PRESIDEiXt's address SECTION E. 389 



As the art of navigation has advanced, men of the littoral have 

 pushed out further and further into the surrounding waters. The 

 Ijevant, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf were the areas of the first 

 sea-commerce, and furnished the adventures of the first sea traders. 

 We know but little of the doings of the Chinese and Malay sailors in 

 the typhoon-swept seas of South-east Asia. Emboldened by familiarity 

 with the use of their sails, and armed with experience of the tricks 

 of wind and wave, daring mariners sought commercial advantage 

 over the extent of the Great Sea, the Mediterranean, on the one side, 

 and made their toilsome and dangerous way to India on the other. 

 Tli© adventures of Sinbad give us a vivid picture of some of the later 

 phases of these entei^jrises. We would all be glad to believe in the 

 circumnavigation of Africa by Necho's captain, but at least we 

 know of the gi'adual conquest of the Atlantic, the daring voyages of 

 the Northmen and the Portuguese, and, the compass known, the grand 

 venture of Columbus. Curiously abandoning the Mediterranean to the 

 infidel pirates, the Spaniards hastened to cany the sword and the 

 gospel to the New World. The raiders and the^ traders of Western 

 Europe then opened up the Atlantic, and rounding the Cape and the 

 Horn, entered on the unknown vastnesses of the Indian and Pacific 

 Oceans. With the settlement of white races in America regular trade 

 routes were established in the Atlantic, and presently battle fleets 

 encountered on its waters. With settlement in India came a regular 

 interchange of commodities across the Indian Ocean and round the 

 Cape. Lastly, the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand, the 

 growtli of British Columbia, and the Western United States, the 

 opening up of trade with China, and the marvellous awakening of 

 Japan, have brought it about that the last of the great oceans is 

 brought into ser\'ice for intercontinental traffic and trade. Two great 

 cables cross it; the one. All Red, from Vancouver to Fanning Island, 

 Fiji, Norfolk Island, and Southport, in this State; the other from 

 San Francisco to Hawaii, Midway Island, Guam, and Japan. A 

 Russian war fleet traversed the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and 

 passed round the coasts of China to be annihilated in the Straits of 

 Corea. And, but a few months back, an American battle fleet has 

 sailed down the Atlantic, rounded the Horn, half cii-cumnavigating the 

 Americas, and then completely circumnavigating the Pacific, has been 

 uproariously welcomed eveiywhere, from Australia to Japan. It is 

 apparent that civilisation has won its hold on the Pacific. 



What is the situation? The whole of one border of the Pacific is 

 occupied by European races, Anglo-Saxon in the North and Latin in 

 the South. Tlie other border is held by Russia in the North and 

 Australia and New Zealand in the South, while between the two lie 

 the great Eastern nations of Japan and China. The islands occupied 

 "by natives of neither East nor West are now in the hands of Britain, 

 America, Gennany, and France. What will be the relations of the 

 white races to one another, to the yellow races, to the natives of the 

 islands ? 



What is to be the future of tlie native races of the islands of the 

 Pacific? The days of piracy and plunder are practically over. Traders 

 can no longer palm off old Genu an newspapers as calico (Moseley), or 

 carry off natives by violence. The islands, are now under the protec- 

 tion of one or other of the Great Powers. Still the outlook is dark 

 for the native races. 



