which I now purpose, with your Lordship's permission, submitting to your notice, would necessarily be required and would naturally result.

To manage a Polynesian easily and successfully, it is necessary to gain a moral ascendancy over him; by such power he is influenced at will. To win his full confidence it is necessary to convince him that his individual good is sought to be promoted, and that one's motives are disinterested. Caution is requisite to guard him from thinking that the efforts for his advancement are selfish and dependent only upon a reciprocal advancement of interests.

It is to the moral power which our missionaries, whatever their creed or denomination, invariably attain over the islanders by their conciliatory teachings and uniformly disinterested conduct, that I attribute the unparalleled influence and deep-seated hold they possess throughout Polynesia.

Direct and ready access to some one in authority should be secured to every native, for the bare fact of stating his complaint and disburdening himself of his trouble, though there may be no immediate prospect of redress, at once relieves his mind. To allow a savage, or a semi-civilized native who has abandoned his heathenism to brood over wrongs, imaginary though they may be, is only to create a feeling of distrust, which in turn engenders a desire for

revenge.

On the other hand, my Lord, the more quickly after conviction retributive punishment follows the commission of crime on the part of the native, the more salutary is the effect, and the more lasting the impression. Every Polynesian, per force of the barbarous training received from infancy, looks upon promptitude apart from the justice with which it may be accompanied as indicative of an irrcsistible power to punish or to protect, as the case may be.

It is no difficult task to lead the Polynesian, while to drive him. is sometimes an impossibility. By persuasive means he generally can be induced to follow wherever directed. But by peremptory and harsh measures, without taking the trouble to show him the propriety of your proceedings or the injustice of the act with which he stands charged, he becomes stubborn and sullen, and even while acknowledging his inferiority and impotence, he will not submit.

And the ill success commercially of the French establishments in Oceania originates, I think, in the fact that no attempt whatever is made either on the part of the civil power to conciliate by protecting the native tribes from the aggressions of the foreigner, or on the part of their missionaries effectually to induce the renunciation of heathenism, and the adoption of more civilizing practices. While advocating a policy which shall tolerate the general customs of the people, great discretion is necessary to discriminate between those

customs whose observance might tend to retard the progress of the natives, and those which may be with propriety permitted.

With these observations, then, I would respectfully submit to your Lordship that, should Her Majesty's Government accept the cession of Fiji, the only officers required for the governance of the country, under existing circumstances, are:

A Superintendent or Governor;

A Colonial Secretary, with the superintendence of commercial and financial affairs;

A Judicial Secretary, with the supervision of all legal proceedings.

Two steam gun-boats permanently stationed in the group would be a competent force to control the whole of Fiji, and to repress the local troubles that may occasionally occur. The most fruitful source of these local troubles, I apprehend, to exist in the ancient feuds maintained by the families of some of the Chiefs. Such an establishment as this which I have now submitted to your Lordship can, I think, within a very limited period, be maintained by the present population, and if their resources are judiciously appropriated, a surplus revenue obtained.

The production of a large and continuous supply of cotton being the great commercial prospect for Fiji, I would submit the expediency of prizes on a graduated scale being awarded to those Chief's whose clans or districts excel in the cultivation of cotton, and produce the largest quantities within stated periods. I limit the distribution of these prizes to the Chiefs, because the enjoyment of the produce of their labour will be appreciated as an incomparable boon by the people, and prove an irresistible incentive to their industry, while the prospect of these prizes would tend to attach the Chiefs to us as at once their rulers and the source of their wealth, and to implant a feeling of inseparable dependence, which it is well to promote as early as possible. Such prizes would also have a conciliatory tendency by compensating for the loss of the undisputed privilege the Chiefs at present enjoy, of absorbing the entire labour of their respective clans.

Though the simple establishment and the small force which I have ventured to submit to your Lordship may at first sight appear altogether so inconsiderable to govern and keep in peaceful subjec. tion 200,000 people, still I have not the least hesitancy, my Lord, in adhering to my position, that the plan is quite feasible if the requisite knowledge and tact to manage the natives are possessed by those engaged in the enterprise.

Putting out of view the strategical importance of the group in case of war with any Naval Power, and the military measures which that would render necessary, I would lay down as the principal

object of our occupation the creation of a large and unfailing supply, at as little cost as possible, by the aboriginal population of a given raw material essential at once to the development of English manufactures and the natural resources of Fiji, rather than the opening of a field for general immigration. With this design the simpler the form of Government the less will be the danger of diverting the natives from the industry to which quiet and confidence conduce.

While Fiji is capable of maintaining a population of several millions, the only addition to its present inhabitants necessary to facilitate the supply of cotton is a limited number of purchasers. And I am inclined, my Lord, to believe that to protect the native race, to whom alone we can look for labour to compete with the slaves of America in the production of cotton, it will be politic not to encourage too rapid or too indiscriminate an ingress of settlers. The natives will, I think, work more regularly and more effectually for the production of cotton without too great an admixture of a foreign population. For in the presence of a numerous white community the aborigines will sink to the place of menials instead of retaining their position as cultivators of their native soil. And I would then infer a necessary failure in their supply of cotton, for in these tropical islands I have seen that white labour cannot compete permanently with the native labour.

With these suggestions, my Lord, based as they are upon personal observation and notes taken during my official residence in Polynesia, I have, &c.

The Earl of Malmesbury.

WILL. T. PRITCHARD.

No. 6.-Mr. Hammond to Mr. Merivale.

SIR, Foreign Office, April 21, 1859. I HAVE laid before the Earl Malmesbury your letter of the 13th instant, referring to the cession to Her Majesty of the sovereignty of the Fiji Islands, and requesting to be informed whether the occupation of those Islands by Great Britain might not lead to embarrassment or to discussion between Her Majesty's Government and foreign Powers who have rights or claims in that part of the Pacific; and I am directed by Lord Malmesbury to acquaint you for the information of Secretary Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, that his Lordship is not aware that the occupation of the Fiji Islands by Great Britain would involve the violation of any rights or claims belonging to foreign Powers in that quarter of the world.

I am, &c.

H. Merivale, Esq.

E. HAMMOND.

SIR,

No. 7.-The Duke of Newcastle to Colonel Smythe.

Downing Street, December 23, 1859.

You are aware that you have been selected by me for the delicate and important duty of reporting whether it would be expedient that Her Majesty's Government should accept an offer which has been made, to cede to Her Majesty the sovereignty over the Fiji Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.

It will be requisite that you should state in full both the advantages and the disadvantages which, in your view, would attend such acceptance, and that you should also advise on what terms and in what manner the acquisition, if decided on, had better be effected.

In order to make the necessary inquiries, you will repair to the islands without delay, for which purpose Her Majesty's Government will cause you to be furnished with every facility. I have entrusted to you this commission, confiding in your power to bring to it the requisite knowledge, discretion, and resolution to report, without regard to any preconceived wishes or opinions, the result of your own investigations.

The Fiji group in the Pacific consists, according to a description furnished by the hydrographer to the Admiralty, of some 200 islands, islets, and rocks, lying between latitude 15° and 19° south, at about 1,900 miles N.E. of Sydney, and 1,200 miles north of Auckland, near the north end of New Zealand. The two largest islands may be about 300 miles in circumference; 65 of the islets are said to be inhabited, and the whole population of the group has been estimated at 200,000.

The Chief, Thakombau, is said by Mr. Pritchard, Her Majesty's Consul in the Fijis, to be the recognized king of these islands, and his people are stated by the same authority to be prepared willingly to acquiesce in the cession which he proposes to make to this country.

The conditions on which this Chief offers to transfer the sovereignty over the islands to Her Majesty are the following; that he, Thakombau, should retain the title and rank of Tui Viti or King of the Fijis, in so far as the aboriginal population is concerned; that Her Majesty should pay for him the sum of 45,000 dollars, demanded of him by the Government of The United States, and that in consideration of such payment, not less than 200,000 acres of land shall be made over and conveyed to Her Majesty by him, Thakombau.

This may be the proper place to mention to you that a communication has been addressed to Sir William Denison, Governor of New South Wales, by an American merchant, named J. W. Williams, residing in that colony, alleging that he has for several years been in possession of the sovereignty and domain of the island

of Namuka, in the Fiji group. Notice has also been given by the Government of The United States to Her Majesty's Minister in that country, that some American citizens claim the ownership of large tracts of land in these islands. You will be put in possession, separately, of the particulars of these communications.

I proceed to mention a few particulars of such information respecting these islands and their inhabitants, as has reached Her Majesty's Government or is attainable to the public.

The people of the Fijis are said to be of large stature, and are described as being amongst the fiercest and most powerful inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. Cannibalism has prevailed amongst them to an extent scarcely equalled, perhaps, in any other community of which we have authentic knowledge. But that this practice has greatly abated of late years under European influence is confidently asserted, and the correctness of the assertion you will have ample means to investigate. Polygamy is also largely practised amongst the Chiefs, and it is added that the practices followed on the death of Chiefs, such as the murder of wives and dependents, are or have been of a very fearful character. On the other hand, it is reported that this savage people possess in rather a high degree those corresponding qualities which may be turned to good. They are said to be not only strong and active, but of a more energetic disposition than is common among South Sea Islanders, and with more disposition as well as more capacity for labour.

The missionaries, who have been for many years established in the islands, chiefly as I am informed, of the Wesleyan persuasion, have contended against the evil practices of the people with their usual courage and devotion; and it is satisfactory to know that their efforts have been successful to a far greater degree than many would have expected. Mr. Pritchard states that one-third of the population has embraced Christianity, while he estimates that nearly an equal number have renounced their heathenism, but without as yet definitively attaching themselves to the Christian congregation.

The services of these missionaries cannot be too highly appreciated; they have brought the truths of religion within the reach of this wild and distant people, they have abated inhuman customs of very inveterate power, and they have, in addition, secured an amount of safety and freedom previously unknown for the Europeans who traffic or settle amongst these islands; these are benefits which all must acknowledge, and which Her Majesty's Government, who have it in contemplation to avail themselves so largely for the advantage of the public, of the results of the labours of those devoted men, are especially bound to acknowledge; but I must caution you not to suffer your sympathy with the missionaries or your admiration of their achievements to affect your judgment upon