AMONGST THE ISLANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7782, 30 October 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMONGST THE ISLANDS.

SOME OF THE GROUPS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

3UNDAY ISLAND, IN THE KERMADEC GROUP— TON'GATABU AND VAVAU, IN THE TONGAN, OR FRIENDLY, OR 'DP OPOLU, IN* THE SAMOAN, OR NAVIGATOR'S, GROUP—TAHITI, IN THE SOCIETY GROUP -RAROTONGA, IN THE HARVEY, OR OOOK GROUP.

No. VIII,

[FROM CUR TRAVELLING CORRESPONDENT.] 8 i FACTS AND FIGURES. j Let us come to facts and figures, and, having arrayed these, dilate further on. ± Fourteen islands constitute the Samoan, or i Navigator's Group. Of these nine are in ■ ® habited and cultivated, five are mere islets, and support no population. The total land j. area or superfices of the fourteen islands is, c approximately, as nearly as ascertained, t 1.056,000 acres, equal to 1650 square miles. * There are no reliable data upon which to * estimate the area of the five uninhabitable t islets, but, for our present purpose, let them t be put down at a minimum of 16,000 acres, i or 25 square miles. Deducting these from ' the gross area, thus 1,056.000 acres, or 1650 8 square miles, minus ' 6,000 aorea, or 25 j square miles, leave 1,040,000 acres, or 1625 square miles, as the available heritage of the Samoan people. In 1872 these people were estimated at from 33,000 to 34,000. In 1886 they may be safely put down at 35,000. There may be, and are, several hundred other Kanakas—"labour boys" - imported from the Polynesian Islands, working upon the plantations for the great firms, but these enter not into the calculation ; we have to do simply with the indigenous Samoatss, the original proprietors of the soil. If the 1 040,000 acres be divided by the number of the inhabitants, 35,000, we shall arrive at the average of land per capitem, and it will give 29 5.7 th acres to each man. woman, I and child. But, then, from the 1625 square miles, or the 1,040,000 acres, three considerable deductions have to bo made. First, the Germans have 6000 acres of land, equal to 9 3-Bth square milos, secured to the purchasers by the Treaty of 24th January, 1879, ratified by the Gorman and Samoan Governments. Of these they hold the fee simple. But, in addition thereto, they lay claim to 9 ),000 acres, or 140 5 Bth square miles, of the best land in the island of Upolu. If to this claim be added the 6000 acres, or 9 3 Bth square miles, already re- 1 ceived, the German claim will amount to 96,000 acres, or 150 square miles. But, then the Americans claim 210,000 acres, or 328 1 Bth square miles. And last, but not least, the English, as represented almost entirely by one New Zealand firm, totalise the magnificent claim to 235,000 acres, or 367 3- 16th square miles, comprising nearly the whole of the fertile and cultivated land in the island of Savaii, whioh is the largest of the Navigator, or Samoan, Group. Upon this vast territory there are extensive cocoanut and cotton plantations, bearing the names respectively of Fasetpotai, Magia, Lata, and Faleuia, the produce of which is shipped direct to England. Now, if the German claim of 96,000 acres, or 150 square miles, and the American claim of 210,000 acres, or 328 l-Bth square miles, and the English claim of 235,000 acres, or 367 3 16ths square miles, be added together, the aggregate of land alienated from the aboriginal proprietors, and now claimed or in the possession of probably less than a dozen foreigners, Germans, Americans, and I English, will amount to 541,000 acres, or ■ 845 5 16th square miles, the pick of all the j cultivatible land. If this be subtracted from 1,040,000 acres, or 1625 square miles, I the total land area, the remainder will be 499,000 acres, or 779 11-16 square miles. , Hence it is evident that more than the half ! of the patrimonial native land in the I Navigator Group has been already alienated ; I that is, instead of there being to each native i an average (as there should be) of 29 5-7 th i acres, there are now only 14 2-7 th acres— 1 less than one-half I When Great Britain annexed New Zealand and the Fijis, the " landsharks" had already laid claim to vast tracts of native land, but the British Government righteously instituted courts of inquiry to adjudicate upon and arrange these olaims. From many, and among them from Mission- j ary Societies, were recovered some thousands i of acres. Why should not a joint com- ! mission, composed of disinterested repre- | sentatives of the nationalities concerned, be j empowered to subject to investigation and compulsory settlement all the claims to land >' in the Samoan Islands ? It seems an outrage , upon humanity that a race of 35,000 souLs > ' should be dispossessed of more than the half of their patrimonial lands simply for the behoof 1 of some half.dozen speculative commercial i firms! Whether in New Zealand, in the Fijis, or in the Samoan Islands, neither a < corporation, a firm, nor an individual should 1 be entitled to hold such tracts of land as ? 70,000. 96.000, 210,000, or 235,000 acres; ' law and equity should step in and make it I impossible. In the Tongan and Harvey ' ■ Groups the lands have been nationalised, and can only be leased at, say, not less than one shilling and sixpence a year, and that [ not beyond 99 years. Why were not I similar restrictions placed upon the expro- , priation of the native lands in Samoa ? I How came it that some half-dozen firms I were allowed to lay claim to more than the

moiety of the entire heritage of these Samoana? At Apia there were, and are, Consular repreientatives of the four moat enlightened of the called Christian nations— wit, of Great Britain, the United States, France, and Germany. Why, then, did they not protect these easily-beguiled and too-confiding aborigines, who oould aoaroely be aware of what they were doing when they, yielding either to the cajolery or the minatory coercion of the unscrupulous foreigners, who had quartered themselves upon their territory, bartered away the better half of the heritage of their children, who henceforth, if these claims can be substantiated, will have to be content with lets than 15 instead of 30 acres each ? That we need not travel far to find the answer must be obvious to every sincere inquirer. The object in plaoing these officials there was not to proteot the natives and conserve their lands, but to look after, guard, and advance the interests of those whose national Governments they respectively represented. To this may be traced the rougher and readier diplomacy towards the Samoans than would obtain in the council chambers of nations armed to the teeth, prepared, aDd well able, to try conelusions with all aggressors. Witness the bullying of one or another of then), for the purpose of coercing from the helpless puppet-King, Malietoa, a seoret treaty, securing distinctive and exceptional privileges to the compatriots of the astute negotiator, but excluding all others. Not long since the ever-restless German Consul sucooeded in frightening out of the to-be-pitied Malietoa, kept in perpetual oscillation upon the tenter-hooks of national commercial rivalries, a special seoret agreement, which secured to German subjects immunities and facilities for trading, to the exolusion of the subjects of other kingdoms. This treaty, surreptitiously obtained, was so palpably one-sided that the English Consul had to* insist that British subjects should not be excluded from its privileges, and he carried his point. It is gratifying to find evidences cropping up on *11 sides that the Government of the British Empire befriends the aborigines in every quarter of the globe, and that, as a consoquence, these tribes, if left to themselves, whether semi-savage or semi-civilised, would instinctively gravitate towards the Anglo-Saxon race, and would place themselves under the ®gis of its flag in preference to any other. There is in them an inherent conviction, notwithstanding the vice, chicanery, fraud, and barbarity of some few renegades, who disgrace their nationality, of the uprightness and humanity of Englishmen, and they would, if circumstances permitted, trade, barter, and deal only with them.

From the produce of the European plan- t tations, from the purchase of produce from t the Samoans, from the Bale of trade"— \ that is, European goodsto the natives, c from the importation of Peruvian and ( Chilian silver dollars and half-dollars, a t largely-increasing and highly-remunerative i commerce is carried on by the oolosnal land- i holding firms, amounting almost to mono* f poly. Outsiders or free traders labour t under bo many difficulties, of whioh the 1 forced currency of South Amerioan dollars 1 at a ficticious vjilue is not the least, that he 1 has but a poor chance of holding his own t against the organised competitive hostility ( of the powerful ring. As soon as English < coinage becomes the currency, standard of I value, or medium of exchange throughout i the South Sea Islands, an incubus will be < lifted from off commercial enterprise, and a 1 fair field will open up for companies and ] individuals, equal in ensrgy, but less ' weighty in pocket, than those now on the 1 ground. Under the vitiating system whioh I at present obtains, the profits are in fcripli* < cate, totalising enormous gain. The dollar I importation pays, say, at least 25 per cent., 1 the trade," or goods, sold to the natives i average not less than 100 per cent.; the I profits upon island produce vary, dependent < upon the fluctuations of the European 1 markets—sometimes they may be large, i sometimes small, and sometimes nil, but I seldom can there be loss. There is difficulty 1 in getting at the aggregate of exports and 1 imports. The statistics obtainable from the ] British Consul are helpful as far as they go, i but, as their data refer only to the port of 1 Apia, they form no reliable basis upon | which to estimate either the imports or the i exports of the whole Samoan Group. The < New Zealand firm ship direct from Fasl- i tootai to London, and issue no statistics of i their transactions. Referring, then, to the i data accessible, but admittedly impsrfeot, 1 the annual exports may be assumed as i verging upon £100.000, and the imports as 1 not far from £60,000; but, were full and I reliable statistics forthcoming, these figures 1 might probably be doubled. Auckland . derives no advantage from the exports, i inasmuch as they are shipped direot to Europe, but she comes in for a fractional ' share of the imports in the following pro. ' portions : —America, one-twefth ; Germany, four - twelfths ; England, seven ■ twelfths, | divided equally aa from London, Sydney, i and Auckland. If, in spite of the very natural greed of gain on the part of present monopolists, the current coin or the medium of exchange should become Knglish instead of South American ; that is, if the British sovereign, or pound sterling, should be adopted as the standard of value, an eventually it must, superseding the debased Bolivian, Peruvian, and Chilian silver dollar, it will be but another illustration of the irresistible and phenomenal advance of everything Anglo - Saxon, unique in the history of the world. If the Bank of New Zealand could see its way to establish agencies here and there at the principal commercial centres of the South Pacific Groups, it would go far to bring about so desirable an object. It would stimulate production on the part of the natives ; and increased production means, of necessity, a correlative increase in the imports and exports ; hence a rapidly developing commerce, especially as soon as the Panama Canal shall have become the line of transit to and from the ports of Europe. Justi now the debased medium of exchange is the retarding difficulty, the obstruction, Remove it, unfetter enterprise, establish a sterling standard of value, and an harveiit of financial prosperity will follow, The first in the field will reap. It is noteworthy that the books of the German firms are said to be kept in Knglish, which necessitates that all their clerks should be able to apeak and correspond in English. When we, in onr stroll through Apia, entered the warehouse of the Deutsche Handling, we were met by a refined and gentlemanly young man, whose instinctive conrteousness bore witness to his educational culture. He spoke English naturally and fluently, escorted us throughout the premises, explaining everything, and replied to our many questions with patient intelligence. We were gratified in learning from him that the clerks are engaged for three years; that their saloon passages out and home are paid by the firm. Ihe salaries are good, and the status so respectable that is no uncommon thing to find the soions of firat-olass and noble families among them. Igmotds. [To be continued.]