LATER FROM FIJI.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 69, 28 December 1871, Page 3

LATER FROM FIJI.

(FROM THE “ FIJI TIMES,” NOVEMBER 9.) An exhibition took place recently which attracted a large crowd of spectators. Four natives were to be punished with lashes, and quite a crowd assembled to witness the morbid spectacle. It speaks very little for the lookers-on that they were so easily collected for the purpose of viewing the disgusting sight. The number of lashes for each culprit appears to us to be excessive, and we can only look upon the act as a brutal means of punishment, Wc hope that our code of laws will provide some better mode of retribution than that of ploughing backs with long and cruel furrows. The last few weeks have been prolific of misfoitunc to the settlers upon the Drcketi River, Yanua Levu. Happy and flourishing homesteads, and a crop of cotton, just coming on, in some cases the picking already commenced, have had to be abandoned to the waste and destructiveness of savages. What were fruitful fields are now desolation. And all this owing to the caprice of an imbecile old man, Ritova. Without any apparently sufficient reason, ho has let loose upon the settlers of Dreketi his savage hordes; who instead of fighting Turaga Lsvu, have nearly confined themselves to the plunder and spoilation of the white men. As far as we can gather the circumstances are these :—Ritova, the great chief of the Macuata coast, has been in the habit of receiving soro or tribute from Turaga Levu, a petty chief on the Dreketi River. The latter lias been subject to attack from Tui Bau on the one side, or Ritova’s men on the other; hut within the last few years has grown into importance through white influence, and has attained thereby a somewhat independent standing. He lias alienated nearly the whole of tne land on the river banks, within five or six miles from its mouth, lias received in payment a vast quantity of arms and ammunition, thereby lias become strong, abstained from paying Ill's tribute, and set up as an independent chief. For the purpose of subduing the refractory chieftain, Ritova sent his forces np the river, and then followed, not, as should have been the case, a conflict with the natives of the soil, but a wholesale and systematic plunder of the settlers. The wandering bands appeared in great numbers for the puiposcof over-awing the settlers into forsaking their homesteads, that they might have the opportunity of plundering the white man’s property.

In the Fijian House of Representatives, Colonel Hamilton asked the Hon. the Chief Secretary, “ If any steps are to be taken by the Government to bring to justice ccicain parties, who, it appears from the inquest lately held, run down a canoe, and brought litre, and afterwards held as slaves, bound down on board the ‘Cambria’ two Malicolo men, who were afterwards charged with the murder of Messrs Pulford and Thorp ?” From the report of the inquest which had appeared in the Fiji Times, it would appear that the two Malic 010 men had been kidnapped and brought here, and afterwards treated in a most barbarous manner, all of which had resulted in the murder of two unfortunate young men. Mr Burt agreed with the lion, member’s remarks. The Government of which he was a member had communicated with the New South Wales Government, with a view to the punishment of men who might at present be in the colonies, but who had been guilty of misdemeanour in the labour traffic of the South Seas. The paiticular offence on which the question bore, had occurred in a British vessel outside this kingdom, and therefore the Government could not do anything in the matter. The Fiji Gazette cpiotcs Sir Alfred Stephen, C.J., in proof of the act of the Malicolo men being justifiable homicide. It lias been proved that the Malicolo men were kidnapped, and British law says that a kidnapped man may try to regain his liberty by any means, even by taking the life of those holding him.