The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1903. MR SEDDON AND FIJI.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 109, 8 May 1903, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1903. MR SEDDON AND FIJI.

For the cause that lacks assistance •For the wrong that needs resistance F»r the future in the distance And the good that we can do.

The correspondence between'Mr Seddon and the Colonial Secretary on the subject of Fiji, which we publish in another column, thro-ws some light on yesterday's cabled report of Mr Chamberlain's remarks in the House of Commons. It seems that, while our Premier was on his return from the Coronation festivities, he wrote to the Colonial Secretary calling attention to* the deplorable condition of Fiji, the decay Of the native race, and the petitions, signed by large' numbers of Fijians, in favour of annexation by New Zealand. Mr Seddon, further recommended that attempts should be made to open and improve the country, to occupy the natives profitably, and to arrange for their representation oh the executive. To this letter the

Colonial Secretary replied that Mr Seddon's suggestions would receive full consideration both from himself and the newly-elected Governor.' We especially direct the attention of our readers to the tone and wording of Mr Chamberlain's reply, because it absolutely disposes of the malicious suggestion .made by various Opposition journals that Mr Seddon had been snubbed by the Colonial Office for venturing to interfere in Fijian affairs. ' According to yesterday's cables, Fiji seems to be attracting some attention just now in the House of Commons. < Mr Chamberlain's reply as to the possibility of getting Mr Seddon to report oh the native question in the islands looks very much as if Mr Wason, or some other member, had made a suggestion to that effect. But it is clear that Mr Chamberlain still relies on "official" information for his views as to the condition of Fiji, more especially as he has been persuaded that the arbitrary and tyrannical deportation ordinance should be for the* present retained. Happily for Fiji, there seems, to be some prospect that the truth about the whole. question will be forced upon the Colonial Office Kefore**long, in spite of the "official" misrepresentations p)My,]iibh evGii Mt- Cliauiuei'ittin teems .so far to depehd. In January last Mr H. Berkeley,, ajjd Dr, ,G„ FoX'went to England for the purpose of representing to the- Crown the intolerable conditions under which the Fijians now exist. The facts are sufficiently familiar to all who have taken the trouble to read the enormous mass of evidence to a similar effect which has appeared at intervals in the columns of Australasian newspapers, but they have evidently come as a surprise to the majority of the British public.

The "Daily Express" interviewed Mr Berkeley and published a series of indignant comments on his revelations. "Since the Fijians have been British subjects," said Mr Berkeley, '"'they have been compelled to make roads for nothing, without pay and without food. They have had to build houses for noth- \ " !

ihg, without pay and without food. They are imprisoned without trial. They are deported, on the flimsiest pretexts, again without trial. .Besides being heavily taxed (without representation) in an indirect manner, oh every article they use or consume, they are the only jieople in Fiji who have to pay a poll tax. This is levied on every able-bodied native at the rate of 24/ per head. Natives of Samoa, of Tonga, and .of other islands come and go as freely as a white man, and "pay the white man's share of Indians, to the number of 25,000, are permitted in the islands on equally favourable term's, and.without harsh treatment. But for natives nothing is too bad." These statements will not astonish colonial - readers, for, despite the _ evasions of (representatives of the Fijian bureaucracy, we know that they are categorically and literally true. But Englishmen .may well express surprise that such a condition of things should exist in a British colony where the natives appealed for English, rule, "trusting implicitly to the honour and justice of the Queen."

The "Daily Express" further calls attention to the petition for annexation br NeAV Zealand forwarded by the natives to the Crown. "Stung beyond endurance by acts of oppression, the high chiefs and the natives have addressed a pathetic, and yet wondrous 1 // dignified petition to the King. In this they set out the intolerable wrongs they have, suffered. They have no personal liberty, they are kept in a condition of abject slavery, they are groifrid down by the iron heel of oppression, and the nation with one voice implores the King to intervene on its behalf." The journal from which we have quoted enumerates the oryjevanceo for which the natives demand redress:—That they are compelled by the officials to plant their' gardens, to build tlierr houses, ■ to supply them , with food, -to, carry thenrin their, boats,to be their messengers, and to make i-oads for them. For none - of these dutiesdo and if .they refuse compliance they arc promptly im.prisoried/. The "Daily Express" adds the significant fact that scores of natives were thrown into prison for signing the

petition for federation^with New* Zealand. Mr Berkeley and Dr. Fox' declare that they will not. return "until they have secured the promise of justice ior these downtrodden people of Tpuse the Empire with the story of their'intolerable wrongs"; and, whatever the putcome of their mission, the irrefutable charges - that they" have laid iagainst the present stupid and tyrannical administration will be sufficient to justify to the British nation the zeal that Mr Seddon ' has. displayed on behalf, of the Fijians and the- wi-dom of the reforms that he has suggested to the Colonial Office. '