122 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



tendency to accept credit,' observes a late writer, ' is a state of 

 things which occurs in every part of the world in which men 

 of superior race freely trade with men of a lower race. It ex- 

 tends trade no doubt for a time, but it demoralises the natives, 

 checks true civilisation, and does not lead to any permanent 

 increase in the wealth of the country, so that the European 

 Government of such a country must be carried on at a loss. 

 The custom of Fijians is to pay their taxes in produce or ser- 

 vice, and the custom only requires to be properly defined and 

 settled, in order to produce a fair amount of revenue at a 

 moderate cost of collection. 



To use Mr. Thurston's own words : 



' The characteristics of native life in Fiji are much the same 

 as they are everywhere. Its chief phenomena are irregular 

 alternations of excessive labour and excessive repose and so 

 it will continue until the fitful and uncertain habits of the 

 people are corrected. This measure is not calculated to inter- 

 fere with the freedom of trade in any way, but its tendency is 

 to promote those habits of steady industry that can alone 

 develop faculties which are requisite to the exercise of an 

 actual, instead of a nominal, freedom in business.' 



The strongest part of Mr. Thurston's address, in my opinion, 

 is where he dwells on the habits of industry which a tax in 

 kind would teach the native race. Certainly no place better 

 illustrates the final consequence of commerce depending upon 

 mere natural productions than those parts of Brazil and Peru 

 Avatered by the Amazon and its affluents. The forest there 

 formerly abounded with resins, oils, balsams, gums, textile 

 plants, and medicinal plants. At the present day few or none 

 of these things are to be found except under cultivation. 

 Those sources of wealth planted by nature, and which had 

 been neglected by man, had ceased to exist. To reap, man 



