FIJI AS A CROWN COLONY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2455, 3 April 1901, Page 42

FIJI AS A CROWN COLONY.

A.LLEGKD HIGH-HANDED PROCEEDINGS WKLUNG'ION. April 1. The Picmier hrs leceiveJ a. letter from Mi Humphrey Berkeley. Fiji, confirming a prtuou-, telegram to the effect that se\eral natives, of Pcma h..d been deported to Kai ddvu for waiting upon Mr Beikelevwith re^id to federation with New Zealand, and concerning the ;ir:ev?ii<~es under which they laboured Und°r aU Fij.an law, Mr' Berkeley points out, such deportation is illegal. Immediately on the sentence of deportation being pionounced the men weie taken to the wharf and shipped on a cutter for Kanddvu. Mr Fiank Cecil Beddard, who joined Mr Beikeley 111 practice a year ago, is moving the couit for a wnt of habeas corpus, and the Governor having heard of this hns brought in an ordinance to prohibit Mr Beddard from practising, although he has been practising without question foi a year past. If Mr Beddard is refused a hearing on the motion for a writ of habeas corpus, Mr Berkeley says he will have to iincl some otner way of getting the veiy great wrongs to which the people of the colony aie subject accorded a hearing. Mr Berkeley had just returned frcm the place where the deported men came from when a high Government official was sent down to warn the natives that if thc-y retained his services they would follow their chief into deportation. Mr' Berkeley also states that four chiefs who were imprironed in connection with Nakel's case were, on liberation from prison, deported by the Government for 10 years. " Now the Governor has sent out order?," MiBerkeley continues. '" that his speech at Wainibokasi shall be read in every village in Fiji, and those orders have been most literally obeyed. The only gam by his so doing is on our side* for the people are now at one on the question of federation with New Zealand, or, failing that, selfgovernment. If you could understand what this disregard of the Government instructions means you would know that the people of Fiji — and here I mean Fijianc — would to a man vote for federation with J your country."