PROGRESS IN FIJI.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 122, 23 May 1879, Page 4

PROGRESS IN FIJI.

In the coarse of sn .address on Fiji delivered at the Colonial Institute, Sir Arthur Gordon, {the Governor, afforded the following interesting infor* mation with regard to the progress made by tbat country, : — At the end of the year 1875 I found myself, with a revenue of £16,000, from, which I had to meet an expenditure of over £70,000, and standing at the head of a dissatisfied and impoverished white population of some 1,500 persons, in the midst of a native populatioa nearly one bunded times ss large, suspicions, watehfol and uneasy; whilst on but too many estates bands of wrongfully detained immigrants formed a real though apparently onrecognised source of danger. It is not my object in the present paper to narrate the steps taken in the administration of the government since that time. Suffice it to say, generally, that tbe revenue of the Colony has swelled rapidly from £16,000 in 1875 to £38,000 in 1876, £47,000 in 1877 and over £60,000 in 1878, while the expenditure has been reduced to a level with the income x that the receipts from Customs, which were in 1875 but £8000, amounted in 1878, under practically the same tariff, to £20,000 ; tbat the import? have nearly doubled ia ?tUae, and the exports (whioh ex-

eed the imports) have quits done so; that the Polynesian labourers whose term of eervice had expired had been conveyed home and replaced by labour rjewly recruited ; that more than 800 tond titles have been settled after laborious ond minute investigation; that measures have been passed by the Legislative Council which do honour to those who framed Ihem, and compare favourably with those of many older Colonies; that the Government eervice has been organised, courts of law established; that a daugerous disturbance bas been put down quickly, cheaply, and effectually; that capital is being investpd, and that, after a careful investigation, extending over more than a year, it has been reported to me, by most competent nnd most cautious scientific nurhorify, that tho annual value of the agricultural exports of the Colony, when its powers of production have been fully developed, will probably exceed £10.0^0,000 sterling.