PEESIDENt’s ADDEESS SECTIOir E. 
11 
ingress of trade and culture, irrespective of the higher objects of 
these votaries of religion. The London Missionary Society, in its 
unceasing philanthropic efforts, sent out its new steamer “John 
"Williams,” built almost solely from savings of the school children of 
Britain, also on to these new shores, while the Koyal Navy pow'erfully 
protects the settlements arising. All this augurs well. fSanitary 
measures are more carefully adopted in the choice of new abodes, 
and the savages without deprivation of their soil are vanquished now 
not so much hy arms as by the awe inspired by the prow'ess of a great 
nation and the confidence inspired by their rules of justice. We are 
even told recently of the most precious of all metals as occurring 
there, and even of diamonds. The area may be counted for the 
British portion at 8,000 square miles with about ten inhabitants to 
each. Mountains of romantic aspect rise to 8,000 feet, rendering 
those islands w’ell watered, and the already insular clime one of 
generally moderate temperature. 
As is well known, several spacious and safe harbours exist. 
Intertribal wnarfare, decimating hitherto the local labour strength, 
is ceasing also there under the benign influence of civilisation. As 
for distance, we are not apt to realise that the majority of the 
Solomon Islands are about as far from the ports of Queensland as 
Moreton Bay is from Port Phillip, or St. A^incent’s Gulf from 
King George’s Sound. A¥hat products and what other merchandise 
can Australia send? The aspirations of the natives after trading 
contact with us will soon rise from the worthless brittle beads to 
substantial jewellery ornaments. The original hoop-iron will soon 
have lost its barter value and be superseded by implements of our own 
of European pattern, the crudest even no longer acceptable. Steel 
hand-mills, with which we early settlers in Australia used to grind 
grain raised on our own holdings, will be wanted everywhere by the 
Polynesians to crush their maize and sorghum. Pragile pottery will 
soon be extensively replaced by ironware ; also at aboriginal homes 
iron pans will be in continued requisition for evaporating sea water to 
obtain crude kitchen salt. The primitive people of the soil will no 
longer be content with log dwelling and the shelter of palm-leaf roofs. 
Possession of brick buildings, with adequate furniture, European 
wearing apparel, boats and sails, structures such as we have, carts and 
draught animals, besides herds and flocks, will be their ambition, and 
that means ever-increasing exports from the neighbouring parts of 
Australia; and geography will also constantly be gaining from this in 
all its bearings. Comparisons of territorial extents cannot alone lead 
to any correct estimation of the prospects in any new colonisation ; 
still it may give some idea of the final scope for merely rural opera- 
tions there, when we consider that Mauritius contains only one-tenth 
of the area as compared to that ot the British territory in the Solomon 
Group, or of the Eijian Islands, though its annual exports represent 
£3,000,000 sterling. Jamaica is only about half as large as the 
British Solomon Islands, yet its trade interchange is £750,000 sterling 
a year, although, in four centuries since its discovery by Columbus, 
the land became only in part cultivated. Barbadoes, with only 170 
square miles in extent, maintains an annual export and import of 
over £1,000,000 each. According to remarks by Mr. C. W. Maxwell, 
at the Eoyal Colonial Institute, in the State of Perak, of only 8,000 
