New-York tribune., 1921-12-18

istered intense despair when this den,.na
made. AS possible way out of the difHcnlts
ne asked England to annex the Fiji Islsna.
England appointed committee to inyest.s.'
the resources Of the islands to gee if a,,s.s
tion would "pay." Meantime the F;;;as
were learning that interest mounts r,s;s,-
The amount Of the Indebtedness grew to CON
900 and threats were made to send uarvh,--
unless the principal and interest were usia
Then a group Of fnanciers from Mellor~.
undertook to show King Cacabo an easv -..S
out. 1t was proposed to organize q 49,:
company, which company would assume g.
payment of the debt in return for cersa,
concessions in the Fiji Islands. The deal NJ
made in 1868, and the company grew rsr;a,.
in power and land-so rapidly, in far. a..
the native Fijians found themselves v;rt,,.n-
dispossessed. The king found it necessarv :.
levy taxes. In order to pay these taxes -.
natives were compelled to hire out TO the con.
pany Those who did not pay were sentepo..
to six months terms-working for tho c,~
pany. Occasionally these terms were leno+h
ened by venal magistrates to ane wear =.
even eighteen months. Thus MANY F;i;,n.
were virtually made slaves to a system which
they did not know existed before the IJn;,od
States suddenly demanded money from tbo,
Whole districts became impoverished and 4.
serted.
In 1874 England took possession of u.
islands. King Cacabo died and his son r..
given small pension. The first thing En,.
land did was to abolish the individual tav
but the natives never got back to their nr;r,;
tive and happy state of existence Gold h.s
changed their tribal life in way no prophst
of the FIJI Islands had ever dreamed Of. ps,.
haps if King Cacabo could have gone to Soma
natural storehouse of energy-some Fiiian
Muscle Shoals-and turned a switch he could
have produced energy dollars" in sufficient
quantity to satisfy the American demands
and the tranquility of the Fijians would have
been preserved. But as matters stand the
sad story Of King Cacabo and the Fiji Is
landers, as related by Tolstoy, Will always BE-
quoted by radical economists as Exhibit A
in the case against the gold standard.
In his declaration that gold is the cause Of
all wars Mr.. Ford is not alone Only wear
ago the editor of the ''Dai Nippon" Seiiro
Kawashima, issued booklet entitled "Ths
Abolition Of Money" which he prefaced as
follows:
"The only way Of realizing permanent
peace of mankind consists in removing the
cause Of human struggle. The cause Of
human struggle will be removed by fairly dis
tributing wealth. The fair distribution of
wealth can only be effected by abohshing
money. Indeed the abolition of money puts
an end to the materialistic strife among men,
You can as we'll stop stream with one hand
as you can stop the strife among individuals
IS we'll as among nations without removing
the cause Of the strife
The japanese editors plan as q substitute
for gold is even more simple than Mr. Fords
Harvesting Of energy. He would 60 to the
print shop and print tickets. These tickets
would be good for limited time only, just
like railroad tickets, so there could be no
boarding. Much simpler than building big
dams and things and going to the trouble OF
Harvesting electricity, which is dangerous
thing to handle at the best
If war is to be abolished not bv arms con-
ferences but by discarding the gold standard,
room must be made for Editor Kawashima Of
Japan, with his limited time tickets They'd
be lots more satisfactory to produce than Mr.
Fords energy dollars"
Energy" sounds too much like work, any
way. II the gold standard must be supple
mented, let it be with something easy.