Fijian Affairs.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 189, 15 August 1901, Page 1

Fijian Affairs.

The Rev. Blade, chairman of th£ Wesleyan Mission in Fiji, has sent a, letfer to the Premier, expressing sa -.jVai*tion at 'he spspousion of 3£r(jh&tnberSais of the last Ordinance -passed by the Governor of Fiji, and hoping that Mi' Seddon’s effort would procure it* cancellation. Mr Slade claims that th£ missionaries snow the natives better than the Government office; s, and Sir George O'Brien knows nothing at all of the natives. He justified his speech at Wainibokaai by sayiog that the federation party in Suva had sent emissariei to persuade the natives not to pay taxes. At that moment the Wesleyan SynoA was sit ing, and particular enquiries wer& made whether ihey had heard of thesfc emissaries, and no one had done so. Si£ Geor.jo O’Brien’s allegation of probable tivuble, in Mr Slade’s opinion, was jus* as groundless. The discontent therein eau; ed by the irksome system of government under which a man has to ask official permission to self a basket ol yams. Had Sir George O’Brien sat iesj, •bn his dignity and moved freely abodt the colony, ho might have learned something of what the natives really’ are, and have been less likely to be influenced bf r«c leesly inaccurate reports ef his owA officers. Thai- the con itvn of Fiji call* for an Ordinance so ua-English as th£ one is as g>-oss a libel on the islands a? the Wai'jibok.ai speech was on New Zealand.