FIJI ISLANDS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1239, 4 January 1883, Page 2

FIJI ISLANDS.

The following letter from a gentleman in Fiji has been handed to us for publication :—

Loma Loma, Fiji, Dec. 17th, 1882.

Dear B : I expect you thought I had forgotten all about you and Mrs B- , but believe me, I often think of you all. I may tell you that I have a pretty good billet, with almost the biggest people in Fiji, but the place I am living in is very out of the way. The climate is very pleasant on the whole, and coats and waistcoats are needless superfluities ; you do not see them from one month's end to the other. Still the temperature is so equable that you do not suffer much inconvenience from the heat. Besides in this part of Fiji, about 150 miles from Levuka, we have the regular S.E. trade winds most of the year. The country itself is very lovely, and altogether there is a charm about these places which makes it explicable to me how so many white men have been content to dream away their lives in the isles of the South Pacific. The Natives, whose language I begin to speak pretty well, are the greatest scoundrels on the face of the earth, and as far as their moral character is concerned, I do not think the “lotu,” as they call Christianity, has much improved them. The missionaries (all Wesleyan) manage to knock a pretty decent living out of them, but the white people in this place do not take much notice of them. In fact the majority of white people I have met with are freethinkers. The Government is a bad one, being of a strictly despotic type (Crown Colony), and interferes with the white man at every turn. The way the Courts of the Magistrates and the Supreme Court are conducted, would make the hair of a representative people stand upon end. Few Englishmen here, I can tell you, are particularly proud of their national flag. In fact everything is done by the Government, both here and throughout the Pacific, to lower the Englishman in the eyes of the Natives, and the English national flag is the least respected or feared of all natrons. This very year, numbers of Englishmen have been killed in the labor trade, and nothing has been done or will be done. The Court of High Commission in Fiji, I may tell you has authority over all Englishmens right through the Pacific Ocean. I can tell you I have learnt a good deal of fresh experience in many ways since I have been here, especially this, that no man can have the slightest idea of what is going on in other countries, unless he is actually living in them. However I will give you more gossip about the place another time. There is a friend of mine going to Levuka, and I will ask him to post two or three of the latest papers to yon. Yon will be sure to see some leading articles in the “Fiji Times” which will give some idea of what estimation the Government is held in. To return to my own personal af- | fairs, I told you I was in a pretty fair billet. 11 am at an island called Vanua Balaou (Long

Land), the plaee is called Lowa Lows, and there are about 16 whites tn the place and about a 1000 Fijians and Toagans. The Slaee I have charge of is a sort of head epot, from which we supply our trading stations throughout the Windward Island, and our vessels bring back copra which we store here, and load up for Europe. We load three vessels a year as a rule from here alone. Of course we load several from Levuka, but that is nothing to do with me. Our people also have several plantations about here, and we supply them from here. In fact the man I am with is the biggest private landholder and copra speculator In Fiji. A few years ago, when the cotton came down with a rush he assigned his estate for £lOO,OOO, hut as far as I can see I believe he will redeem the whole of it again in time. Loma Loma has been an important place, and there were once over 100 whites on the island, but of course it is nothing now, but still there are signs of a revival, and my principal, who was up here some time ago, is sanguine of better times. He has about 10 plan itions ou this island alone, but has labour on two or three only. So you see on the whole, it is a good flrm to be with and one can never tell what may turn up in Fiji, where every thing is still in a tentative state. At present) sugar and coffee are most thought of, and'th.ere have some thundering big companies brien started of late years. For all tropical products it is undoubtedly a grand country, and I have seen some magnificent plantations of sugar, cotton, coffee, Ike,, at an island! called Mago, which is owned by a large company. It is, in fact, one of the show places of Fiji. As far as I am personally con cerned, there is one great drawback to my p resent position, and that is, that this is a most unsuitable place to bring a family to. In fact the outlying districts of Fiji are altogether unsuitable for white women and children, and I have by no means made up my mind to do so. Having once got them here, it would be very doubtful when we would ever get away again. On the whole I think it likely that after a bit I will go on to Melbourne. And now with remembrance to Mrs 8., yourself, and Jack.—Believe me, your old friend, A.S.