The occasion was this: The sale of Intoxicants, Opium, Fire-Arms and Ammunition, by the Traders amongst the New Hebrideans, had become a terrible and intolerable evil. The lives of many Natives, and of not a few Europeans, were every year sacrificed in connection therewith, while the general demoralization produced on all around was painfully notorious. Alike in the Colonial and in the Home Newspapers, we exposed and condemned the fearful consequences of allowing such degrading and destructive agencies to be used as barter in dealing with these Islanders. It is infinitely sad to see the European and American Trader following fast in the wake of the Missionary with opium and rum! But, blessed be God, our Christian Natives have thus far, with very few exceptions, been able to keep away from the White Man’s Fire-Water, that maddens and destroys. And not less cruel is it to scatter fire-arms and ammunition amongst Savages, who are at the same time to be primed with poisonous rum! This were surely Demons’ work. To her honor, be it said, that Great Britain prohibited all her own Traders, under heavy penalties, from bartering those dangerous and destructive articles in trade with the Natives. She also appealed to the other trading Nations, in Europe and America, to combine and make the prohibition “International,” with regard to all the still unannexed Islands in the Pacific Seas. At first America hesitated, owing to some notion that it was inconsistent with certain regulations for trading embraced in the Constitution of the United States. Then France, temporizing, professed willingness to accept the prohibition when America agreed. Thus the British Trader, with the Man-of-War and the High Commissioner ready to enforce the laws against him, found himself placed at an overwhelming disadvantage, as against the neighboring Traders of every other Nationality, free to barter as they pleased. More especially so, when the things prohibited were the very articles which the masses of the Heathen chiefly coveted in exchange for their produce; and where keen rivals in business were ever watchful to inform and to report against him. If illicit Trading prevailed, under such conditions, no one that knows average Human Nature can feel any surprise. By-and-bye, the _Australian New Hebrides Company_, with two Steamers plying betwixt Sidney and the New Hebrides, took up the problem. Having planted Traders and Agents on the Islands, they found themselves handicapped in developing business, and began a brisk agitation in the Australasian and English Press, either to have the Prohibition applied all round, or completely rescinded. We have never accepted that alternative, but resolutely plead for an International Prohibitive law, as the only means under God to prevent the speedy sweeping off into Eternity of these most interesting Races by the tide of what is strangely styled Civilization.