Don't go to Fiji.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1621, 29 January 1886, Page 2

Don't go to Fiji.

A correspondent writing from Fiji, to tha Auckland Star, says: — It is only . fair, especially while Auckland i*,Buff«r--ing from bad times, to warn working men .from coming her*. Unless a man is specialty engaged m any one of the colonies for a spftctne job, itis.sheei madness coining here looking for work. Fvefy steamer brings a few ».»*:»- "Vjwfly a case of." out of the frying -pan in&iihe fire.' 1 , There is no work obtainable here of any sort, neither for mechanic rior cler.k,^ First-rate mechanics : are idle here, .haying been without a job for., a months at a stretch ; and as to clerks^ I know one who was getting h^£§ ".per week m New Zealand,and who coniihghire was eventually compelled by necessity . to. take his £1 per' week and find him.self, for .nine, hours 1 work adajJ :Old hands cannot obtain work here at "any -price. Carpenters, boat-builders, saillnakers^ and mechanics m general, ire all idle. ; A hundred of them would, leave ta-dayiif they had the means, arid every steamer takes. r those who are l'aßltt^to leaye. ; It,, is. not that the coutitry iis overstocked ' with Europeans,-) orVtfts natural resources played but, but simply that the Government haye T systematically set themselves to ruin the. country, whether through ignorance of th|ir duties or for the actual carrying out' of the Gordonian statement,' that this" iiriio "white man's country," is a ' tn'ojot point amongst residents here. I with many, others, incline to the latter view. By, /iheur^ > jLabom* JRegulationsH' and ' various repressive measures on 'all local industries they certainly made ihe Country other than climatically hot for -the small planter^ and, m fact, for the European m general. I will instance • cases^fbr you as follows •-r-Tfie native (wh^tliet; Polynesian or Fijian) Jpffifyur ordinances are so crushing and'prohibi. tive as to render it utterly impossible for a man of small means to do anything on a plantation. , While the native, is so strictly" proteqted that he cannot *%©» ill--used m a/iYway, the planter or employer has«o redress except that -of taking hit refractory servants, at a great loss of tiiri'e" arid- 1 expense, before .a~magistrate, and getting them imprisoned for a week or two at i ominal hard labonr, the result of it being the loss "of the services of his servant, and his emergence from ; durance vile miicfi woreeTthan ' ftheiuiit wehtTihV- k' i-.--il ? ,iUUC