DEFERRED PAYMENTS IN FIJI.

Evening Star, Issue 3556, 16 July 1874, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEFERRED PAYMENTS IN FIJI.

(From the Southern Cross.)

The system of “ deferred payments ” appears to be rife in Levuka. The subordinate officials of the Fijian Government must be remarkably docile to accept without a protest or a grumble scraps of doubtful paper as quid pro quo for services rendered. They have recently been presented with cert ideates in the nature of promissory notes, at six months’ date, in lieu of sterling coin. These documents do not seem to possess a negotiable value, inasmuch as the Bank declined to discount them, although bearing, I presume, the royal autograph of

“ Cacobau, X “ His Mark.”

The prevailing impression on the mind of that dark potentate appears to be that the Fiji Bank was started mainly for the purpose of supplying him with unlimited cash. I do not know whether his late responsible advisers instilled the notion iuto his mind that the royal prerogatives included thn run of the strong-room. At all events, the supposition is not a wild one, knowing as we do how those wily adventurers have hitherto imposed on his credulity. He has discovered by this time, however, in common with some of his European “ subjects,” that the institution in question is a business establishment, and not exactly a dispensary for the impecunious. I wonder what sort of a hovel the Supreme Court in Levuka must be. The jury-box can hardly be a luxurious lounge for a siesta, judging from the fact that of twenty-two citizens sumat the recent sessions, all but one were fined ten dollars each for nonattendance. This contempt for the Palladium of British libeity looks gloomy, but there is “a silver lining to every cloud,” and as the silver in this case lined the official pockets of Cakobau’s cashier-in-chief, those delinquent jurors must have been quits a windfall. If St. George St. Juliau could only see hist way clear to hold a session monthly, the revenue would improve perceptibly in course of time.