THE TROUBLES IN TONGA.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 116, 18 May 1887, Page 4

THE TROUBLES IN TONGA.

The official inquiry by the High Commissioner into the troubles in Tonga, according to the report which appears to have been furnished to the Fiji papers, has resulted in proving that although there have been some persecutions of the Wes-evans. the reports of theae have been grossly exaggerated. We have often pointed out the extreme difficulty of arriving at the truth at this distance, when we are thrown for our information entirely upon partisans belonging to one faction or the other. Statements of the most positive character have, for example, been made in letters to the Australian press representing that Tuuhetoka, the Tongan Minister of Police, had behaved in a most disgraceful way at the execution of six natives who were sentenced to death for the attempted assassination of Mr Baker. The British Commission thoroughly investigated this statement, and the High Commissioner was convinced that the charges were untrue. In a similar way the published reports of the inquiry into the charges preferred against Mr Robert Hanslip, a trader at Nukualofa, have been deliberately garbled. In the reports published by the Australian papers it was mad eto appear that this prosecution was an act of persecution by Mr Baker. The official report furnished to the "Fiji Times," however, puts a very different complexion upon the matter. According to th_3 report, "It was proved, and acknowledged by' the defendant himself, that he had been made aware of the intended assassination the night previous to that on which the attempt took place, and had given no information ; but though failing in his moral duty, there was no reliable testimony to prove that he had been guilty of an offence punishable at law, and he was consequently acquitted. Mr Hanslip was, at a later period, called on to show cause why he should not ba bound over to be of good behaviour. At the inquiry which followed, the Chief Judicial Commissioner was satisfied that Mr Hanslip's proceedings and interference in native matters were dangerous to the peace and good order of Tonga, and Mr Hanslip was accordingly bound over in the sum of .£IOO, with two sureties of _£50 each, to keep the peace and be of good conduct for .a space of six months." The Commission carried on its* investigations in a thorough and searching manner, and His Excellency acknowledges the assistance he received from Tongan Government. Although the final conclusions arrived at by the High Commissioner are withheld, the. result of his visit has already been to dispel much of the uneasiness which the wild reports of persecution had produced abroad, and His Excellency obtained satisfactory guarantees from King George that the Wenleyans would receive protection in tho free exercise of their worship. The Government of Tonga appear to come well out of the inquiry. They dealt very severely with the authors of the dastardly attempt upon the Premier's life and the revolutionary movement to overturn the Government, but they do not seem to have gone beyond what the circumstances of the case warranted. It is awonder, indeed,' considering the excitement that must have prevailed after the attack on Mr Baker, that the law was preserved and that an indiscriminate massacre did not ensue. But for Mr Baker's firmness and the stability of his Government, anarchy; must have followed- such an outrage. The result will probably be to establish the position of the Tongan Government more firmly than ever. • ]