GOVERNMENT OF TONGA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 62, 14 March 1900, Page 6

GOVERNMENT OF TONGA.

Mr Basil H. Thomson, formerly the Prime Minister of Tonga, arrived at Sydney from London last .week in the R.M.s. Oruba, and is now on the way to Tonga. It will be remembered (says the Sydney "Daily Telegraph") that some years ago- the Rev. Shirley Baker left" the Wesleyan fold and started an independent church, of which he was the head. Then fie became the Prime Minister of Tonga, and as such he acquired; considerable motorietv. He was succeeded as Prime Minister of Tonga, by Mr Basil H. Thomson, who was sent by the British Government to pull Tonga together and to get it out of the mess which it evidently was in. After this experience Mr Thomson wrote a book entitled "The Diversions of a Prime Minister," the experiences being his own. This book was the best known of several excellent works from his pen. Mr Thomson has now been sent out by the British Government as Special Commissioner to explain the new order of things under the Samoa Convention to the native Government of the Tongan and Savage Islands. The Germans, when they became possessed absolutely of half of Samoa— the Americans getting the large island Of Tutuila and several smaller islands —surrendered to the British the southern islands of. the Solomon Group and whatever rights they had in the Tongan and Savage Islands, besides other concessions in Zanzibar and West Africa. Mr Thomson will probably proceed from Sydney to Fiji in a mail steamer, and from Fiji he will be taken to Tonga in a British warship. As soon as the change in the Government of Tonga has taken place trade in connection with the islands will probably be somewhat affected and stimulated, and the, outcome will be in favour of New Zealand and Sydney. At the present-time New Zealand does nearly the whole of the trade with this group. After Mr Thomson's arrival at Tonga there will come about a new order of things, politically and, commercially, in the islands. Mr Thomson will probably be in London again by the end of July or August next.