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Introductory.

The Fiji Federal League.

Chairman: F. E. Riemenschneider, Esq., Warden of Suva.

Vice Chairman: D. J. Solomon, Esq., Warden of Levuka.

The objects of the Fiji Federal League are to uphold the supremacy of the British Crown in the Pacific, and to promote the social, commercial, and political welfare of all his Majesty's subjects in the islands, by means of the closer union of all the British possessions and settlements in the Western Pacific.

In issuing this pamphlet the League is actuated by a desire to place before the public at an early date reasons social, commercial, and political in favour of an immediate confederation between Fiji and New Zealand.

Fears have been expressed by some that the Government of India will, as a result of Federation, prohibit the introduction from India of labourers for work on the plantations. These fears are however groundless, and are clearly shown in this pamphlet to be so: for as is pointed out therein, the page iv Government of India permits emigration of its subjects to Natal which has responsible government and to the French and Dutch plantations. Others express fears that the democracy of New Zealand will restrict importation and employment in Fiji of coloured labour. With respect to that it is clearly pointed out that it will be made a fundamental condition of confederation that Fiji shall retain to herself the sole and uncontrolled right to legislate on such subjects, and Mr. Seddon, the Premier, has declared that he will agree to that condition. The pamphlet discloses the inhabitants of the colony, in a condition which calls loudly for amelioration No one who considers impartially the undeniable statements of the Rev. Mr. Slade contained in his able and exhaustive article on the local government of the native Fijians will deny the necessity for reform in that direction. The pamphlet also discloses the fact that the European inhabitants, the great majority of whom are New Zealanders and Australians and their descendants born in Fiji, are deprived of rights and privileges which are their birthright as free born Britons, and that they are subjected to as despotic a rule as that against which New Zealanders and Australians, and Anglo-Fijians too, are now fighting in the Transvaal.

Though heavily taxed they are refused the exercise of the franchise. Though they are most loyal and law-abiding, as testified by the records of the superior and inferior courts they are deprived of the right of trial by jury. There is no appeal from the decisions of the Supreme Court, which consists of but a single judge, except to a Court, the Privy Council, 16,000 miles away, at a cost prohibitive to all but the wealthy. Owing to the great distance which separates Fiji from England, and owing to their being denied representation in the Legislature, the people of Fiji are entirely without means of obtaining redress for grievances. Complaints against the acts of the Administration pass through the hands of the Governor on their way to the Secretary of State; and in progress are subjected to secret and misleading misrepresentations. To be one who so ventures to address the Secretary of State is to become a man marked out for disfavour by the local Administration and to suffer accordingly. Owing to distance there is great and harrassing delay in receiving a reply to representations made to the Secretary of State. Owing to his inability to obtain independent information gathered on the spot page v by impartial persons, Secretaries of State have in the past invariably supported the local Administration, and refused redress when prayed by the people. As the result the inhabitants of the colony, while they have confidence in the good intentions of the Secretary of State, have lost confidence in his ability, under the present system, to prevent or punish acts of harshness or maladministration, or his ability to afford them that redress of grievances which, as British subjects they are entitled to demand and receive.

Under the system of government which prevails in Fiji, the Governor is practically irresponsible. "When his acts are questioned, or his policy disapproved, by men who have lived their lives in Fiji, whose fortunes are bound up therewith, his explanations which are kept from the public eye are as a matter of course, accepted without impartial enquiry on the spot, against the allegations, or opinions, or wishes of those persons feeling themselves aggrieved. This inability to obtain redress for grievances, which is a most substantial grievance in itself will disappear with confederation. Wellington, the capital, and seat of the Government of New Zealand, is but four days' steam from Suva, the capital of Fiji. The central authority at Wellington will be able with ease and despatch at all times to make enquiry on the spot into alleged maladministration and without delay grant redress for such grievances as may arise. The only argument put forward so far, against the proposed confederation is that advanced by the Governor of Fiji (Sir George O'Brien) in an extraordinary speech to the natives on October 23rd, 1900, to the effect that New Zealand, with "the kind of Government" she possesses is unfit to be entrusted with the care and control of native races, because under "that kind of Government" white men are allowed to deprive natives of their lands, and leave them with insufficient land for their maintenance and support, as "happened in New Zealand" to the Maoris. That argument is, however, as will be observed, is based upon charges and allegations of political turpitude, on the part of the people and Governments of New Zealand, in respect of some supposed ill treatment of the Maories, which cannot be sustained upon the facts, and which are indignantly repudiated by Mr. Seddon, the distinguished and patriotic Premier of New Zealand; and which evoked such an outburst of feeling on the part of the on tire press of that most loyal colony. Everyone who reads page vi this speech of Sir George O'Brien, by the light of well established facts, must agree with that writer in this pamphlet who declares that "after all the sacrifices in blood and treasure made by the loyal New Zealanders in the hour of the Empire's need, it is nothing less than an outrage that they should be thus unjustly held up to public opprobium by an imperial official of the high rank of the Governor of Fiji, and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific. It is confidently submitted that this pamphlet discloses a case for enquiry, and for political reform in Fiji.

It is the aim of the Fiji Federal League to secure the needed reform, and as the most effective way of doing so, to bring about the confederation of Fiji with New Zealand.