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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

From the Fiji Times, December 5, 1900

From the Fiji Times, December 5, 1900.

Premier's Office, Wellington, To

F. E. Riemenschneider,

Esq., Suva.

Dear Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 3rd November, containing an extract from the Fiji Times of the 31st October, being a report of the speech delivered by his Excellency the Governor, and High Commissioner of the Pacific, Sir George O'Brien, on the occasion of the opening of the Wainibokasi Hospital.

I presume the report must be taken as correct, seeing that this speech was re-printed in the current number of the Na Mata, a Government publication printed in Fiji, and a copy of which notification, signed, by order of the Governor, William Sutherland, Native Commissioner, has reached me.

I read the speech with surprise and amazement, and had not the after effects been so serious, I should have been more amused than annoyed. I do not think there is a precedent a the annals of our history for such a situation, or that it page 14 was possible to have conceived, or that it was reasonable to expect, that such an occurrence was within the bounds of possibility. Just imagine the Queen's representative in one colony taking to task the representative or past representatives of another colony and charging them with maladministrations, where responsible Government obtains, in respect to their dealings with the aboriginal race of that colony, or questioning the action of Parliament of a free colony in its desire to see responsible Government given to a people, who, in a proper and constitutional way, have asked for the same. The imputation and inference to be deducted, that underlying the movement to give Fiji Self-Government, or Confederation, or annexation, is to take the lands from the Fijians, is ludicrous in the extreme. More particularly is this so when a short review of what has taken place and brought about the present situation is given.

So far back as 1883 a movement took place in Fiji for Confederation with one of the Australasian colonies. The same year the Parliament of New Zealand passed a Confederation and Annexation Act which would have enabled this to be done, but which Act was disallowed by Her Majesty the Queen. Subsequently a conference was held in Sydney, the result being that in the following year Fiji petitioned the New Zealand Government for annexation to that colony. Seeing that the Act which would have enabled this to be done bad been disallowed by the Queen, on the advice of the Imperial Government, the New Zealand Parliament did not see its way to grant the petition. Between that time and the Federation movement in Australia little appears to have been done, but when the Federal movement took place in Australia, and owing to isolation and other unfavourable conditions obtaining in Fiji, the movement for a constitutional change sprang into existence. New Zealand Parliament was petitioned and they passed resolutions on the subject, and these were sent on to the Secretary of State, the first being in favor of giving Responsible Government to Fiji, leaving other questions to wait development thereafter. That this should be construed, or that an attempt should be made to create an inference that New Zealand wished to deprive the natives of their lands is childish in the extreme. To show how unfounded such an allegation really is I will just give you the conditions upon which the New Zealand Government intimated to the Imperial authorities in August last that it was prepared page 15 to embrace within its boundaries the Cook Group and other islands in the Pacific.

(1)That the native ownership of land in the Cook Island Group should be admitted.
(2)That a Court on the same lines as the Native Land Court established in New Zealand, or a Commission, should define the ownership of the particular areas, and decide as to its subdivision and partition.
(3)That on this being ascertained, the land should be Crown-granted, and alienated through the Crown as agreed upon by the Maori chiefs under the Treaty of Waitangi, and thus safeguard the interests of the natives, and prevent them from becoming landless, or being taken advantage of.

So much for the action of the New Zealand Parliament being construed as a desire to interfere with native ownership, or the natives in respect to their lands in Fiji.

As regards the allegation made to the effect that the Maori natives of New Zealand have been wronged in respect to their lands, and were without lands, anyone who has read what has been going on—and it is the duty of those holding high positions to make themselves acquainted with what is going on—knows that such is not the case, but that, on the contrary, it is found in the North Island of New Zealand there are some 30,000 natives who own, at the present time, some 5,000,000 aces of land. The law affecting native lands has for some years been that no alienation can take place except through the Government, nor until a court has certified that the natives desirous of alienating by lease or otherwise have sufficient land in excess of that to be sold or leased to maintain them. Only last session we passed the Maori Lands Administration Act, a copy of which I herewith forward you, and under which the native land-owners elected their own councils to administrate the lands for them; and the Government of the colony assisted by advancing moneys for the purpose of surveying roads and developing, the lands. Many years ago, and before Responsible Government was given to our colony, the natives of the South Island, after reserving what they deemed sufficient for the revenues, ceded the rest to the New Zealand Company and to the Government. Of late years it was found that sufficient reserves had not been retained, and some three years ago the Government, page 16 with the consent of Parliament, set apart for the landless natives in the South Island no less than 65,000 acres.

I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything further on this subject, for it is generally conceded throughout the civilized world that the treatment by the Parliaments and Governments of the aboriginal natives in New Zealand has been most humane, far reaching and satisfactory. We give them representation in Parliament, local self-government, administration of their own lands, special representation of Maori race in the Cabinet and Executive Council, and I don't hesitate to say that they are given greater freedom, and are better off in every respect than our own flesh and blood—the Britishers who are now located in the Fiji Islands.

However, the matter cannot rest where it is. As far as this colony is concerned, there is no reason given for the course that his Excellency, your Governor, has taken. I deeply regret the occurrence, for I fear it will have a detrimental effect upon the British policy in the Pacific Islands, There is no question upon which the Polynesian or Papuan race are so sensitive as that of their lands, and I scarcely think that this view of the question could have been taken into consideration when the High Commissioner of the Pacific decided to bring the matter before the natives on the occasion of the opening of the hospital at Wainibokasi.

—Yours faithfully,

R. J. Seddon.