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Grey River Argus, Volume XVI, Issue 2147, 26 June 1875, Page 2

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[OTAGO TIMES AUCEJIAJro CORRESPONDENT.] Again, a mail from Fiji, .telling- us of trade paralysed, in the absence of fixed government, and of the dreadful' 'ravage? of the measles. The former will soonbe happily ended by the arrival; 'of tie Governor and the latter by the advent of cold weather. : The mortality is still great and private ; letters speak of the distress among the Natives in the most 'painful terms. One letter, whiph I haT6! seen, says: — "I won't say much about this fearful sickness which has come upon as. My heart bleeds too much for words* Another — "I was at Rewa some days back— the first opportunity I had to get there — and the state of ■ things ; was shocking — though, excepting *th<a :! ; vile stench not worse than at Bau; where the sufferings has been as severe as anywhere. Bauis, however, I am thankful to say, convalescent. . There is much-sicki[es|a f at L_evuks, $ihce' fast Saturday tfyej Ijave, buried Mr HortonVson, D'Arcy Murray's child, Macgregor, and Sinclair. Dr Cruikshank has lost a child, and there are others ill. Everything for the moment gloomily dull. Fijiphobists hay turned '%Philo» Fijians, and tiie T mw!taUty of °the: "Native race is sincerely felt, for the whites never knew before they were so nsefuL ..They are missed greatly." " I /do > npji blame the Government, " says another writer,'^ for the introduction of the disease, but they are considered by many to have shown a want of energy in meeting it when introduced. The task; however, was one of a tremendons character. So few white people and so many thousands of natives; The forme* fiUed with anxiety for -their own families, and the latter all down together, and perfectly ignorant of the best way to treat the disease. The missionaries, have come through the ordeal splendidly, and have gained new claims to the native regard. You know how I have in many ways differed from their views, but their conduct in ihis crisis has been noble, and it is sickening to find them made, the sutf. jectof low, scurrilous attacks in our. papers in the midst of all their labors. ; You remember Mr Webb. He is now at Bau, where hia work must have been terrible. It is necessary to see one^ of ' thes^r missionaries, as I have, with wife ill, ser» vant ill, children ill, and all the work d$ household and sick room devolving oh | him, and perhaps one r or two barely convalescent native teachers, yet finding time laud means to devote himself to the \ wretched natives, sick by hundreds around [him. One feels then the heroism of thejr [work, and that the comforts of modern | life in Fiji have not extinguished the ols ! spirit which led them to face its climate and its hardships in the old cannibal days. To differ with such men in matters of go* vewunent or of opinion v oomprehea*

sible ; but to vilify them as some do here is base and ig^obley where pure ignorance oHheir real character is not the cause. The terrible scourge is passing away, after destroying many of the beat of the Chiefs • and disorganising native society ; tut there have been bright instances of Belf-iacriiice, Doth among white men and among fcatives^ of which the memory will notreadily pass away. In commercial matters everything continues extremely dull. It could not well be otherwise;- The great and rapid fall in cotton baa exhausted the means of the planters.' They have nothing left but their land, and that is made uunegotiable by the prohibitory law which was one of Sir Hercules Robinson's legacies on leaving the. country. 3S"o one seems to understand why this law was made. It not only forbade transactions in land with the natives, but between white men as well. Asa temporary measure pending the organisation of a proper registry it was intelligible, but it has gone on till planters are unable ■to get credit to ' cultivate th^ir land, or to pay the wages of the laborers on its security. The most remarkable Step is the- last. The wajges of these laborers are made a first charge upon the planter's estate— a step in "which all parties concur. But instead of finding the money, on ithis security, the Government merely posts in the Gazette the names jof all defaulters^ with the estates on which the laborers have been employed. Incredible as^this may appear, I am told pn the best authority -that this • is the case. Imagine the i position of Ihe planter. He .goes' to the merchant quite ready to pledge his land ; t6 pay- the last farthing due \a thesia; men,; bpt finds that^ the pledge cannot be given, nor the money .obtainefl. TethehasVtoisulbmitto the disgrace of being permanently gazetted as a defaulted, and to remaihon' record that capacity on the official documents 'from which the future history of the Colony is to be coriipiled. 1 have letters complaining bitterly of this as the' most unjust act, and one Js lostin BU3rprise how Sir Hercules Robinspn,;with^his'large'rexperienpe, could have suffered it to be passed'inhisiiame. N6t that the planfe'rs ai all despair. The,y see, as one ; describes it, ■"fortune sticking out as clear as evefj" if they can only g6t at sugar. : On one plantation one and third acre of cane was crashed at a small mill; The cane was many months overripe, terribly smashed about by winds and floods, -land one third at least thrown away as useless. Yet it produced nearly two' tons of, splendid sugar, strong, "bright,, and well-grained. ; With suchreßults from iniperfect.^cultiyation and imperfect appliances inmanufacture,^ not pc expected .when affairs are more settled in the. future l under Sir Arthur Gordon's permanent administration ?