RAROTONGA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8529, 1 April 1891, Page 6

RAROTONGA.

" [fkom our own correspondent. J

' , . Avakua, March 23. The coffee season is now aboiib commencing, and the crop shows for a very large yield this season. Picking will be starting in another week or two.

The ketch Awariia, belonging to the firm of Goodwin and DeLisle, has gust returned from the group, and is a full vessel, with cotton and other produce. She is to make another cruise so soon as her present cargo is discharged. Matters at Mangaia are in a very peaceful state. The stores are now allowed to be opened for general trading, a fact that should bo pleasing news to the firms concerned, for they have been put to a very largo amount of expense through the natives declining to allow free trading for so long a time. The liquor law down here is a veritable bone of contention, and the present mode of working it is causing very serious trouble. According to the reading of the law a European can purchase liquor from the! bond, but he cannot resell it, nor can he even give a glass of it to a European friend, not even to his own wife. Whether that was Mr. Moss's intention or not is a vexed question, but let that be as it may, the law as a whole, as it now stands, is a glorious piece of muddleism, and the sooner it is repealed the better it will be for the originators, for with its continuance they will lose any little credit they may have possessed as legislators. And in tho place of this law, let one be enacted staying the importation altogether, and affairs in the island will be the better. It is strange that at all the other islands of the group except this one, liquor is not allowed to be landed, and every package is searched on being landed; bub here there has been open defiance of the law. But, then, it must be remembered that here Europeans reside in some number, and they do say number gives strength. This the natives have felt to their cost, and to their shame have they been forced to stand still and see their laws openly broken without a single European to help them. Now, with the new law comes personal quarrelling, and one . European is set against another until it is not safe to enter a store that used to sell liquor for fear of being pub down as having obtained a glass, and being informed upon. A case came on the other day in which a storekeeper was fined 150 dollars for selling two bottles of > beer to two Europeans. Some hard swearing was indulged in, and some bitter names used, for which fines were enforced. Two other storekeepers were fined, all on the informer plan, each in similar amounts to that already named. I believe the cases will be asked to be re-heard when the father of this strange and wondrous law, Mr. Moss, returns. The return of Mr. Moss is anxiously looked for, for there are many matters which require his presence. So far as the liquor law is concerned, that will require his best attention. It must be borne in mind that he is not so much to blame for this law as others who really jot on the soft side of him before he had fdrly time to grasp the situation of affairs here, and made him believe that the law passed was the only one which was wanted alike by the natives and the Europeans. No doubt Mr. Moss sees by this time the mistake that has been made, and will have matters rectified on his return.

The action of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Alliance is being closely watcned here, and the natives generally approve of the steps they are taking. Queen Makea has received quite a batch of correspondence from them, but time jas not permitted of a reply. She is, however, very pleased with the assistance being rendered by the Alliance. In the new liquor law we have the prohibition clause; and to-day the first " case" has been prohibited. A European has had an order got out against him, and now a few cocoanut trees are conspicuous with notices warning all and sundry not to be kind to any more, but to steel their hearts and firmly fix the corks of their liquor bottles against him. .