20

A.—4,

succeeded in thrusting this depreciated currency upon the Tonguese, at least to a great extent, the King having stipulated in the Commercial Treaty concluded by Herr Kegel, the representative of the Hamburg firm, that not more than one-half of the coin circulated by them in his dominions should be Bolivian—a proviso obviously void of all practical effect, insomuch as the Government of Tonga have no means of estimating what amount of specie is in circulation among its subjects during a year. The annual poll-tax per adult is $6, generally paid in kind. A license is also levied upon all persons engaged in business; foreigners, likewise, niusir pay for permission to reside upon the Friendly Islands. I have said that the missionaries objected to the introduction of the Bolivian money. This was not the case in Tonga only; they set their faces against it in Samoa and elsowhere. The reason of their opposition was a very natural one. They were in former years, before war weakened their influence, accustomed to derive a considerable revenue from the islands, which was paid in coin. It did not, of course, fall in with their views to accept for a dollar a coin which they were * unable elsewhere to negotiate at more than 75 cents. "When Mr. B. B. Nicholson, of Melbourne, owned the guano diggings at Maldon Island (now Grice and Sumner), he obtained his labour among the Christian natives of the Hervey group, and paid them in Bolivian coin for a time; but the Superintendent of the Mission in those seas sent a circular to all the chiefs under their influence, advising them not to permit any of their people to be hired as guano-diggers unless their employers would bind themselves to pay wages in English or United States coin : for the reason that, very much of the money directly or indirectly finding its way in the end into the coffers of the mission, the directors naturally enough resisted the idea of their disciples bringing to them contributions of this objectionable " iron money." As an instance of the great quantity of specie with which the Friendly Islands have been inundated, as also as an evidence of the resources of the islands themselves, I may cite the fact that in the year 1870 the employes of Measrs. Godeffroy obtained among them over 700 tons of kobra, and in the following year more than double that quantity, the greater part of which they paid for in the first place in silver coin, of which, however, a large percentage immediately returned to their hands in the shape of payment for European goods, upon which their profits are very great, insomuch as a strict regulation exists among them that to no person whatsoever (including the servants of the firm) are they permitted to sell any article of trade at less than 100 per cent, advance on the cost price, exclusive of freight or commission. One remarkable circumstance in respect to the operations of this famous mercantile house, and to which their great success may be in some degree attributed, is that they pay, as a rule, very low wages but liberal commissions. Thus, masters of ships belonging to them, and ranging from 500 to 1,000 tons, receive no more than $25 per month on voyages which extend from one to three years out and home; but over and above this they are allowed 3 per cent, on the net profits of the adventure. In this connection, having introduced the subject of the Messrs. Godeffroy, I may as well describe (as far as is known to me) the origin and organization of their operations in this part of the Pacific. Previous to the year 1857, this famous firm, which is counted among the wealthiest of the merchants of Hamburg, maintained a fleet of vessels, of which a certain number traded about the Indian Sea, under the direction of an agent established at Cochin; others made periodical voyages to the Spanish main, making their places of rendezvous at Valparaiso. At Cochin they maintained a large cocoanut-oil-pressing establishment. At Valparaiso their captains took their instructions from a general agent, whose subordinates resided at Coquimbo, Valdivia, Talcuano, Guayaquil, San Jose de Guatemala, and elsewhere. They traded chiefly in saltpetre, copper, and cochineal. At this time it was customary for Tahitian traders to dispose of their produce in Valparaiso, and to return to the Society Islands with cargoes of flour, &c, for the supply of the French garrison. The attention of Mr. Anselm, the agent of Messrs. Godeffroy, was attracted to their operations. He visited the Society Isles, and, perceiving the great profits which Messrs. Hort Brothers and John Brander were making by the traffic in cocoanut oil and pearl shell, he established an agency in the Paumotus. Messrs. Hort and Brander had separately branch establishments in the Navigator Isles, which they made an intermediate station between Tahiti and Sydney. Anselm, following their example, removed himself there, and, under instructions from principals in Hamburg, made it the head-quarters of their operations in the Pacific. He was lost at sea, but the establishment which he founded flourished and assumed gigantic proportions. By the exercise of great tact and a show of liberality in dealing with the natives, he and his successor (Mr. Theodore Weber) in a great measure swallowed up the trade of the Samoan group, and in a manner thrust both Hort and Brander off their own ground, as far as that portion of the Pacific was concerned. At the present time (for, although my personal experience of them does not extend beyond a date of about two years back, I am given to understand that no change has taken place in their modus operandi), their establishment at Apia, in the Navigator Isles, consists of a superintendent (who is also Consul for Germany), a cashier, eleven clerks, a harbourmaster, two engineers, ten carpenters, two coopers, four plantation managers, a surgeon, and a land surveyor. These constitute the permanent staff, and are all Europeans, chiefly Germans. In addition to these, they employ very many supernumeraries, having among them men of different nationalities, including half-breeds, Portuguese, and Chinamen ; and as plantation labourers, usaally about 400 Polynesians imported by them from elsewhere into Samoa, of whom a portion are natives of Savage Island, but the ■-■greater number of the Kingsmill and Marshall groups. Their property comprises a commodious harbour, a building yard for small vessels, an extensive settlement, three plantations containing an aggregate of 400 acres of cultivation, and somewhere about 25,000 acres of purchased land, of which the greater proportion is not to be surpassed in fertility in any region.

I.—The Islands generally: Mr. Sterndale.