LORD CANTERBURY AND FIJI.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4228, 8 October 1874, Page 3

LORD CANTERBURY AND FIJI.

(From The ColorUea, August 7.) In the course of the debate on the Fiji annexation question Viscount Canterbury urged that because some Englishmen went to Fiji when they were told not to do so we should not extend our protection to those who are there now. His Lordship has studied to little purpose the history of British colonisation if he considers that an argument. Why have we now a Colonial Empire 1 Because a ,great many Englishmen have from time to time gone to a great many places from which they were warned. Is Lord Canterbury aware that the founders of the very Colony over which he has recently so worthily presided as Governor were told not to go there ? But they did go; and when the British Government found a much smaller number of British subjects at Port Phillip than are now at Fiji, instead of acting upon his Lordship's principle and refusing to extend its protection over them, because they had disregarded its admonition, it within a few mouths acceded to their desire for the establishment of a regular government. .It is rather a singular coincidence "too that some of the early settlers _of Victoria did something similar to that which the noble lord considers another reason why the British Government should not give its subjects in Fiji the benefits of its rule. Some of them, he "tells us, have "sworn allegiance to the native king." Batman and his fellow-founders of Victoria acknowledged the sovereignty of the Native chiefs at Port Phillip, and their rights to the land by entering into contracts for the purchase of large tracts of it. Had Viscount Canterbury's views been those of the Imperial Government at the time, he would probably never have been Governor of Victoria, for we fear that the Colony might never have formed part of the British Empire. What his Lordship condemned in his speech was nothing less than that spirit of enterprise and adventure which has constituted the Anglo-Saxon the unrivalled coloniser of the globe and made our United Empire the grandest in the history of the world. Viscount Canterbury concluded by saying that "he thought under existing circumstances the acceptance of Fiji by this country was not a matter of duty, and would confer upon the British Empire advantages in no degree equivalent for the difficulties that the acceptance of the sovereignty would involve, so that he felt bound to protest against this proposal for annexing these islands." All we have to say to this is that the noble lord opposes, as he is doubtless aware, the almost unanimous opinion of the Colony of which he was Governor, as of all the other Australian Colonies, and also of his contemporary in New South Wales, Lord Belmore, who had much more to do with the question than he had—in fact, he bravely faces the wishes of most people who know anything upon the subject. Every word we have quoted might have been said, doubtless -was said, of every one of the now flourishing Australian Colonies, and we fear would have been said by Viscount Canterbury himself had he been called upon to express an opinion when they were founded. He would at least have endeavored to persuade this country to have nothing to do with what, notwithstanding greater troubles and difficulties than any to be apprehended in Fiji, has become the magnificent British Colony of New Zealand.