FIJIAN NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 4021, 15 January 1876, Page 3

FIJIAN NOTES.

Sir George Grey has placed his delightful island seat, at Kawau, at the disposal of Lady Gordon and her family during the summer months, the heat of Fiji being too much for them.

As a sign of the progress of Levuka, a British barque is loading there direct for London.

The expenditure of the Fiji Government is estimated at L(>0,000 annually for all purposes, and this amount is not likely to be reduced. It includes L 1,500 a year to Cakombau, and LIOO year to his daughter, Adi Kiula. It also includes L6OO a year to Maafu, and about L 3,000 a year to a hundred and twenty chiefs and Bulis to keep order among the Natives. The salaries are all on a moderate scale, and cannot be reduced in a. country where living is so costly as in Fiji now. The Governor has showed his earnestness in the desire to push the country on by refunding to the Treasury L 2,000 out of the L 5.000 salary awarded Lim by the Colonial Office. He also takes upon himself the entire cost of his household, and asks none of the usual allowances for that purpose. Better proofs of earnestness could not be asked, and whatever difference of opinion may hereafter arise the feeling of the Governor and his disinterestedness cannot be called in question. The Governor, in laying the Estimates before his Council, accompanied them with a momorandum, fully explaining the position, and his regret at finding the expenditure necessary greater and the revenue less than had been anticipated by the Commissioners and Sir Hercules Robinson.

Recently two Fijians were tried at the Supreme Court for the murder of two natives. They stated at their trial that the murdered men had caught the measles, and tbe prisoners killed them to prevent their dying of the measles. The prisoners were at once acquitted. The building trade is very active at present in Levuka. Many new and large stores are in course of erection.