FIJI.

Otago Witness, Issue 1148, 29 November 1873, Page 21

FIJI.

(FROM OUR AUCKLAND CORRESPONDENT.)

The Star of the South has just returned, bringing more satisfactory advices from Fiji than we have had for a long time. The last attempted dmeitte seems to have ended in thoroughly disheartening the Opposition, and to have established the Government firmly, and to the satisfaction of every one in the country. The natives have been subdued throughout the group, and that of itself gives great satisfaction. Planters are no longer in fear of raids from mountaineers, and the law reigns instead. The number of prisoners taken by the Government is very great, and they are being put out on the plantations for three years instead of being confined in gaol. By this means the power of the tribes is completely broken, the chiefs scattered, and the slaves whom they have so long oppressed become at the end of the three years free men, able to take care of themselves, and with legal rights, of which neither they nor their ancestors for generations have ever dreamt. These are great radical and beneficial changes, while the Government is saved the cost and risk of keeping a crowd of prisoners at great expense, and the planters of course rejoice at the chance of getting labour. The men receive the usual pay, and are not separated from their families, who go with them to the plantations. They are under rigid Government supervision, and at the end of the time will probably settle down in the district to which they arc now sent. The Bank of Fiji is also a fact. Mr Simpson went down to pave the way. Its notes are now being printed in Auckland, and its shares being eagerly bought up in Levuka. Sugar planting is extending with wonderful rapidity, and cotton being everywhere rooted out to make way for cane. Large mills are just finished at Suva, and the Rewa mill is being erected. Cane has averaged sixty tons to the acre on the Rewa, and yielded four tons of sugar, being more than twice the quantity upon which calculations were based. Land is being sought for at 50s, but none is to be purchased under six pounds, while few are offering at even that apparently high figure. New hope seems animating the planters, and politics have given way to sugar. The Government bave unquestionably succeeded in a very marked way in suppressing the dreaded mountaineers, and nothing succeeds like success. They have now obtained presthje, and are acting with the greatest moderation. It is not unreasonable under these circumstances to look for the general acceptance of the new Constitution, and an end to the political troubles that have so long agitated the country. At all events there can be no doubt the new Constitution is more practical than the old has proved. In its essential features it is just what I described it likely to be according to the reports that reached us last month. The Government is supreme so long as the King trusts it. This would not, of course, suit any other community in which so many Englishmen were included ; but as I have mentioned in previous letters, Englishmen only go to Fiji to make money and get out of it. Few or none go to settle, and they will be only too glad to get rid of the .worry of governing themselves, if they can find- any one to do the work wisely and economically for them. It is on the economical rock that the old Constitution was wrecked. They began on too large and extravagant a scale, involving taxation to what, in the depressed condition of the country, must have been an unbearable amount. The uncertainty of office and the need of making political friends crippled succeeding Governments in their efforts at retrenchment. The Government now is allpowerful, and need only consult the good of the country. If they take that course, no doubt public confidence will soon follow, and no one will regret the loss of the constitutional liberties which have caused them so lnuch trouble. This is the view given in private letters just received. "What public opinion may really be we must wait for time, and the enquiries of Commodore Goodenough and the Consul Layard to show. It is to be remembered throughout all this that trial by jury continues in force, and so long as that is the case, personal liberty and the rights of property cannot be in peril.

The Government are reconstructing the administrative organisation, • and propose dividing the country into three great dig.

tricts, with a native chief and an English Commissioner attached to each.

The private letters, however, all centre round "sugar," and say little of other affairs. Brewer and Joske of Levuka are the men of the period, having just finished their large mill. A letter says " they have a manager thoroughly practical, and everything is done in first-rate style. The sugar will be boiled with steam pipes ; the last four or five casks were made in their old rude affair behind Brewer's store. It was very good, a light sparkling yellow, dried simply by drainage of the molasses through holes in the bottom of the cask." The steamer has returned so fchort a time before this mail leaves, that I can only send you what news these private letters contain, and if you have too much " sugar," regard it only as a reflex of the letters I have received. The next mail will probably give an account of the opening of the Commission's labours. Everything in the future will depend on their report, and it will be looked for with anxiety by every one connected with the country.