FEDERATION WITH FIJI.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 70454, 3 October 1900, Page 2

FEDERATION WITH FIJI.

SYDNEY MERCHANTS PETITION

THE GOVERNMENT.

Peb Pbesb Association.— By Elkotbio Telegraph,-- -Copybight. Reoeived Ootober 8, 9,85 a.m. Sydney, Ootober 8. A petition signed by a large number of leading merchants in the city has been presented to the Premier. It states that they have notioed with concern the agitation in Fiji for incorporation with New Zealand, and quotes . figures from the Fiji Royal Gazette to show the proportionate value of imports at I Fiji from the various oolonies during | the past four years. It goeß on to state that during the period in question the value of the yearly imports from New South Wales inoreased by £88,000, while the exports decreased by £6,000. In the event of such incorporation, there is good reason to fear that much of this growing trade will be diverted from New South Wales to New Zealand. As the preponderating value of the exports from New Zealand to Fiji has been quoted as showing that Fiji is more inti.mately connected with that colony than with any other, it may be stated that if the exports to New Zealand during 1899 were £281,000, L 281,000 represented the value of sugar shipped from the Fiji mills of the Colonial Sugar Co. to their refinery in Auckland, the movement of which is known to bo merely a matter of convenience, and entirely unaffected by other conditions. That the bulk of the operative capital in Fiji is certainly not from New Zealand is shown by the Customs' returns, giving sugar and spirit exported last year as representing 75 per cent of the value of the total exports, nearly seveneighths of which proportion was produced at the 'mills of the Sugar Refining Co., a New South Wales corporation, tho balance being made at the Nama and Penang mills, owned in England and Melbourne respectively. •' We trust," say the petitioners, "you will take steps , to bring these facts under the notice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in order that the trade interests of New South Wales, wliich are so largely predominant in Fiji, may be adequately safeguarded.

The Herald, commenting on the merchants' protest regarding Fiji, says: "Far. the bulk of the business of tho islands being with this colony, the dis*. turbance of trade by. arbitrary severance on political grounds cannot bo justified. We have no doubt the proposal will be disallowed by the British Government on the representation of Sir W. J. Lyne."