Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/157

Rh The Caroline, Marianne, the Marshall Isles, and Samoa are somewhat remote from New Guinea, so that at present in these parts there are only these few hundred whites scattered over a very large area, including the mainland and islands. Leaving out Queen Emma and Mrs. Parkinson and her daughters, I can only hear at present of three German women—Frau Wolff, the wife of a missionary, and the nurse at the hospital at Stephansort on the mainland. There may possibly be one or two wives of missionaries on remote islands, but they tell me there are not.

Kaiser Wilhelm's Land—the German part of New Guinea—is 181,650 square kilometres in extent, with a given population of 11,000 natives—though probably there are three times that and 113 whites. I doubt very much if there are even 100 whites on the mainland; they probably count in the traders who occasionally visit it. The Bismarck Archipelago that is, New Britain, New Ireland, New Hanover, and the rest together with the Solomon Isles, comprises 57,000 square kilometres. New Britain is 350 miles long, New Ireland 240 miles long by 15 broad, and New Hanover 40 miles long by 20 wide.

Some of the Solomon Isles are within the German sphere and some within the British. With the same almost insane lack of foresight which has characterised all the dealings of the Home Government with these seas and isles, they allowed the best part of them to fall to Germany. This is a real misfortune, and it is a great pity Germany has any of them. It would have been better for herself also not to have them, as will be seen in time. As much as she can she shuts them against all traders save Germans; others must pay a large annual licence; whereas the British ones are open to any one. At the