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For these and other reasons, we desire to impress on the Convention the desirability of embracing Fiji in any scheme which may bo proposed for the federation of Australasia, or the annexation to them of the outlying islands, so necessary for the consolidation and protection of the future Dominion; and we trust that the Convention will find it compatible with its function to impress on the Imperial Government the advisability of giving effect to the views of the colonists of Fiji, as made known in this communication and in the fifth paragraph of the memorial already presented; and we now leave our case in the hands of the Convention, confident that it will receive the earnest and favourable consideration due to the importance of the subject. We are, &c, E. BECKWITII LEEFE. EDWAED LANGTON, Slang. Director, Mango Island Co. (Ld.) CHAS. B. CHALMEES. EDW. W. KNOX, General Manager, Colonial Sugar-refining Co. GEO. M'EVOT. J. C. SMITH.

(5.) MEMORIAL EROM INHABITANTS OP FIJI ON THE FEDERATION OP THE AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES. Memobial to the Honorable the President and the Members of the Federal Convention appointed to meet at Sydney, in the Colony of New South Wales, in October next. The Memorial of the inhabitants of the Colony of Fiji, — Eespecteullt Showetii :— That your Memorialists are residents of the Crown Colony of Fiji, and regard the question of the ultimate federation of the Australasian Colonies as one of vital importance to the interests of this Colony. That the system of Government adopted in a Crown Colony such as wo have here is altogether opposed to the spirit of the age ; that, to a great extent, it impedes the investment and employment of capital in developing the industrial resources of the country ; that it checks the producing interests by unnecessary restrictions, and exercises such an unwholesome influence on every branch of industry that it has retarded rather than advanced the natural progress of the Colony. That the Colony is self-supporting is evidenced by the fact that our revenue now amounts to £98,000 sterling, and the expenditure to £87,000 sterling ; yet in its appropriation the people are denied any voice, and this, notwithstanding that the Legislative Council contaiDS certain non-official members, nominated and appointed by the Governor, yet —such is the dominating influence of the executive and the official members of the Council—they are powerless for good, and can neither control the expenditure in any way nor are they permitted to interfere with any appointment to office within the Colony. The geographical position of this Colony, its large and increasing business connections with New South "Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand, has induced the inhabitants to come forward and beg that they may be allowed to place before the Conference, now shortly to sit, its political position and the many benefits which would, accrue to the Colony and its people by the introduction of a more liberal form of Government, so that the advantages which the Australasian Colonies must derive from federation may be extended to Fiji, whether as an appanage of one or other of the Colonial Dependencies or otherwise, as the Conference may deem most advisable for the best interests and prosperity of this Colony and its people. And your Memorialists solicit that the combined and powerful influence of the Convention will be exercised with the Imperial Authorities in procuring their consent to the incorporation of this Colony with federated Australasia. "With the object of securing the foregoing, or, if that be denied us, of obtaining some amelioration of the disabilities under which we labour through our present form of Government, your Memorialists have prepared and forwarded for presentation to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen a petition, a copy of which is hereto annexed, and it is prayed that the members of the Convention will assist the Petitioners in obtaining the objects of their petition. Dated in Levuka, Fiji, this 19th September, 18S3. J. 11. Garrick Robert "Wingate Henry Lee D. B. Millar George Krafft Alfred Stevens G. L. Griffiths Henry Cave "W. B. Cooke W. Laingham W. -J. Thomas J. Iloerder F. H. Martin Eichard Bentloy James M'Culloch William R. Scott Eichard St. Hcaddey Benjamin Morris C. Macheiis R. Harker W. G. Whiteside John Harris J. Fraser G. E. Everett C. W. Drury* 5 Hugh Byrne Stephen J. Cusack F. 11. Dufty Alfred W. B. Dufty George Harrison A. M. Brodziak S. L. Lazarus William Bennion J. B. Swarm, J.P. M. Cohsens Isaac Holden Hugh Munro W. W. Towood, J.P. George Worthigton Charles