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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 55

The Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands.

Well, now, let us look outside of us. I have said you have no other nation to contend with, and you have really a great object in view. Before you lies the whole Pacific. The commerce of that region has to be developed; its people are to be civilised, its islands to be occupied by persons who can direct and elevate their inhabitants, who can make them worthy citizens, producers of valuable products, consumers of valuable manufactured goods, and a people who may prize liberty and be dealt with upon fair terms, and not forcibly or violently annexed by conquerors. For what is the meaning of your forcibly annexing them? It means dearly to reduce them to a state of slavery, because it is to force them to deal with particular nations, to force them to give the produce of their labour to some particular nation of Europe—for they are all anxious to get some portion of these regions—and if men are compelled to par with their produce, having no choice in the matter, and to buy goods from persons whom they do not like, and to work and labour for that purpose, are they not, I ask, page break to all intents and purposes slaves? Let us go forth, dealing liberally and fairly with them, trying to elevate them; and looking at the number of islands scattered throughout the ocean, there is work for all of us for a century to come, work of the noblest kind—calling into existence a new island nation such as the world has never before seen. That is quite enough to occupy the ambition of every youth in New Zealand—the care of his own country, the bearing part in the toils and glory of the British nation, and the civilising of the vast and numerous islands which lie to the north of this colony—a noble task for all of us to undertake. That is what I look upon as the future destiny of New Zealand, one desirable in the extreme, and, I can only say, would I were a young man again—(cheers) — to bear part in the great events to come ! But if I cannot be that, at least I can try to fire with enthusiasm and incite those who are to undertake the task of fulfilling the great destiny to which the New Zealand people have been born as heirs. (Cheers.)