FIJI NEWS

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 138, 12 June 1888, Page 5

FIJI NEWS

[Per s.s. Wainui.]

H.M.S. Calliope, Captain Kane, has re turned from Samoa, via the island of Gau on Saturday afternoon, after a foftnight's absence, with His Excellency the Governor and suite and the Acting Chief Judicial Commissioner (His Honor H. S. Berkeley _ Esq.), on boaid! The Calliope will probably leave for Sydney in about ten days. While at Samoa, the representative of the de jacto Samoan Government, Mr Branders, called, and was received in an unofficial character. No recognition whatever was accorded by the High Commissioner to the so-called Government, although Mr Brandera made several informal communications of a satisfactory character. On Friday morning his Excellency returned the German Consul's call and this closed the record of any proceeding of an official or quaisi-offi-cial character.

A numbor of the Civil Servants assembled at the Supreme Court and presented an address to Dr. McGregor, with a purse of sovereigns to be converted into some souvenir to remind him of the Civil Service of Fiji. The address stated : "It is indeed with much satisfaction that we witness the promotion of one of our number, whose distinguished qualities have become, so justly eminent as to gain for him the high and responsible office which you have been chosen to fill. During the many years that you have spent in Fiji, your life has been such as to gain you the admiration and regard of all those who have become ac r quainted with you. Those who know you best esteem you most." The Tongan correspondent of the Fiji "Times" writes:—"During the last two months, no less thanfourvesselshave cleared out of Vavau laden with copra. Three of them were full ships, viz., the Ada Stott barque, with some 540, which was wrecked-as described in my last month's letter: the brigantine Gazelle with upwards of 400 tons, cleared for Tonga in distress—a portion of her crew having run away here. The barque Coulnateyle, with some 550 tons of copra, beside other cargo cleared for Europe direct on the 15th inst., and the German rule Johann Henrich sailed for Haabai about a fortnight since with some 400 odd tons on board. These four vessels have shipped upwards of 1300 tons of copra from Vavau alone. With the exception of the shipment of large quanties of copra, business has been most dull during the last two months; the unsettled state of the currency question having very much to do with the depression. Most of the European residents, mechanics, are not only unemployed, but are likely to be out of work, for there is "no prospect of in the immediate future."