THE ISLAND OF REUNION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 290, 19 April 1869, Page 3

THE ISLAND OF REUNION.

♦ — Allusion was made in our telegram of English news to late disturbances in the French settlement at Reunion. The following account of what took place appears in the Ceylon papers: — " The press had been allowed to go to great extremes. There was a newspaper avowedly advocating the interests of the clergy, and supported by them. Another paper proclaimed opposite principles, and raked up all the scandalous paragraphs in the French papers against the clergy, with the view to excite the population against it. A new editor of the first paper replied with biting sarcasm, and every effort was made to excite the population against this new comer. He was accused of an unnatural crime ; an attempt was made , to destroy the printing office of the Malle ; the house of a respectable citizen was attacked because he was said to be one of the proprietors of the paper named; the house of the director of the interior was only saved from violence by the mayor, and from thence the mob proceeded to the establishment of the Jesuits, and destroyed all they found in it. The same acene would have been renewed at the religious establishment of La Providence 1 if the military had not appeared there to protect it. The following day the people again assembled ; the troops were called out, and, notwithstanding the request of the Governor, the reiterated supplications of the mayor, and the signal of the chief of the military, the crowd refused to disperse. Even then they were not fired on until shots were fired at them, and several soldiers were wounded by stones. Six were killed and thirty wounded among the people. The Governor declared the town in a state of siege, and gave orders that no mention should be made in the newspapers of what had occurred. In the meantime the new editor of the Malle and the Director de l'lnterieur left on the 18th December by the mail steamer. Our latest news from Reunion was to the 31st ult., when all was quiet, but there was still prevailing much discontent and misery. The quantity of sugar exported has fallen from 68,400 tons in 1860 to 36,000 tons in 1867; the value of imports have fallen from forty-two million francs in 1860 to twenty-six millions in 1867; the total imports in the same time from thirty-eight million francs to twenty millions, and last year a further reduction took place."