AN EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH. Fiji and the Bogey Man.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 22, 1 December 1900, Page 6

AN EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH. Fiji and the Bogey Man.

THE proposal that Fiji should federate with New Zealand appears to have created in the mind of Sir G. OBrien, the gentleman who represents Her Majesty in the capacity of Governor of Fiji, a wholesome terror lest the change of Government should deprive him of his exalted position. It is difficult otherwise to understand the most extraordinary speech which His Excellency is reported as having made at the opening of the Wainisbokasi Hospital, Rewa. The popular and dominant sentiment in the minds of all Britishers at the present time is that the silken bonds of unity between the remote British possessions should be drawn tighter in their relation to the Mother Country. Sir G. OBrien, if his speech is correctly reported, does not scruple to further his own designs, whatever they may be, by sowing the seeds of hatred and jealousy between two colonies which have shown such cordial sympathy towards each other and desire for mutual co-operation. • * * The question of a water supply cropped up in this speech, and in language which was calculated to prejudice and inflame the native mind, His Excellency told the assembled Fijians that at a meeting held a few nights previously in Suva, in favour of federation with New Zealand, it was stated to be absurd to supply them with pure water. Then the speaker pro-

ceeded in plausible language to show that the people who wanted to federate with New Zealand were identical with a party who, he said, wanted to compel the natives to drink brackish and impure water. • » • Nor did Sir G. OBrien, Governor of Fiji, stop even there. Listen to these remarkable sentiments : — " You have the land, my friends, and that is what they want to get, and hope that they will get if you are foolish enough to listen to them. It has always been the same in every country under the kind of Government that there is in New Zealand — the white men have always taken the land from the coloured owners. It has been so in New Zealand, where the land once all belonged to the coloured people. Who owns that land now ? The white people have got nearly the whole of it. The coloured people are cooped up in the fragment of land that has been left to them, and many of them have no land at all. What has happened in New Zealand to the coloured people's land will happen here, too, if New Zealand gets this country." * * * It is difficult to say whether Sir G. OBrien knew that these statements relative to the people of New Zealand and the native lands were false. But they are false nevertheless. As a matter of fact, the people of New Zealand pride themselves on the fact that, in contradistinction to the colonizers or conquerors of other savage countries, they bought and paid for the land which they acquired from the native owners. Abuses of the system of land purchase have happened, but it has been the aim of successive governments to legislate for the protection of the native, and secure for him the best possible price for his land. Nay, more, the legislation of the Seddon Government during the session just closed has practically entailed the Maori lands and established a system of landlordism under which the natives of successive generations will draw the rentals from their lands. • # * In saying "it has always been the same under the kind of Government that there is in New Zealand — the white men have always taken the land from the coloured owners" — Sir G. OBrien aims a blow at the institutions of his country and throws disgrace on the flag which he is sworn to uphold. His sentiments, if they are correctly reported, are eminently disloyal. The kind of Government that there is in New Zealand is modelled on the kind of government that maintains in Great Britain — and of which the British people are so proud. If these sentiments were uttered by Dr. Leyds or Michael Davitt, we could understand them, but coming from the Queen's deputy in Fiji they are astounding. * • * Sir G. OBrien, in his concluding remarks, devises a cunning plan to check the enthusiasm of the natives for federation with New Zealand. They are to keep their mouths shut and say nothing and he will preserve them. New Zealand is the bogey man. " You are all to keep very quiet, 11 he says, " and to give no sort of trouble. If any of you were to give trouble, that would only make it easy for New Zealand to get your country, and for you to lose your lands. What there is to be said on your behalf I have already said to the Queen, and shall, if necessary, say it again. But, in the meantime, I repeat to you and I charge you all to remain quiet and peaceable, and to give no trouble either to white men or to any others, but to go about your own business and attend to your own affairs just as if you had never heard any question of New Zealand wanting to get this country. That is what you have got to do ; and I, as your principal and head Chief, order you to do it." " Whisht, whisht, whisht, here comes the Bogey Man."