Paus. —Civilization of the Pacific. 71 
and so saved that colony from being a French convict station. French | 
official documents testify that neither Marquesas nor Tahiti was considered 
suitable for the purpose. New Caledonia was chosen, and there are now 
many thousand convicts on the island. The official notification of the act 
of taking possession was made in the presence of the officers of the 
corvette ** Le Phoque" and the French missionaries. The Admiral was 
compelled to build a block-house for the protection of the veryflag which he 
erected. 
With regard to the convicts at present upon the island, they will no 
doubt, in time, gradually extend themselves over Australasia and the 
Pacific. It can hardly be said that they will be of any advantage to the 
cause of civilization therein; rather the opposite. I sincerely trust that 
the Australasian Colonies will endeavour to prevent any other European 
power following in the footsteps of France. Every country should maintain 
its own degraded citizens. Colonising from a convict root may be a problem, 
but the time has gone by for its solution. It is, in my opinion, almost an 
imperative duty for the Australian Colonies to discourage by every means 
in their power the continuance of the convict station at New Caledonia. If 
France requires a colony in the Pacific, so near to our own, let the colonies 
see, for their own benefit and for the benefit of the Pacific, that free emigrants 
are sent, no matter how poor. 
Germany. 
Germany is principally represented in the Pacific by the well-known 
firm of Messrs. Godefroy and Co., of Hamburg, who in 1858 established 
their head-quarters at Samoa. From Samoa they have “ pushed their 
agencies southward into the Friendly Archipelago (Tonga) and other 
islands ; northward, throughout the whole range of the Kingsmills and the 
isles in their neighbourhood, that is to say Tokelau, the Ellice, and Gilbert 
Groups, and the Marshalls or Rallicks, through the Carolines and to Yap, a 
great island at the entrance of the Luzon sea, where they purchased 3,000 
acres of land, formed a settlement, and established a large depót intended 
as an intermediate station between their trading posts at the Navigator 
Islands (Samoa) and their old-established agencies in China and Cochin. 
Between Samoa and Yap (one of the Pelew Islands), a distance of 3,000 
miles, the firm have, or had lately, an agent at every productive island 
inhabited by the copper-colored race (Malay), upon which the natives are 
as yet sufficiently well disposed to permit a white man to reside." * 
The Germans make good settlers, although mere traders. It is doubt- 
ful whether they have added much to the colonization of the Pacific. They 
barter a certain quantity of fire-arms, or 80 much calico, for an equivalent 
* H, B. Sterndale. 
