FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 119 
required to work for their employers for five years, after which 
they could do as they pleased, theoretically. After another five 
years they had free passage back to their homes in India. Various 
laws were enacted to protect these indentured laborers; for ex- 
ample, members of families could not be separated and living 
conditions of the vessels on which they traveled were carefully 
checked up. 
On the other hand, the indentured men could not abandon their 
work without being subjected to arrest and return to their em- 
ployers. Since 1919, however, this feature has been abandoned 
at the suggestion of the employers. Major Chappel points out the 
fact that the Indians thus ‘‘recruited’’ were necessarily from the 
lowest class, those unable to make good in their own country and 
thus apt to be a troublesome element wherever they went. In the 
ease of those who came to Fiji, there were an unusual number of 
women, the proportion in 1917, 22,600 women and girls out of a 
total of 61,150, made it possible for these people to lead, in gen- 
eral, a normal family life. Gradually the more ambitious Indians 
left the work on the plantations and took to other pursuits, such 
as shop-keeping, gardening, stock-raising and farming. Many be- 
came domestic servants in Suva, and I noticed that they were 
often employed as chauffeurs. It seems that the indenture system 
was abandoned in 1920 at the instance of the Indian Government. 
The Indians increased in numbers with great rapidity from 
1905 to 1917, the figures being 25,955 in 1905 and 61,150 in 1917, 
thus considerably more than doubling in a period of twelve years. 
Part of the increase was due to immigration and part to a natural 
increase due to favorable conditions. There is no doubt that the 
Indian is thriving in Fiji, is gradually acquiring property and 
political power. He is far more enterprising and thrifty than the 
natives whom he is supplanting, and in the natural course of 
events the Fijians will be eliminated not by assimilation, for the 
races do not mix, but by extinction. Major Chappel tells us that 
while the Indians more than doubled in twelve years, the Fijians 
have actually decreased. Measles and influenza caused a mortality 
of 50,000! Figures are not given' showing the mortality among 
the Indians from these causes, but the net result was a doubling 
of the Indian population and an actual reduction of the native 
Fijian race—a result greatly to be deplored from a biological 
stand-point, for the Fijians are an unusually fine people. But, 
as Frederick O’Brien tells us in his ‘‘ White Shadows in the South 
