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COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
the Government Technical School at Yanawai in Yanua 
Levu instructs about 70 native youths in agriculture, 
boat-building, and other industries. 
7. Agriculture and Trade. 
i 
The Fijians have always been good agriculturists, 
managing their crops with skill and industry, and show¬ 
ing considerable cleverness in their system of irrigation, 
which is carried out by means of built watercourses and 
bamboo pipes. They cultivate tobacco, maize, sweet 
potatoes, yams, kava, taro, beans, pumpkins, and other 
vegetables, and not a little of their produce is exported. 
The taxes are often paid in kind. Living in so genial a 
climate and having so few wants, the Fijian does not of 
course labour with the persistence and energy of the 
European, but he is by no means an habitual idler, 
although he does not bear a good character as a worker 
among the whites. His independence and the high 
value he puts upon his services prevent his employment 
to any great extent in the plantations. The labour 
question has, indeed, been always more or less a difficulty 
in the archipelago. In 1879 the first batch of Indian 
coolies was imported, and since the establishment of the 
sugar industry many more have been brought into the 
country, until at the beginning of 1892 there were 
domiciled over 8000. The coolie works for Is. per 
diem, binding himself to his employer for a term of 
years, the employer having to defray the cost of his 
passage both ways, which amounts to about £20. The 
experiment has proved successful on the whole, though 
crime has considerably increased in consequence, and the 
propensity of the Indian to go to law on every possible 
occasion is a further drawback. Eecourse is also had to 
