Forty Years On The Pacific/New Caledonia

THE island of Caledonia is a French possession in the Pacific, about five days' journey by steamer (1,060 miles) from Sydney. Noumea is the principal town. Copra, coffee, cocoa and cotton are largely cultivated in both New Caledonia and New Hebrides. The island of New Caledonia is four hundred miles long and sixty miles wide. Gold has been found in the northern part of the island, but was never properly prospected or explored, owing to the treachery of the blacks.

New Caledonia possesses rich deposits of coal, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and chrome, which are largely in the hands of capitalists. It is stated that the nickel output has been curtailed, in order to maintain the price of the metal in all parts of the world. Its rich deposits of kauri gum fields remain practically untouched. It is expected that when the kauri gum fields of New Zealand become exhausted a demand for this article will arise. Very rich grazing areas abound, and cattle thrive well, but sheep-raising has not been attended with satisfactory results. As this vast wealth of the Pacific islands becomes known, New Caledonia must share in the development. Four thousand head of cattle are slaughtered annually. Most of the meat is preserved and shipped to France.

This rich possession is one of the few plums that Great Britain overlooked in her early colonization policy. Rochefort, the celebrated French publisher, politician and communist, was transported there after the Commune, in which he took part, in 1873; subsequently, he with four others escaped to Newcastle, New South Wales, on board an English bark. For his services assisting prisoners to escape, the captain of the ship

received $5,000, which was cabled to Newcastle by the French premier, Gamoetta. So little did Rochefort think of the resources of New Caledonia, that he made a remark to the effect that, "When Captain Cook first discovered it, John Bull, with his well-known commercial sagacity, did not think it worth while annexing."

New Caledonia is no longer used as a penal settlement. French naturally is the language, and the French residents from Tahiti and other parts of the Southern Seas went to Noumea to undergo their statutory drill.

Little incidents that came under my notice during the World War explain the spirit that prompts the sacrifice and patriotism displayed by the soldiers of France. This island and Tahiti, in the distant Pacific, practically the Antipodes of France, contributed 4,600 of their sons, who have voyaged round the world to fight for liberty and civilization under the tri-color. Some of these soldiers, however, are recruits from the French possession of Tahiti, referred to elsewhere. Two colonial regiments of France—the 5th and 6th—left New Caledonia, 1,250 strong, in 1914. In May, 1917, some of the survivors returned in two transports, sixty-five in one party and forty-five in the other, the rest being either wounded or prisoners; but the great majority are sleeping their last sleep beneath the French skies.

Upon their return, when passing through Sydney, on a short furlough, their officer in charge, Sergeant Loraine Chevilliard de Videre, visited me and, after an interview with him, I was further impressed with the love of the French for the fleur-de-lys. It transpired that Loraine Chevilliard, with his brother Alsace, were college mates of my sons, Leo, Jack and Frank, the latter of whom, a lieutenant in the 25th Australian Battalion, was killed in action in Gallipoli on November 18, 1915. Sergeant Chevilliard mentioned the names of four or five other French boys who attended Riverview College (Sydney) at the same time as my sons, and who were subsequently killed in action.

Later, while speaking of these boys, with the President (the Rev. Father Gartlan, S. J.) of the Riverview College, I was informed that when their father, a French planter, brought them as small boys from the New Hebrides, three hundred and twenty-five miles from Noumea—their birthplace and a day's steam from there—to the college, his injunction was to make them good men, as he wished his sons, Alsace and Lorraine, to grow up and become soldiers of France, and help recapture the provinces for which they were named.

The white population of New Caledonia is about 20,000; black or native, 40,000; Chinese and Javanese, 5,000, and Japanese, 6,000. The three latter races are engaged largely in the nickel mines. Instead of returning to Japan at the end of their contract, the Japanese workers settle in the island and engage in trading occupation.