558 



The Review of Reviews. 



December 1, 1906. 



All provisional gorernment is open to the same ob- 

 jection, and presumably must be tolerated until the 

 way has been prepared for a more settled order of 

 things. It is a common matter of complaint that the 

 high-handed and arbitrary exercise of power inherent 

 in the conception of a Higli Commissionership involves 

 an outrage of British ideas of justice. There is such 

 a large margin of personal liberty allowed to the occu- 

 pant of the po,sition as should only be sanctioned 

 under exceptional conditions, and dispensed with at 

 the earliest convenient opportunity. It is easy enough 

 to justify deportation under the plea of dreadful 

 necessity, and there are occasions when offendei's 

 against the good order of the community should be 

 dealt with promptly and summarily: but such extreme 

 measures do not lend themselves to the admiration 

 of those who love fair play. Mr. Shirley W. Bakers 

 deportation was pretty generally approved by the 

 public conscience, because his continued presence was 

 a menace to the peace of the community, and the 

 only way to prevent reprisals was to remove him 

 summarily. Other interferences with personal liberty 

 whicli have taken place since have created a sense of 

 insecurity and a fear not altogether unfounded 

 amongst English-speaking subjects in the islands, that 

 the majesty of the law would have been better up- 

 held by the breach than the observance of a judicial 

 warship regime. 



Tonga, though an independent and self-governing 

 kingdom, with all the forms of responsible govern- 

 ment, and judicial procedure, is in the unenviable 

 pocsition of being the chosen exploiting ground of war- 

 ship interference. Indeed, it is coming now to be 

 asked whether the establishment of a British Protec- 

 torate in Tonga is not a covert pretence for annexa- 

 tion (Vhen the fitting time and excuse comes, for the 

 officers of H.M. warship to land and run up the British 

 flag. Some countenance, certainly, has been given to 

 this surmise by the recent deputation of the Premier 

 and Trea^uer of the Tongan Cabinet, and the ap- 

 pointment by the High Commissioner of his nominees 

 to the vacant pcrtfolios. All this sort of thing, it may 

 bii presumed, is admissible on diplomatic grounds, 

 where the stronger power extends its paternal tutelage 

 to the weaker one. 



All the same, King George Lubon naturally wants 

 to know what his kingly authority counts for. or on 

 what security of tenure his kingdom stands if the 

 High Commissioner can reconstruct his Cabinet over 

 his head, and treat him as a mere figurehead of 

 royalty. The king's visit to Auckland shortly after this 

 coup d'ltat took place, presumably to ascertain his 

 legal standing as a monarch, sufficiently indicates his 

 mixed feelings of astonishment and alarm in being 

 over-ridden in his own kingdcn. 



The Tongans have been rigntly called the Anglo- 

 Saxons of the South Pacific. Where a people so in- 

 telligent and so open to assimilate modern ideas at- 

 tempt to govern themselves according to recognised 

 constitutional methods, they should be allowed to 

 pursue their own way, and profit by their own mis- 

 takes without undue outside interference. Tonga 

 presents to the world the astounding spectacle of a 

 people who, within the last eighty years, have em- 

 erged from heathenism and savagery, and with the 

 new Christian ideals taught them by the mission- 

 aries, are now seeking to govern themselves in a self- 

 respecting way. How much they have accomplished 

 in the ascent to their ideals is praiseworthy beyond 

 any modern precedent of a people similarly sit-uated 

 in the adverse conditions of their past life, which had 

 to be ovex'come. The " Laws of Tonga,'' embodied in 

 a book bearing that name, and comprising about one 

 hundred pages, and turned out by the CJovernment 

 Printer in Nukualofa, is a most succinct compendium 



of what an enlightened legislation has already been 

 able to accomplish. Drafted with a supreme regard 

 for clearness and intelligibility, a man of ordinary 

 mental grip could, without much trouble, or the need 

 of expensive legal help, understand the law and con- 

 duct his own case in. court. Indeed, so wholesome is 

 the dread of lawyers in Tonga that they are not al- 

 lowed to practice in the courts, and though in evi- 

 dence they are content to give their advice to liti- 

 gants outside, and to charge them fees in the usual 

 way. 



In a British Island Confederation, the annexation of 

 Tonga as a preliminary step need not ensue, but its 

 autoQoniy could be easil.v recognised, and an honour- 

 able understanding arrived at to obviate any conflict 

 of interests. The people are well aware how much 

 they owe to the Christian and civilising influences 

 which followed the Englishman's advent among them, 

 and they could well be trusted to take their place in 

 the coming confederation. 



PREFERENTIAL VOTING. 

 William Nayler l,Tic.) writes: — This is a subject 

 that, for years, has been discussed both by speakers 

 and writers, and especially by faddists, who fancy 

 that theirs is the perfect system to cure all the faults 

 and weaknesses in the present system of voting, and. 

 like them. I suppose that I must plead a little guilty to 

 being of that cult. I start on the hypothesis that in 

 the election of members of Parliament every elector 

 .should have the same power to choose or reject every 

 candidate. Under the present system, if one party 

 has one candidate and the opposite party two or more, 

 it is patent to the simplest understanding that the 

 latter is severely handicapped — and I purpose en- 

 deavouring to devise a system whereby each party 

 shall be enabled to use the same amoTUit of influence 

 in electing or rejecting each candidate. One would 

 naturally have thought that in a country with seven 

 Parliaments perfection would have been attained long 

 since in the election of members: but the legislatui-e 

 has just refused to pa.ss the nearest plan to perfec- 

 tion that has ever been put forward. The present 

 system is crude in conception, and appears to have 

 been constructed in an adumbrant manner, the framers 

 having no conception of the enormous responsibility 

 attached to the subject, and is the outcome of the 

 patronage system in politics where men without 

 ability get pitchforked into positions which they are 

 unsuited to fill, as many have no administrative 

 ability. For fifty years we" have had in Victoria. Par- 

 liaments elected in an unfair way — it is unfair because 

 it gives the party with one candidate two chances to 

 one against the party who have two would-be mem- 

 bers standing for election. The present, at first sight, 

 appears to be a fair and honourable plan, but results 

 prove that it is so uncertain that it is not what is 

 renuired. We have a large uneducated class as 

 voters, and as the legislature has endowed them with 

 the right to vote, we require a plan that will enable 

 them to record their vote in a simple way. and it 

 must be completed in one act. Where only two can- 

 didates stand for a single electorate, the present plan 

 is all that is required : but when three or more per- 

 sons stand for election, it shows at once its weakness, 

 and. indeed, appears to assist in a species of fraud, 

 as if any one section of electors, being nunierically 

 strong, chose to combine and only have one candidate, 

 they can easily outvote another section who are 

 troubled with a plurality of representatives seeking 

 for honour on the same ticket, and the plan I am 

 about to propose gives each voter equal power in the 

 election — in fact, he cannot use equal power if he is 

 unable to concentrate his vote on each of the candi- 



