FIJI.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2769, 2 January 1872, Page 3

FIJI.

A native difficulty has threatened Fiji, and the method devised for its removal is regarded by the Lytlel on Times as a foolish thing, and one likely to lead to a great injustice. The highland population haye so far defied all attempts at subjugation. Settlers and natives alike have suffered from their forays, and the Government Lave come

to the conclusion that the highlanders must be exterminated. They intend, says the GazMe “to institute measures for the inauguration of a military force to subjugate ) the mountaineers of Viti Levu, and occupy ' their laud, which is described as highly fertile and suitable for settlement.” Tbe Gazd'e also tells us how “ the army of occupation” is to be raised. “We have already,” remarks that journal, “a number' of idlers who would gladly volunteer to become members of the army of occupation, and who are quite ready to shoulder the rillc and undertake the invasion of a country peopled by bloodthirsty savages, living in a state of heathenism horrible to contemplate. ” The scheme, then, simply amounts to this—that these idlers or loafers, who are no doubt troublesome to the Government, are to he tempted by large grants of laud to commence a war of extermination, as foolish as it is criminal. The proposition that those of the mountaineers whom they do not kill are to be deported “in small lots as laborers to the planters,” shows the whole thing is an attempt to procure labor, no matter what crimes are committed by the agents employed.