The Fiji Inquiry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 28, 9 July 1903, Page 17

The Fiji Inquiry

In our issue of Juno 18 w<? dealt at some length with the comedy of ' inquiry ' which a Methodist Commission of three had performed in Fiji in connection with the controversies that ha\e been raging- there. Their report (us wo pointed out) made it clear that the Commissioners (two clergymen and a layman) had admitted evidence of only one kind — namely, that which seemed to sustain the attitude taken up with such unseemly Jiaste by the Methodist Conference in Sydney — and that they avoided coming into contact with any part of the mass of published, direct, consistent, and overwhelming-,testi-mony which places the action of the Catholic party in a favorable light.

Our Fiji correspondent — whose able contributions to our columns have been the subject of complimentary notice in Fiji and in the pages of our foreign exchanges — in a letter .received by us a few days ago, places it beyond all doubt that the Methodist Commission in Fiji was merely a sectarian committee for a sectarian purpose, and that its investigation Into the local controversies was in reality, as described by us, a ' comedy of " inquiry." ' The Commission's report, for instance, dealt at some length with the motives that led to the conversion of some 1500 to 2000 of the Namosi people from Methodism to the Catholic faith. We do not suppose that the members of the Commission are, or claim to be, thought-readers, like Stuart Cumberland or Irving Bishop. Their obvious and only proper course was to have proceeded to Namosi and taken evidence at first hand from tho parties interested. But what are the facts ? ' Not one member of the Commission,' writes our well-informed correspondent, ' nor anybody for them, wtent to Namosi. They had no conversation, no communication of any kind with these people or their chiefs. The members of the Commission did not so much as see one of them, and their nearest approach to Namosi was Suva — twenty miles from the Namosi province. This will give you some idea of this farcical " inquiry " and of the value which attaches to the positive and dogmatic statements that appear in the report of the Commission.'