Page:Savage Island.djvu/140

114 had similar laws to those left by you they voted for the mena fou in preference to the old. I wrote out all on which they were unanimous, and at the Fono at Tuapa to-day they have passed them by show of hands, and got the king's signature affixed. The late king was an intelligent, shrewd man, but I could not get him to do what Tongia has now done. There was a little hesitation in substituting work in almost every case for fines. The constables shrugged their shoulders at six or three months on the roads, and no pay. We advised them to pass the law and arrange afterwards about some remuneration for constables. For feeding the prisoners for the longer terms of labour they have agreed to let them off two days a week, to work for themselves and get food. In addition to fines, they have decided upon a sixpenny poll-tax per annum for man and wife and sons up to the age of going away in ships: unmarried women and girls exempt. The beginning of taxes in Savage Island! What will it grow to?"

There was one other matter in which I was obliged to tamper with legislation. There were cases of bubonic plague in Australia and New Zealand, and ships were free to communicate with the shore at four different parts of the