MONEY IN FIJI.
On my arrival in Fiji (writes the special correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald), I was much astonished and inconvenienced at the state of the currency, in which the silver coinages of Austria, Bolivia, Chili, France, Italy, Mexico, Prussia, Russia, Spain, and the United States of America were freely and incomprehensibly mixed. To each of these kinds of coin some comparative value was by custom arbitrarily attached, which you neglected to remember at your own loss. The commonest and worst of these (contendingwithaverylimited British currency) was the Bolivian—usually represented by what was termed a two-shilling piece—with a truly hideous head of the Liberator on one side, and trees and birds, etc., on the other. The thing passed freely everywhere; they recognised it even at the bank. Still, the genuine character of the metal was a very dubious point indeed. About a week ago, however, it was first rumored that these Bolivian pieces were beginning to be refused, and that even other foreign money, of an undoubtedly superior character such as the French and American (U.S.)—was only to pass at a strict valuation. For a few days the rumor took "a much more decided form, and the Bolivian pieces were everywhere altogether, refused on the beach, all foreign money that did pass being accepted at a discount, The result has been that there is every likelihood of a great improvement in the currency, but (as I fear) to the loss of many poor persons, especially to the petty traders and to the natives.; It is a curious fact that the riatives.have.always manifested a liking for these foreign pieces, the only silver coins they take with reluctance (and part with as soon as possible) being English sixpences and threepenny bits. Copper they reject entirely, calling it " Dead Man's Money." It is to be feared —as each Fijian hoards up his savings in | his waistbelt—that the loss of many hundreds of pounds of hard earned foreign trash (like the Bolivian two-shilling piece) will eventually be found to have further conduced to the i misery and poverty of the native race. One | good result to the whites will be that a genuine British currency must hereafter replace all foreign rubbish ; and the bank may also, perhaps, gain by the change, for the freer passage ! of its five-shilling bank notes becomes as a matter of course inevitable. I hear that the bank has judiciously imported silver by the Star of the South, which arrived here on the 27th of Attempts are being made to.force copper into circulation, but the dislike the Fijians entertain for it is so great that I much doubt the ultimate success.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4293, 23 December 1874, Page 3
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443MONEY IN FIJI. New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4293, 23 December 1874, Page 3
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