Fijians Teach a Lesson

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 14, 2 April 1903, Page 1

Fijians Teach a Lesson

The hot words of protest that passed at the recent Methodist Conference in Christchurch, against the appointment of a Catholic Governor to Fiji, must have Ringed the beards of the -various speakers. Had a synod or congress of New Zealand Catholics passed such a resolution against the appointment of a Protestant Viceroy to Ireland, of a Protestant Governor-General to Canada, or a Protestant Governor to Malta or the Seychelles Islands, the very next Methodist Conference would probably have ordered us to step off the earth. It is pleasant to learn from a brief cable message published in last Friday's daily papers that there is in Fiji ' intense indignation at the proposition of the New Zealand Methodist Conference to petition the Imperial authorities concerning Governor Jackson's religion.' The copper-skinned aboriginal of the Pacific Islands has taught his white coreligionists in New Zealand a useful lesson in tolerance, good-breeding, and the almost lost art of minding one's own business. We venture the hope that each member of the late Conference will remember the rebuke unto repentance, and be able to say to himself, in the words of Ophelia in the play :

' I shall the effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart.'