STIR IN TONGA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 September 1924, Page 5

STIR IN TONGA.

CHURCH DIFFERENCES

A DESPOTIC QUEEN.

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) AUCKLAND, Sept. 2. Alarmist reports that hostilities had taken place between members of the Wesleyan Church at Tonga and members of the Free Church of Tonga, who opposed The amalgamation of the two bodies, do not appear to have any basis in fact beyond the episode where a prominent native, who, as mayor of the village, attempted to break up a Free Church gathering by flourishing a club and inflicting a wound upon one man, and where the Minister for Police found it necessary to take action to prevent physical violence.

Nevertheless there has been a considerable stir over the matter, which does not end with litigation over property valued at £IOO,OOO. The Free Church won the action which its representatives 'brought in the Land Court, but an appeal is to be made before a special tribunal or Privy Cbuncil, the personnel of which is such that Mr. R. N Moody, of Auckland, counsel for the plaintiffs, declined to appear before it. *

The suggestion is that the Queen of Tonga has acted in a very despotic manner, and that the selected tribunal is not composed of disinterested individuals, with the exception of the Chief Justice and one member from Fiji. Mr. Moody has sent letters of protest to the Queen of Tonga, and sent I copies to the British agent in Tonga, with a request that they be forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.