They Say!

The Battle for Influence In the New Hebrides Tired Old Britain Marches Backwards, They Say!

France has completely re newed its Pacific policy and is giving all its Pacific people a new hope. The New Hebrides are stirring, and moving in the direction of France. “Tired”

England, meanwhile, is marching

backwards!

THESE are the views of the New Caledonian magazine Corail, in an article in its issue of November 28. The article is a commentary on one in PIM in September entitled “France Goes All Out to Win Influence in the New Hebrides”.

The PIM article, by a staff writer, pointed out that although the New Hebrides was an Anglo-French Condominium, France was doing far more than Britain to influence the native people. It added that French interests there were expanding and consolidating.

The PIM article started a controversy which is still continuing.

The points it made have been hotly disputed or enthusiastically cheered according to the position, nationality or outlook of people concerned.

The Corail article is headed: “Pacific Islands Monthly accuses France”, and it states that PIM is disturbed “by the forces engaged by France” in the battle for influence in the New Hebrides against the “defunct empire of England”.

After summarising the contents of PI M's September article, Corail says that the article’s excesses, its insinua tions and its statistics are “bitter proof’ of Great Britain’s present policy towards its old colonies com pared with the new political approach of “presence Francaise”.

Corail goes on: “Since the fanatical resistance of the Boers, the first to hold the invincible empire in check, British power has never stopped declining.

“What does Britain have left now?

Fiji, Mauritius, the Virgin Islands, New Hebrides, West Samoa, a few bases, etc. ... In short, nothing much. [The Virgin Islands are actually American possessions and Western Samoa is independent.—Ed .

Pim].

“What is more, it does not try to do anything on the grand scale.

Tired, dismembered, and humiliated after the Common Market talks.

England is marching backwards. It creates federations, and gets out. . . .

“Meanwhile, France has completely renewed its Pacific policy, ... It is giving all its people of the Pacific a new hope, a great confidence in the future. ...

“A complete squadron will soon cruise in our waters; already there is talk of several battle ships like the Clemenceau. With the atomic base, there will undoubtedly be a reinforced military set-up accompanied by investments and metropolitan emigration propitious to the economic development of New Caledonia and Tahiti. . . .

“Aided by Paris, the (French) Residency in Vila is doing a great job with a dynamic and ambitious team. The Hebrides are stirring, and it is in the direction of France that

they are moving, I believe we can congratulate ourselves on it, and the bitterness of the editor of the Pacific Islands Monthly prompts us to do this.”

Mr. Lamberty's Views Following publication of the Corail article, Mr. E. W. Lamberty, of Santo, New Hebrides, sent PIM a copy of a letter which he said he wrote to the editor of Corail but which the magazine had not pub lished.

Mr. Lamberty also wrote PIM a letter in reply to Mr. D. J. Gubbay’s letter on the New Hebrides which PIM published in November (p. 41).

Mr. Lamberty, who is neither British nor French—he was born in Holland—has been a planter in the New Hebrides since 1955.

During the war, he served in the French Foreign Legion in Norway and Africa, and won the Croix de Guerre and Silver Star. This war

ervice, he claims, has enabled him to get to know the French very veil”, and he makes no bones about tating that the French are “trying nore and more to take the New lebrides over”.

"Short Memory"

Replying to Corail, Mr. Lamberty aid in his letter to its editor that he magazine seemed to have a very hort memory, “It is thanks to the British Empire,” ic said, “that there is now a General le Gaulle in France. In 1940, he did lot object to being lodged and fed iy those same Britishers that he did lot want in the Common Market in 963.

“lf New Caledonia rallied to de jaulle in 1940, it was partly thanks □ British help, and, above all, be ause the guns of the Australian miser Hobart, gave protection to jovernor Sautot.

“In those days there was nothing o stop the Biitish from taking bsolute possession of the New lebrides because the French had still lot decided whether to say ‘Heil litler’ of ‘Vive de Gaulle.’ ”

Mr. Lamberty said that the British lad parted with their colonies in he grand manner, not like the Tench with kicks in the bottom.

“While Queen Elizabeth can always isit her former colonies,” he went m, “I would like to see de Gaulle valk around in Indo-China, Tunisia, dorocco or Algeria.”

Mr. Lamberty added: “If the New lebrides are to count for their future lefence on French squadrons, they ould find themselves in a similar >osition to that of 1940 when the

French Navy was so zealous that it was against the Allies”.

Having told Corail what he thinks, Mr. Lamberty in his letter to PIM has some additional acid comments to make about Mr. Gubbay’s views, which were published in November.

He particularly comments on Mr.

Gubbay’s statement that the “Aus tralian and British navies have yet a lot to learn on peacetime social gatherings”.

Mr. Lamberty writes: “Having fought alongside these two navies during the last war and having received quite a few shells from the French Navy during the same war, may I state here that the French Navy has still yet to learn a lot about wartime activities.

“In 1940, in view of the French Navy’s conduct, nothing prevented England from taking over the New Hebrides entirely. So looking back on those days, it is a bit out of place for the French Navy to try to impose on us now the ‘presence Francaise’.

“Mr. Gubbay correctly stated that Mr. 110 was also invited to London, but he forgot to mention that the French Government refused to let Mr. 110 travel from Paris to London, but informed the British Administra tion that Mr. 110 would have to go back first to the New Hebrides and then only could he travel to London, “The British had offered to pay for all his supplementary expenses from Paris via London, but this was rejected by the French Administra tion.

“As for ‘not thinking British or

French’, as Mr. Gubbay put it, it is a well known fact that it is nearly impossible for a Britisher to buy French land in the New Hebrides, and if one can get a lease from the Societe Francaise des Nouvelles Hebrides, one of their petty stipula tions is that the French flag only may be flown on that land.

“It may be, as Mr. Gubbay said, that Australia has done little for the New Hebrides, but, after all, it is Great Britain’s ‘baby’ and that Gov ernment has been, and still is, pouring a lot of money each year into the territory.”