NEW CALEDONIA 
461 
curious feature is the use of the plural by the chiefs in 
speaking to the people, and by the people in addressing 
them. 
About the middle of this century the population of 
New Caledonia was estimated at 6 0,0 0 0. It is now known 
to be 22,000, and there is no doubt that the Kanakas, 
as the natives are called, are disappearing no less rapidly 
than the natives of other islands of the Pacific wherever 
they have come into either friendly or hostile contact with 
the white man. Internecine warfare, intemperance, and 
domestic and foreign vices have combined to accelerate 
the process. Abortion is practised, and the female births 
are far less numerous than the male, and by many 
authorities the entire extinction of the people is regarded 
as near at hand. “ Keserves ” are apportioned to them in 
the same way as to the Indians in America, in which no 
land is permitted to be alienated to whites. Missionaries 
labour among them, and the pacification of the island is 
the aim and object of the “ Administrateurs.” Yet the 
relations between the Kanakas and their masters is not 
entirely satisfactory, and probably never will be, for each 
is mutually suspicious of the other. 
Agriculture in New Caledonia is more successful in 
the hands of the small native farmer than the white 
colonist, who is much hampered by lack of labour, to 
remedy which natives from the New Hebrides were 
largely introduced, as well as a few coolies and Chinese. 
Maize and taro are the staple native products; rice was 
until lately hardly at all cultivated, so that as much as 
£10,000 worth had to be annually imported, but it is 
now being grown in considerable quantity. Sugar-cane 
is much grown, and there are several sugar-mills in the 
colony, but no sugar is exported, and the cane is to a 
great extent used for the manufacture of the “ tafia ” 
