and quadrupled, the curse upon our borders is intolerable. We Anglo-Saxons are everywhere a long-suffering and rather stupid people. Australia herself has been somewhat to blame for her own partial acquiescence in this injustice, and there are vast numbers of her inhabitants who know little and care less about the question. The Australian citizen who had suffered from the inroads of a gang of foreign desperadoes has a sympathetic interest in the matter, but he is only one in ten thousand, and the fact is that we have been far too tame. The distance between New Caledonia and Australia is, as I have said already, about 700 miles. That between the Sandwich Islands and the United States is about 2000 miles. But those islands are directly under American control, and the United States have always held that the presence of a foreign power there would have to be regarded as a menace. Just as she warned away France from Mexico, she would now warn away any foreign intruder in the South Seas. It is easy to conceive that England herself might have been equally wise. The French treatment of the Canaques, whom they dispossessed when they took forcible possession of the island, has been wrong-headed in the extreme. They have had the absurdest panics about impossible native risings, and have sent out numberless expeditions to destroy the food supplies of the wretched natives. Things are quieter now, and the Canaques are effectively cowed. It was decided last night by telegraphic communication between the Premiers of Victoria and New South Wales, that the two leading Colonies should jointly invite Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania to lend their authority for the immediate dispatch of the Australian squadron to Noumea. An intimation of the fact has been sent to the Home Government, but no permission has been asked. It is not in the least likely that England will interfere with us at such a moment, and on such a question, but even if she did, the question is one so vitally affecting the destinies of Australia that we should be compelled to take the matter into our own hands. LORD CHARLES SCOTT OBJECTS. _June 6._