FIJI’S FUTURE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 44, 16 February 1912, Page 5

FIJI’S FUTURE.

the position discussed by an EX-GOVERNOR. THE NATIVE .QUESTION. London, February 15. Sir E. im Thurn, ex-Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, in an .article in the Quarterly Review on Fiji as a Crown Colony, states that the native question is complicated by the introduction of coloured labour, which somo Australians reprobated, and wrongly held the view it .was better that the island be left in an undeveloped state than to be developed .by natives from elsewhere. Manual labour in the tropics must largely be supplied by coloured importation. This was essential where indigenous labour was 1 insufficient. Besides Canada’s, Australia’s and Now Zealand’s interests in the Pacific islands, the United States, Japan, Germany and France were also concerned, and were strengthening their positions and political influence. Britain should do the same.

There were strong reasons, the writer says, why the Pacific islands at present should not be annexed by either Australia or New Zealand, despite their geographical position and their commercial interests, but the time had come to assist Fiji towards the point where it could pass from a Crown Colony and join the United Dominion of Australasia. NEW GOVERNOR APPOINTED. (Received 16, 10.40 a.m.) London, February 15. It is officially announced that Sir Francis May, Governor of Fiji, has been appointed Governor of Hongkong. Sir E. Sweet Fscott, Governor of the Leeward Isles, succeeds him.