THE FIJI ISLANDS 
485 
prises a loan of £150,000, bearing interest at 4|- per 
cent, of which £18,700 only has been redeemed. The 
revenue rose from £40,000 in 1876 to £91,522 in 
1884; in 1891 it was £71,249. The expenditure in 
the two last-mentioned years was respectively £98,467 
and £67,819. In 1888 the revenue first showed a 
balance over the expenditure, a condition which has been 
since maintained. It is derived in great part (to the 
extent of £21,000 in 1891) from native taxation, but 
chiefly from Customs dues (£31,000). 
9. Population, Communications, etc. 
That the natives of Fiji have decreased in number to 
a very considerable extent there is no doubt. In 1859 
it was estimated that they formed a population of 
200,000. On the 5th April, 1891, the census returned 
them as only 105,800. The frightful epidemic of 
measles in 1875 is said to have carried off over 40,000 ; 
but apart from this unusual mortality, there has apparently 
been a steady decrease for a long period. Whether it 
still continues at the present moment, and if so, to what 
extent, is not easy to ascertain, for the returns are 
believed to be not very accurate, and though a decrease 
of near 9000 was shown by a comparison of the two 
censuses of 1881 and 1891, it is thought by the authori¬ 
ties to be erroneous. The vital statistics seem to be 
equally untrustworthy, but the probability is that the 
Fijians form no exception to the general rule which 
obtains in so many parts of the world, but more especi¬ 
ally in the islands of the Pacific, that the native races 
are sooner or later inevitably doomed, if not to actual 
extinction, at all events to something approaching it. 
The last census gave the entire population of the group 
