TEE DIVERSIONS OF A PRIME MINISTER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10597, 5 March 1895, Page 2

TEE DIVERSIONS OF A PRIME MINISTER.

(St James’s Budget.) That “truth is stranger than fiction” is so generally acknowledged that wa should hesitata to use so old and trite an adage but for tho fact that it ia usually applied to things remarkable for their ; pathos, swfalness, or horror; whereas in the present instance it is tho curious comicality of the humour which is stranger than fiction. Those who are familiar with the ‘"Lord High Executioner,” the « Public Exploder,” the “ Pooh-Bah ” of many offices, and others of the quaint and comical characters created by Mr W. 'S. Gilbert’s fertile imagination in his topsy-turvy plays, will recognise, almost with a’start of surprise, the striking resemblance between the Gilbertian whimsicalities and the nersonsges and incidents introduced to us'in Mr Basil Thomson’s “ Diversions of a Prime Minister.” Perhaps, though, vie ought to say, by the way, that these " diveroions ” arc infinitely more diverting to Mr Thomson’s readers than ever they could have been to him. The scene of them lies in the charming tropical group of islets known ns tho Friendly Islands, and the incidents of government witnessed aud participated in by Mr Thomson surpass in comicality aud quaiatness the wildest whimsicalities of the imaginary State of “ Utopia, Limited.” The altogether im. conscious, hut none the leas curious, humour of the story of the government of tho raalmes of King George of Tonga lies ia the adaptation of high-sounding European names and officers to the members of tho Government of these islands, containing loss than 20,000 inhabitants all told; and the incongruity of this state of things may bo illustrated by the fact that the (Lord High) Treasurer of Tonga was a simple old coloured gentleman whose usual garments consulted, of a simple loin-cloth and the cord round his neck from which depended the key of the Treasury. It was to help tho Native Minister gather 1 together the reins of Government that Mr Basil Thomson was called upon to act as colleague of the Prims Minister in the new Cabinet. So great, however, was the Native aversion to be again ruled by a white man that Mr Thomson took office under the title of “ The Expounder” .-. i,e„ of the "Constitution” formed on British lines. As the chiefs and relatives of the King, who, though nominally holding high offices, knew bub little either of their duties or of the awe-regarded " Constitution,” had never exercised their real functions, Air Thomson had a hard task to got hie colleagues in the Ministry to appreciate and carry out the duties of their respective offices. SHOE-LEATHER A MEANS OF SALVATION, Mr Thomson’s house in Tonga adjoined the Government College, being, in fact, tho house of the lata English principal. The undergraduates ' were a source of amusement for the first few days. It must have been very strange at first to see the gentle savages” in mortar-boards but shoeless ; and the idea of their writing shorthand is quits Gilbertian “ On week-days they were taught shorthand and tho higher mathematics by native tutors in cap and gown; in the evenings they sang incessantly in excellently sustained parts. On Saturday they turjmcl out with knives and baskets to clean up tho college premises; and on Sunday they all put on trousers and mortar-boards, and were marched off two and two to church, carrying their shoes ia their hands. At the church door the whole sixty pairs halted to put on their boots and enter the house of God with dignity. They formed a magnificent choir of bass voices, and rendered tho trashy Methodist hymns with a grandeur that would have greatly surprised their -composers. During the sermon the sixth form were busy transcribing the homily in shorthand.” “ THE KING OF THE (LATE) CANNIBAL ISLANDS.” la due course Mr Thomson was introduced to the King, whom ho was destined to serve as Prime Minister. King George proved a very amiable person. “ As soon as the King saw ua he rose from hia i eat to fetch a chair for me from several that were set round the table in readiness for tha Council. He was dressed in European clothes of rusty black cloth, and appeared to have been waiting for ns for some time. The house was divided into three by reed partitions, and very meanly furnished; a green iron bedstead in the inner room, covered with mats, was tho only bedroom furniture, and besides the table and office chairs in tho middle room there waa only a shelf of the commonest crockery. The.outer room was occupied by his servants, who, I believe, were prisoners. It was characteristic of tho King that while he had a well-found kouae in Nukualofa, he lived from choice on tho barest necessaries, and spent a large portion of his income on building churches,” POEM, NOT SUBSTANCE. Of tho character of the Tongana we get this graphic description, which accounts in a large way for their peculiar aemicivilizod, half-barbaric mixture of costumes and customs : "'There is a lack of thoroughness about tha Tongans. They pine to live like Europeans, to own implements and horses and saddlery, yet not one of them can bake a loaf of bread nor forge a bolt nor splice a scrap. Their thirst ia not for knowledge, but for showy accomplishments; their genius is frothy and ephemeral. This moral untidiness pervades everything. In the King’s palace there is a throne-room furnished like aa Australian parlour, with Kidderminster carpet, ormolu ornaments under glass shade?, aud crewel-work mats on the tables —the whole in unimaginable order — while iu a bare room on tha ground-floor the King sleeps on hia mat spread on tho boards, and oats hia yams from a single plate. A Cabinet Minister may be Been sitting on the floor cf hie well-furnished office, eating his mid-day meal from a large dish with hia fingers. The Minister of Police bustles about his work, delighted with tho new routine ho imperfectly understands. ‘lt io excellent,’ he says with enthusiasm, only ho cannot say bow many officials- draw pay in his department, nor can tha Premier as Minister cf Education.” CRICKET TWICE A WEEK, The Tongauo are a race of athletes, and they generally get the better of the bluejackets whom they challenge to sports and tug-of-war. But their real passion is cricket. Soon after its introduction the game became a national danger:— "The plantations were neglected; tho cocoanuts lay rotting on the ground, for tho whola population played cricket from dawn to dusk all over the island, with a hat if they could get it, hut otherwise with a cocoanut branch and ;, -n unripe orange. They played matches, one village against another’, and all tho men of each village took an innings. With perhaps seventythree on one aide and fifty-two on the other a match lasted for days; and party feeling sometimes ran so high that at the end the losers fell upon the victors with tho bats aud utumps to avenge their disgrace. This was oil changed when cricket was regulated by law aud confined to Tuesdays and Thursdays only; besides, tho heat of tho cricket passion has had time to cool. But I record tho matter if only to serve tha sneakers at cricket dinners with a useful illustration.” FASHIONS IN SUICIDE. Tho average tats of suicide in tho Pacific is about equal to tne rate for the United Kingdom; but, since most of the suicides in Europe are committed under the influence cf mania or extreme misery —conditions generally absent iu these favoured isles—it is natural to suppose that tho Pacific islanders have a predisposition towards self-destruction : " Tho usual causes are lovers’quarrels arid the fear of being* neglected in incurable

il’ncrs. Ia the latter case suicide is a mere survival of tho old custom that constrained a sick man to importune his relatione to strangle or bury him alive—itself an evolution from an earlier time when the existence of a family depended upon its having no disabled members to protect. The lovers’ quarrels that result in suicide are quite as trivial as those of civilised communities. On the sudden, of some Blight; misunderstanding _ the distressed lover resorts to tho picturesque hut inadequate method of climbing to the top of a cocoanut palm and jumping off, with the usual result of a broken limb, a reconciliation with the beloved object, and permanent lameness. Of late years the cocoanut tree baa become less fashionable for men who are in earnest. These generally prefer a precipice, or, if their despair be of the more deliberate kind, poison, which, being a mere infusion of bark or leaves, must be drunk in such largo quantity that it more often produces vomiting than death, Tha ancient mode of execution in Tonga—putting the condemned adrift ia leaky canoes —still occasionally survives as a method of suicide.” We may not further follow Mr Thomson in his hard hut successful task of “ expounding” to tha Tongans the ways of the wise white man ia matters of government ; suffice it to say that be did hob the fruits of hia labours in the establishment of a settled Government on constitutional lines, with a fully-fledged Parliament possessing ail the very latest things in the way of tho closure, and the other indispensable adjuncts of modern representative government. Although the book has a serious purpose in tho recording of a crisis in the history of the Friendly Islands, yet, as we have raid, the very idea of a tiny State of 20,000 inhabitants—more or lens brown or copper-coloured—-copying the modes of government of the British Empire is so very funny, and tha incongruities arising therefrom tso comical, that a bare recital of the facts could not bo otherwise than intensely humourous and entertaining. But Mr Thomson is not merely interesting; he is instructive as well. He has some very able chapters, sketches and appendices on such subjects as the missions and the warfare of tha rival churches; the history cf Tonga; translations of extracts from Scbouten’a "Journal,” and other most interesting materials for forming an accurate idea of tho ways of these interesting people and of their charming islands.