Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/304

300 are sadly needed in the Pacific, and the dawn of the first real progress will appear when men like Booker Washington arise among the natives of Fiji. The establishment of non-sectarian manual training schools such as his, in so far as possible under native teachers and supported by native efforts, might soon revolutionize their whole system of life, and change them from well-behaved captives into purposeful men and women.

The missionaries now conduct nearly all the schools in Fiji, and it is much to their credit that illiteracy is almost as rare as in Germany, all the present generation being able to read and write their own language. These schools are fundamentally good, but the natives should be taught not only how to pray, but also how to labor and to live. The missionaries would doubtless welcome an opportunity to extend the scope of native education, but the expense of establishing trade schools is too great for their resources and the project demands government aid. That the return to the state would ultimately far more than repay the outlay can not be doubted, for even the non-altruistic Dutch well know the profit accruing to Java and hence to themselves through the establishment of agricultural schools for natives.

Every indication of an initiative among the Fijians in the direction of craft-development should be wisely encouraged instead of being, as at present, smothered under the cloak of a paternalism that obliterates error only by crushing endeavor.

It may be confidently hoped that the British government which has labored so persistently and at such constant expense to develop Fiji "for the Fijians" and not for the surfeit of those who would selfishly exploit the natives, will take this final step and render it possible for the natives to raise themselves to a position of self-dependence. This was, indeed, the confessed intention of certain high officials of the colony whom I enjoyed the pleasure of meeting when in Fiji. So consistent have the English been in their effort actually to civilize and elevate the Fijians that their policy has been pursued for years despite financial loss and the frequent protests of the whites, as is evidenced by the steady decline of the white population from 2,750 in 1871 to 2,036 in 1891, since which time it has slowly risen, becoming 3,707 in 1911. The public debt in 1910 was £104,115 and the native taxes amounted only to about £16,000, the principal source of revenue being derived from customs receipts which were £129,552, the latter being, of course, an indirect tax upon the colony itself.

Since 1874, settlers have been discouraged from employing Fijians upon their plantations, for the native population was rapidly being enslaved by the whites. In order to supply the necessary labor, Hindoo coolies from Calcutta were imported, but it seems unfortunate that these usually remained in Fiji after the expiration of their terms of service and there are now 40,300 in the group. They are a clannish,