From the Fiji Times, July 18, 1900.

All Interested in the real progress of Fiji must wish well to the campaign for its Federation with New Zealand. Whether that campaign will end successfuly will depend upon the view taken by New Zealand of the advantages to be gained by that colony through an alliance with us. The decisive battles for Federation must be fought in and by New Zealand and not in and by Fiji; but we in Fiji can produce a contingent as it were to the forces fighting in our cause in New Zealand by advocacy of the cause here. The hopes of the supporters of Federation in this country will rest upon Mr. Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand. Everything depends upon the attitude he is prepared to assume. If he will lead the federal forces, the victory is assured. That he will do so if we ask him there is some indication from remarks he has made and the action which he is reported to have taken since his return to New Zealand. The Premier is reported in the New Zealand papers to have said that "everywhere in the islands he found a desire for federation," to have declared that "the island trade was sound," and that "he intended to see what could be done to increase that trade with New Zealand." The Premier is also reported to have addressed a memorandum to the Secretary of State advocating federation. The sure and immediate way of increasing the island trade with New Zealand is federation. The remarks and the reported action of the Premier have an important bearing on a question recently asked by one of our correspondents, viz., "does New Zealand want us?" The greatest statesman that New Zealand has yet produced is evidently page 24 inclined to think that she does. Federation, however, will only be brought about if it can be shown that both New Zealand and Fiji will benefit therefrom. No one who has impartially considered the letters on the subject which have appeared in our columns from our several correspondents can have any real doubt on that point. Advantages other than, but equally as great as those detailed by our correspondents would follow in our federation with New Zealand. Improvement in the administration of public affairs would, for instance, most surely result from proximity of the local administration to the central authority at Wellington. Had such proximity existed at the present time such a scandal as the establishment of a bubonic plague station and the perpetuation of a leper community in the immediate vicinity of Suva could hardly have occurred. In such a case the protest of the people could not have been disregarded, for within a week representations would be before the central authority at Wellington, the outrage abated, and the author placed beyond the power of further mischief. The local administration would, under federation, be alive to the fact that the eye of the central government was always upon it and the ear of the central government always open. How easily the central government could satisfy itself from personal enquiry on the spot has been made clear by the flying visit which the Premier of New Zealand recently made to Fiji. What a New Zealand Premier has done in that respect at a time when Fiji is an independent colony would, we may be quite sure, be frequently repeated by responsible members when once we are federated. By no means the least of the advantages to be gained from federation will be our emancipation from the blight of irresponsible autocratic rule, exercised at such a distance from the central controlling power as separates Fiji from England.