This is a cautionary tale. It reveals how New Cale­donia, a little known island in the Pacific about 1500km east of Queensland, Australia, helped foil Napoleon III's dreams of becoming the Grand Emperor of a Grand Catholic Empire in the 19th century (#1.1 Immaculate Deception). Surprisingly, the British conceded it to him even though they knew he planned to use it to take Australia and New Zealand. But, as jujitsu practitioners know, it is well to be wary of seemingly strategic posi­tions which are relinquished all too easily. So it came to pass that the British were able to use Napoleon III's foolish pride to consolidate their own Empire.

It will be shown that France's presence in the Pacific exemplifies the consequences of such pride in many ways. The moral is that those who think they know - and hence are too proud to find out - usually discover the true moral too late. For reasons of His own, God is not greatly given to coddling those who have decided they deserve it most.

New Caledonia's potential is large and unique. Where the mountains have not been strip-mined, defor­ested, burnt and the reefs have not been killed by the heavy red sludge which erodes down the gutted slopes during cyclones, the island is still extraordinarily beauti­ful. Geographically it looks out on the Pacific the way England looked out on the Atlantic a few centuries ago. The deep ocean is the last frontier before outer space. New Caledonia is thus at the doorstep of a vast, as yet relatively untouched, expanse. There is much metal in the island. There is also gold and platinum in Fiji, gold, silver, copper, oil and much else in PNG (please review Glossary), gold manganese and bauxite in Vanuatu, nickel and iron in the Solomons. So it is reasonable to believe that the ocean bed between these Melanesian islands is loaded with wealth.

Some of 80% New Caledonia's flora is endemic and grows nowhere else on the planet. So, parasitic blue conifers, palms whose hearts turn blood red in the spring, strange little orchids which mimic female insects so they are fertilized by male insects in surrogate copu­lation. Some Kanaks still maintain that they talk to plants. This is not a sort of individual person to plant specimen conversation - rather human spirit to that of plant species (see R Sheldrake's morphic field ideas which somewhat correspond to ancient Indian ideas on 'devas' - species personalities). The pre-colonial Kanaks learnt much from their plants. They found out which plants like to be with which; how they protect each other from insects and disease and, of course, also the medicinal and psychotropic virtues of many herbs. They also maintain that certain trees could also help them to become invisible and that the calls of some birds to each other could be used for instantaneous travel - also to mythological realms.

There are still no poisonous snakes in New Caledo­nia; its spiders and scorpions are far less ferocious than those in similar latitudes in Australia. Sharks, jellyfish and other marine creatures are also far more benign here than there. The Kanaks maintain that they had made a peace treaty with the red shark who is king of the ocean - but this is now being broken by over-fishing and pollution. In the old days sharks and other predators are said to have helped 'call' other fish telepathically into the Kanak's simple fish traps - rock walled enclosures which were sealed with branches and creepers at high tide. But it is generally admitted that this 'calling the fish' from the then teeming oceans was, on occasion, helped with a little bait.

So New Caledonia's wealth was not merely physical. The ancient Kanaks deathless, ego-less world view, their extraordinarily harmonious relationship with nature of which they felt themselves to be an integral part is of greatest interest in an age in which the earth's green cover is disappearing and the future of the human spe­cies itself seems increasingly compromised in conse­quence. But most of this cultural heritage, like the is­lands natural environment itself, has been trashed with very little gain to show for the destruction done.

The mining of New Caledonia for the metal in its soil is comparable to killing a person for the value of the fill­ings in his or her teeth. The value of the life lost is im­measurable. The metal can be sold for money. The value added to the ore mined in New Caledonia has al­ways been negligible since it is mostly shipped abroad raw, and what little is not is converted to ingots. No fin­ished products have ever been made in New Caledonia from metals taken out of it - nor are there any plans to do so now.

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