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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

From this Fiji Times, December 8, 1900

From this Fiji Times, December 8, 1900.

Sir,—I noticed in your last issue the letter from the Premier of New Zealand to the chairman of the Federai League on the subject of the Governor's address to the natives assembled on the occasion of the opening of the Wainibokasi Hospital.

Seldom, if ever, has so powerful and well-earned a rebuke been administered to the representative of Her Majesty in any portion of those dominions on which the sun never sets.

page 19

Mr. Seddon says he read the speech "with surprise and amazement;" and well, indeed, ho may have done so. He is not the only one who read that speech with the same feelings. To every right-minded man the utterances of his Excellency the Governor were such as should never have been made. They are statements which are "unfounded, and based on incorrect information." Statements which, used by one holding the high positions of Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, are calculated to do the greatest harm in creating in the minds of the natives a feeling of antagonism to the whites. It behaves every member of the community, especially a community in which the native element preponderates, to use his utmost endeavours to foster a friendly feeling between the white and coloured races. The dangerous nature of an inflammatory speech, such as that referred to in Mr. Seddon's letter, cannot be over-estimated. For one at the head of affairs to tell those who are brought up to regard him as their highest chief and as the representative of Her Majesty, that a section of the white community, with the aid of a neighbouring British Colony, is endeavoring to deprive them of their lands is nothing short of an outrage, more especially when his Excellency's speech is coupled with his subsequent actions. (I allude to the promulgation of this speech far and wide throughout the Fiji Group in the columns of Na Mata.) It is, indeed, inconceivable that Her Majesty's Ministers should have entrusted the guidance of one of her most loyal colonies to the care of one who could so recklessly misrepresent facts, and engender feelings of mistrust amongst those whom he has been sent out to govern. That the statements made by his Excellency were "based on incorrect information, and can therefore, be easily controverted," has really nothing to do with the case. To disprove the facts by letters written by Mr. Seddon and others simply means that the white people who read the newspaper are merely fortified in the opinion that one and all must hold with regard to the deplorable speech at Wainibokasi. But the mischief has been done. In every village, by order of the Governor, a copy of the Government native paper has been read.

The natives have had it instilled into their minds that the white man is to be dreaded, and more especially if he happens to be a New Zealander. The problem that has now to be considered is, how is that pernicious impression—that most fatal page 20 of all impressions—the engendering of racial hatred, to be eradicated from the native mind?

Eradicated it must be if the whiteman is to continue on the same friendly relations with the Fijian. The evil consequences of this speech are so far reaching, and the harm that may, nay will be done, is so incalculable if the incorrect assertions of his Excellency are allowed to remain officially uncontradicted before the natives, that some decisive measure must be taken to let them know the truth.

His Excellency stated in his speech, paragraph 2: "You have the land, my friends, and that is what they (the New Zealand party) want to get, and hope that they will get if you are foolish enough to listen to them."

Of little avail is the absolute answer to so misleading an assertion, contained in the letter and telegram received from Mr. Seddon, for their contents can never be made known. There is no means of communicating them to the Fijians. There will be no order issued, signed by the "Governor. Wm. Sutherland, Native Commissioner," issued to the head of each village or his nominee, directing him to assemble the villagers in order that the refutations to his Excellency's speech be read to them. It is well known that no private individual or band of private individuals would be allowed to address the natives in their various villages, and so, unless some measures are devised to acquaint the Fijians with the facts of the case, they will certainly remain in ignorance of them. Those who have taken up the cause of Federation and Representation will, doubtless, find the means, and it is only to be hoped, in the interests of the colony, that they will not allow this serious attack on the white portion of the community to remain unanswered. As far as New Zealand is concerned, Mr. Seddon has said, "However, the matter cannot rest where it is. As far as this colony is concerned, there has been no reason given for the course his Excellency, your Governor, has taken," and it may be taken for granted that that powerful statesman will not brook the wanton insult which has been gratuitously offered to the colony of which he forms so distinguished a head.—I am, etc.,

Humphry Berkeley.

Chambers, Suva,