FIJI NEWS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 281, 14 July 1888, Page 6

FIJI NEWS.

While the 5.5. Wainui was at Levuka, tlie Warden initiated an address to the directors of the Union Steamship Company asking that Captain Cromarty might be restored to the command of theYVainui. A similar requisition was also prepared in Su va. The captain has endeared himself to those with whom he has come in contact in this colony, and mora particularly with those who have tra\elled with him. It was buo last trip that the captain lemarked lie would soon have completed his hundredth trip to Fiji, and the occasion was being looked forward to as the occasion of presenting him with a mark of esteem. The Hon. Dr. McGiegor left by the s.s. Tenterden for his new sphere of duties as High Commissioner for New Cuinea. Prior to hi> departwe the members oi the Civil Service and other friends of the genial doctor presented him with a pur.se containing someone hundred and thhtysovericgns, wherewith to purchase a souvenir of his Fiji friends. Kecent .shipment.* of bananas to Sydney glutted the market, and very losv prices were the consequence. Forty-two thousand bunches an ived from Fiji in sixteen day*, and weie sold as low as a shilling and one and sixpence a bunch. Other fiuib is very dear, however, in Sydney. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company are planting bananas on a limited scale on the banks of the river on some of their plantations at Rewa, and report has it that they intend planting u thousand acres. If such is their intention, they will be in a position to dominate the colonial markets with this fruit, as they do with sugar. If the report is true, the object of the Company probably is to make growing sugar cane more profitable on the Rewa ; than growing bananas. The contracts with the planters expire in two years, and though the price ghen for cane this year is twelve shillings a ton, planters find banana-growing more profitable, the result of which will be that the Company must grow their own cane or make the planters do it by &poiling the market for bananas. The cutter Princess, Captain Curran, arrived in port from Levuka on Monday morning, and reports, that, while off Nasilai, some ten miles distant, at about one o'clock a.m., the main boom knocked over- board one of the erew — a llotumah man. A life buoy and hatch were thrown overboard, but the poor fellow was not again seen, although the vessel cruised about the place until daylight. The night was a dirty one, with a heavy sea. The first fruit of the present sittings of the Legislative Council has appeared in the shape of an Ordinance to continue Ordinance No. XL, of 1837, • intituled "An Ordinance to impose an Export Duty on Beche-de-mer." The object is, that the proceeds to be derived from the export duty of two pouncjs per ton Bhall ba divided amongst native provinces.