The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-12-09
Interesting Comparison Of the Isl
andS With Hawaii.
TRAITS OF THE MELANESIANS
The Indian Coolle Labor Problem
is Beginning to Be Very
Serious.
Especial Correspondence.

Oue Sduly MISSES III + III TIE UTISul
skies and kindly natives of Hawaii.
The free atmosphere of the young
Republic of the North Pacific is in the
nature of things not to be found in
a Crown Colony. Unfortunately Ha-
waii, like a maiden eager to be wooed
and anxious to change her name, seems
only too desirOus to find a lord and
to yield up her freedom. Yet. to the
poetic fancy her independence offers
more attractions. In practical politics,
however, the dreamer receives but lit
tie consideration. Men of sterner stuff
have to guide the destinies of a peo-
pie, and much of the romance of ter
restrial affairs disappears when they
become the business of the legislator
But when contrasting Fiji and Hawaii,
we must not forget that the social
policy which the white men have estab-
lished in the various groups of the
Pacific receives a good deal of it's color
from the character of the aboriginal
people and that the distinctions be-
tween the Polynesian and Melanesian
races are in certain degree reflected
in the differences between the several
white communities. To such a cause
may be partly attributed the ''red-
tapeism" that prevails in the one group
and the "free-and-easyism' one en-
joys in the other. The blending of
races so natural in Hawaii would be
in a general sense out of the question
in Fiji. Hawaii under her blue skies
and with her bright attractive people
has future before her very diff
ferent from that which awaits Fiji
with her murky skies and Melanesian
population.
Other things go to increase the con-
trast between the two Pacific groups.
The labor question which threatens
to mold the future of Hawaii is also a
burning one in Fiji. Here the attempt
to employ Japanese on the sugar cane
plantations was frustrated a year or
two ago by the death through beriberi
of twenty-five per cent. of the laborers
and by the disablement Of large pro-
portion of the survivors. When the
the early part of last year the Jap
anese were returned to their own coun-
try, a great impulse was given to the
demand for Indian coolies. Now the
Indians number some ten thousand in
the colony: Already they give char
acter to Fijian life and manners; and
as they are increasing rapidly, both
by births and immigration, the time is
not far distant when their numbers
in the group will be a subject for the
anxious consideration of the rulers.
The Fijians, being still to great ex-
tent lords of the soil, do not take we'll
to plantation work. When they do SO,
it is to work out their taxes, and there
is no especial inducement for them to
engage in such employment at other
times, as a large part of their earnings
would be appropriated by the chiefs.
The chiefs still possess much Of their
power and have been largely retained
as paid government officials, prudent
policy on the part of the executive
government, but one more especially
adapted to the eXigencies of the
situation when the group was first an
nexed. At present the chiefs are
gentlemen at large but thoroughly
Melanesian in their ideas of the duties
of chieftainship, more particularly as
regards any consideration for the
public veal is concerned. They lei
things 'slide" in the true Melanesiar
groove, the chief being the idlest man
in his district. Should any native at
tempt to set up store, the Roko, as
he is called, takes all he wants, sc
that from enterprises of this nature
the unfortunate Fijian is completely
barred; and this principle runs through
the system of native government in
these islands.
Then again the Fijian has but lately
departed from his cannibal ways
Memories of this form of dieting are
still pretty fresh in some parts of the
group. A chief visits me daily, whose
venerable old father, still alive, i:
said to have eaten in his time some
two hundred persons, both black
brown, and white; and I am told tha