Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/495

 PACIFIC ISLANDS 443

Books of Reference.

Annual Blue Book and Colonial Office Report.

Calvert and Williams. Fiji and the Fijians.

Davis (W.M.). The Islands and Coral Reefs of Fiji (Oeoorapkieal Journal, January, March and Mar, 1920*

Gordon and Ootch, Australian Handbook. Annual. Melbourne.

Grimskaw (Beatrice), From Fiji to the Cannibal Islands. London, 1906.

Stewart's Handbook of the Pacific Islands. 8ydney, 1913. lands Far A vay. London, 1930.

Thomson (Basil), Fiji f Canadian-Australian 8Uacship Line.] London.

i -97.- The Fijians. L<>n.!on, 1908.

Wattrko*ti, Fiji: its King and People.

PACIFIC ISLANDS. TONGA.

(FaiENDLT I.SLAXD8.)

The Tonga or Friendly Islands continued up to 1899 to be a neutral region in accordance with the Declaration of Berlin, April 6, 1886. By the Anglo-German Agreement of November 14, 1899, subsequently accepted by the United States, the Tonga Islands were left practically under the Protectorate of Great Britain. A Protectorate was proclaimed over Tonga on May 19, 1900. In December, 1900, the British High Commissioner, with the assent of the King and native chiefs, assumed the exercise of civil and criminal jurisdiction over all subjects of Foreign Powers in Tonga, and tbe supervision of the financial administration.

Queen. — Salote, succeeded on the death of her father, George II, on April 29, 1918.

There is a Legislative Assembly which meets annually, composed of seven nobles elected by their peers, seven elected representatives of the people, and the Ministers of the Ciown, numbering seven, or twenty-one members in all. The elections are held trieunially.

The kingdom consists of 3 groups of islands, called respectively Tonga tabu, Haabai, and Varau, together with the outlying islands of Niuatobu- tabu, Taofahi, and Niuafoo, and lies between 15° and 23 d 30' south, and 178° and 177 c west, its western boundary being the eastern boundary of Fiji. The main group was discovered by Tasman in 1643. Total area, approximately 885 square miles: Capital, Nukualofa: population, census, April, 1911, 23,011 Tongans: 346 other Pacific islanders, and 380 Europeans. Es- timated population 1919, 22.6S9 Toucans. 250 half-castes, 247 other Pacific islanders, and 376 Europeans ; total, 23,562. The natives are Christian, there being about 16,000 adherents of the Free Church of Tonga, 4,000 Wesleyan Methodists, and 3,000 Roman Catholics. At the end of 1919, there weie 64 public primary schools, with 2,742 pupils on the roll. At Tonga College there were 8 teachers and 65 students on December 31, 1919. The revenue amounted in 1918-19 to 66,901/., and the expenditure to 43,688/. Native produce consists almost entirely ot copra, of which theexport in 1919 (chiefly to America) amounted to 22,221 tons, valued at 441,8951. Total Imports, 1918, 177,151k ; exports, 169,757/. The imports include drapery, flour, I iscuits, fish, hardware, timber, sugar, meats; and the exports, copra. fungus, live stock. The trade is with New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America. Steamer communication with the outside woild since the war ha3 been limited prac- tically to one vtrs-el of the Union Company's Fleet which maintains a four- weekly service with New Zealand, vid Fiji and Samoa.