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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

From the Fiji Times, July 25, 1900

From the Fiji Times, July 25, 1900.

One of the certain consequences of confederation with New Zealand would be the restoration to us of the fine mail steamers of the Canadian-Australian line, which for so many years placed Fiji on the main road of communication round the world. It is to the fact that the steamers of that line called here that we owe the advantage of having had our shores visited by such a man as Lord Brassey. Had the line not then existed, had Fiji then not been a station on the route between London and Melbourne, that distinguished statesman, then Governor of Victoria, would, in all probability, have never come to Fiji. What is true in this respect of Lord Brassey is also true of many others, to be known to whom page 42 cannot but be of advantage to the colony. Travelling by the steamers of the Canadian line was always made with rapidity and comfort. Had the colony never known what it is to be able to travel under such conditions, the relapse to the present comparative discomfort and delay inseparable from cargo steamers, upon which we have been thrown, might have been easier to bear. The withdrawal of the small subsidy of £1500 a year for carrying our mails between Fiji and Canada and Fiji and Australia was a mistake on the part of the Government of this colony. It was, we believe, due to a misapprehension on the part of the present Governor—who at the time had but recently assumed the governorship—of the facts attending the establishment of the line and of the advantages that could not but flow from the steamers continuing to call here. We are willing to palliate the action of the Governor before he was fully charged with the requirements of his Government, especially when, as now, he is undertaking a Government for the first time. Mistakes must in such a case be looked for. In this instance it is not the committing of the mistake but the refusal to admit or repair the mistake, and the power to persist in that refusal against the expressed wish of the colony, which is so very serious. It is so serious because under our present form of Government our people are helpless. It is a feeling that we are so, bred of the proved uselessness of appealing from the local administration to the controlling power at home, which impels us to look elsewhere for that redress we cannot obtain here and which we feel we are likely to look in vain for from England. The Secretary of State desires nothing but good of the colony; he would never permit, knowingly, anything to be done to retard its advancement. That may be taken for granted as the normal attitude of the Secretary of State. The present secretary has, in addition to words, by acts in regard to other colonies, shown himself ready in practice to extend his personal help in their advancement. As only one of several instances, Mr. Chamberlain's action in obtaining a large subsidy—£40,000 a year we believe—from the Imperial Parliament to firmly establish the fruit trade in Jamaica, may be quoted. It is, however, a very far cry from Fiji to London. Necessarily, the Secretary of State must depend greatly for information and guidance upon the local administration, and when the opinion of the local administrator and the people clash, the former will generally be page 43 upheld if he adheres with sufficient tenacity to his opinion. Action to the contrary might be construed to mean want of confidence in the officer administering. So long as the official is retained in office, he will, in almost every case be supported where it is merely a question of difference of opinion between himself and the people he governs as to what is best for them. It is, we repeat, a far cry from Fiji to London. We mean by that expression that our voice can only reach the Secretary of State feebly through the medium of the official opposed to our wishes. As a gentleman, he would not knowingly misrepresent us or our case, but as the official whose policy is challenged, he may be unwittingly biassed, and so may, and in many instances does, unconsciously, perhaps, misrepresent those who approach the Secretary of State through him. There can seldom or never be any independent or impartial inquiry by the Secretary of State on the spot. In the nature of things that must be so. Fiji is too far off to allow of independent inquiry from England to be anything but barely possible. The Secretary of State must therefore, perforce, practically, always uphold the official view when it is persistently opposed to the popular wish. The fact is we are too far distant from Downing-street to be effectively governed therefrom. That feeling prompts us to turn to the neighbouring colonies and seek for admission within their administration. At present we desire Federation with New Zealand because New Zealand apparently wishes to federate with us; and from contiguity and otherwise, Federation with her is most desirable. We want to be able to appeal for redress to some authority which will settle by early enquiry on the spot disputes between the local administrator and the people, and not act as of course on the ex parte statements of the local administration. It is in this as much as in any other respect that Federation with New Zealand would be so useful to Fiji. Wellington is but five days' steam from Suva. Had it been possible to appeal to Wellington in the matter of the Canadian line, those steamers would still be calling here.