future with either of the three Powers who now possess territories in the Pacific to make arrangements with them in regard to any other contingencies ought not to be neglected. The motive of placing this resolution on the paper was some information, probably not to be relied upon, which was supplied to us as to changes likely to take place in ownership in the Pacific. That rumour appears to have been dissipated; that was the immediate cause, but the general justification for this proposition remains. While from time to time there are adjustments such as those of 1901 with the Republic of France, and such as proceeded at an earlier date in reference to Samoa with the United States of America and with Germany, under which concessions of territory or privileges are reciprocally made, what the Commonwealth Government strongly desires to urge on behalf of the interests of the Empire quite as much as on their own, is that every such future opportunity should be taken advantage of to strengthen the position of Great Britain in the great ocean which has our great Dominions on each side of it, and another flourishing Dominion planted right in the middle. I do not elaborate the point, though it is capable of elaboration. It presents itself to us as a simple corollary. We have been asking for this for so many years, and have been accustomed to find ourselves always too late or always in the end disappointed, that we have tried to take time by the forelock. Once and for all then I repeat the appeals which I had to make on behalf of the Common- wealth as long ago as 1887 in this very room for special consideration for the interests of the Empire in the Pacific, interests which affect the Colonies mentioned particularly, but which after all affect the whole Empire. May I urge upon the Minister for the Colonies to take advantage of any oppor- tunity that may be presented to his colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in any re-adjustment, particularly in view of the possible completion of the Panama Canal, to assist to the utmost British Commerce and British shipping in the Pacific Ocean.

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Fourteenth Day.

9 May 1907.

EXTENSION OF BRITISH INTERESTS IN

THE PACIFIC, (Mr. Deakin.)