Are We a Declining Race ? 



Thus were the natives involved in heavy 

 obligations as a result of a calamity with which 

 they, perhaps, had nothing to do. Such trans- 

 actions generally lead to a lot of bloodshed, and 

 the native always goes to the wall. There were 

 several disturbances over the land question. In 

 1868 H.M.S. Challenger sent a punitive force up 

 the Rewa, consisting of four boats and eighty .six 

 men, with two Armstrongs. Again, in 1873, 

 there was a disturbance, with a slaughter of 

 about 400. 



After many lives had been lost, Cakobau was 

 persuaded to petition the British Government to 

 establish a Protectorate over them, with the 

 result that the Fijian Islands were annexed by us 

 in 1874, under the direction of Sir Hercules 

 Robinson, Governor of New South Wales at that 

 time. 



Cakobau's speech will give some idea as to 

 their condition at the time : 



"Any chief who refuses to cede cannot have 

 much wisdom. If matters remain as they are 

 Fiji will become like a piece of driftwood on the 

 sea, to be picked up by the first passer by. The 

 whites who have come to Fiji are a bad lot. 

 They are mere stalkers on the beach. The wars 

 here have been far more the result of interference 

 of intruders than the fault of the inhabitants. 

 Of one thing I am assured, that if we do not 

 cede Fiji, the white stalkers on the beach, the 

 cormorants, will open their maws and swallow 

 us." 



This does not redound much to the credit of 

 " the white stalkers on the beach " ; still it seems 

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