§ LORD STANMOREasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether Her Majesty's Government had seen any reason to retract or qualify the approval given by former Secretaries of State to the system of Native Administration and Taxation pursued in Fiji; or any reason to diminish its confidence in the sound policy and judicious action of the present Governor, Sir J. Thurston, in respect thereto. The present Governor of that colony had been subjected to attacks of a very virulent and unusual nature with regard to his proceedings in that colony. He had reason to believe that statements had been made and sent out to the Australian colonies to the effect that Her Majesty's Government was beginning to see that their former course of policy with regard to those islands had been a mistake. He had no fear whatever as to the view that the Government would take, because he was sure it would be a dispassionate and just estimate of the facts; but much mischief might be done in the colony itself and in Australia if such an impression was allowed to go out there without contradiction. It had been circulated in this country by a Member of the other House of Parliament, who, he believed, spent exactly 12 hours in Fiji, and in that time was exploited by a small clique of persons strongly opposed to the Government, and came away seeing through their spectacles.
THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid that, if he did not on that occasion go at length into the question which had been raised by his noble Friend, it must not be understood that that was because he failed to appreciate its great importance. He was very glad of that opportunity of expressing, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, their sense of the great injustice, or worse, of the attacks which had been made upon 1674 Sir John Thurston, and to say that, in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies, he deserved in his difficult position the full support of the Government. Having said so much, he would confine himself to answering the question of the noble Lord. In answer to that question, he had to say that the Secretary of State saw no reason to retract the approval given by his predecessors to the system of Native Administration and Taxation at present pursued in Fiji, and that he had full confidence in the Native policy of the present Governor, Sir John Thurston.