The Federation Movement in Fiji, 1880-1902

By Ahmed Ali

Fiji became a British Crown Colony in 1874 when the chiefs of Fiji ceded their islands to Queen Victoria. Initially, European settlers welcomed British rule but soon became disillusioned with it as a result of the policies of the first governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, who restricted the amount of land they could obtain and denied them the use of Fijian labourers. The introduction of Indian labourers in 1879 did little to appease European settlers who claimed that unlike the large Australian Colonial Sugar Refining Company they could not afford the cost of imported labour.

The Federation Movement in Fiji 1880-1902 examines European settlers' failed attempts to federate with various Australian states and with New Zealand as well as their political gains during the period which laid the foundation for European political dominance in the Fiji islands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2008
• ISBN: 9781440102158

Ahmed Ali

Ahmed Ali, Ph.D. was a historian, a diplomat, and a cabinet minister at various times in the Fiji government from 1982 until the time of his death in 2005. Dr. Ali published extensively on Fiji’s history throughout his lifetime. His publications include Fiji and the Franchise, Girmit:Indian Indenture Experience in Fiji, and From Plantation to Politics.

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Contents

ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

ANNEXATION

CHAPTER TWO

THE MEN AND THEIR MIND

CHAPTER THREE

LAND

CHAPTER FOUR

LABOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

NATIVE POLICY AND GENERAL DISSATISFACTION WITH COLONIAL RULE

CHAPTER SIX

1883: THE FIRST STEPS

CHAPTER SEVEN

NEW ZEALAND AND DISAPPOINTMENT

CHAPTER EIGHT

DEPRESSION AND EYES TOWARDS VICTORIA

CHAPTER NINE

A QUIET INTERLUDE

CHAPTER TEN

NEW ZEALAND AGAIN

WITHOUT SUCCESS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE AFTERMATH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE

Ahmed Ali presented his thesis, The Federation Movement in Fiji, 1880-1902, for the degree of Master of Arts in History for which he was awarded honours, to the University of Auckland, in January 1969. Subsequent to receiving his masters degree, he was awarded a scholarship to study for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Australian National University in 1970. His doctoral thesis, Fiji and the Franchise, was published in 2007. His other publications include: Girmit: Indian Indenture Experience in Fiji, and From Plantation to Politics. At the time of his death he was working on a history of the Muslims in Fiji.

Bessie Ali

Australia

2008

This thesis is an attempt to throw light on the conflict between European settlers in Fiji and their rulers during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It is centred around the Federation Movement because this was both the focal point of opposition and the solution sought by the colonists to replace colonial autocracy.

Federation was chosen because it was the only remedy available to the settlers. As loyal subjects of Queen Victoria, they did not wish to secede from the British Empire, which they viewed as part of their Anglo-Saxon heritage. Moreover, they wished to enjoy the fruits of the empire, especially the economic and political varieties. Within this context, they desired the opportunity to secure their future in a new land, and they felt this could be achieved only through the possession of political power essential to impose their will upon their environment. They drew their inspiration from the neighbouring British self-governing colonies in Australasia, where settler will reigned supreme. Consequently in Fiji they found it galling, that colonial governors should subordinate their interests to the paramountcy of native welfare.

The following account of the resulting strife is divided into three parts, chiefly to avoid repetition. The first section examines the reasons for the antagonism, often acrimonious, between the settlers and British rule, which in the 1870s had been anticipated with much hope by the settlers, but with which they were rapidly disenchanted. The second part discusses the various endeavours to achieve federation or annexation, and why failure was the result in each case. The final chapter briefly examines what gains settler agitation made in the three main areas of conflict: the constitution, land, and native policy.

In writing this thesis I have incurred two major debts. First, to Professor O.W. Parnaby, formerly of Auckland University, and now Master of Queen’s College, Melbourne University, who readily undertook the difficult task of supervising my work from a distance of over 2,000 miles. Second, to the chief archivist, and the staff of the Central Archives ( now National Archives of Fiji) in Suva, especially the assistant archivist, Mr. Salim Buksh, all of whom willingly and promptly gave generous help in finding material.

Ahmed Ali

Suva

1969

CHAPTER ONE

ANNEXATION

Annexation was a measure accompanied by financial responsibility, hence it was a policy normally eschewed and executed only with the greatest reluctance. When, in 1874, Britain finally agreed to accept Fiji unconditionally from Cakobau and his fellow chieftains, she did so because she could find no other alternative after having refused this choice on two previous occasions.

Why, then, was Queen Victoria’s government forced into such an action, in an archipelago of notorious reputation some 12,000 miles away from Westminster? A Fijian newspaper on the eve of cession answered the question thus:

1. Difficulties imposed in making British subjects conform to the laws.

2. The failure of cotton as a payable product.

3. The Wesleyan Mission.1

But, the Fiji Times, nostalgic rather than analytical, chiding Gladstone for being prepared to abandon us to our fate, proclaimed that Mr. Disraeli, with a Jewish predilection for jewels, has added one more to the British crown by accepting the cession of Fiji.2 The truth is, Disraeli was as loath as Gladstone to resort to annexation, but their respective colonial secretaries, Carnarvon and Kimberley, saw it as the only remedy possible.3 Besides in 1874, Fiji was far from being a jewel; it was in a state of depression, and thus an economic liability rather than an asset. One cause had been the decline of cotton. However, neither this nor the clamourings of Wesleyan missionaries would have been adequate to bring about a change of mind in London in 1874 had there not been present another factor, that is, the first proposition of the Fiji Argus, just quoted.

Europeans had drifted to the shores of Fiji from the first decade of the nineteenth century. The earliest had been shipwrecked sailors, deserters, that motley crew generally termed beachcombers, as well as sandlewood traders and Christian missionaries. Except for the last group, they were often temporary residents interested purely in the satisfaction of their own petty pleasures, whether of lucrative profits from sandlewood or women acquired through assistance to some chief in war, because of their possession of firearms. Chaos and disorder suited them; a lack of government rather than stern rule was their interest. But by the end of the 1850s the sandlewood trade was no more, the beachcomber a dying race, and instead, there began to flow into the Fiji group, a new type of settler, often men who had failed to make their fortunes on the goldfields of Australia, or had been disillusioned with New Zealand as a consequence of the Anglo-Maori wars. They acquired land and set themselves up as cultivators, frequently of cotton, or engaged in trade.4 With the outbreak of the American Civil War, and the consequent boom in cotton prices, the European population and profits rocketed.5 Not a few of these had come with the thought that annexation by Britain was around the corner.6

Fiji for the newcomers was to be a permanent abode; it was to be their Canaan. Having purchased land, become involved in credit, built homes, these men desired security and peace in a frontier situation. But they lacked a government to regulate their affairs and safeguard their interests. The Fijian chiefs alone could not fill this void. Partnership of Fijian and white was one solution. Europeans like Swanston, Burt, Woods and Thurston associated with willing chiefs such as Cakobau, Maafu, and Tui Cakau to venture into the tumultuous region of frontier polity. Out of this union of Anglo-Saxon know-how, and Fijian power came the tovata system and the Cakobau government of 1871-1873. Unfortunately, for the settlers that is, the alliance was never more than a shaky one, entered into as much out of necessity as of convenience and, with the failure of the so-called Cakobau government by 1874, a nadir was reached, out of whose depths only annexation could rescue the colony. Two factors, above all, made these experiments in government a failure. First, there was the rivalry of the Fijian chiefs, especially of self-styled Tui Viti, Seru Cakobau and the ambitious Tongan exile Maafu; second, and of supreme importance, the desire of the Europeans to make these governments serve their own ends in lieu of which they withdrew their support and thwarted and jeopardized their continuance.

The second is of interest because it set the pattern for what was to become since, a facet of the colony’s history. Disruptive elements such as the Klu Klux Klan of 1872 (in March of that year it changed its name to a more respectable one of British Subjects’ Mutual Protection Society), and later the White Residents’ Political Association were really the precursors of the various committees later formed to achieve federation with Australian colonies or New Zealand; though under British rule, these could not be as militant. Of course, not all Europeans played the negative role of opposition, but those that did, were vocal beyond the proportion of their numbers. Government for them meant an organization to satisfy their demands; if it made restrictive regulations, these were to be applicable to Fijians only. John Bates Thurston, writing in 1872, put it succinctly when he said that no law will be acceptable that does not confine its action to the natives alone.7 Little wonder then, that in a situation where Fijians outnumbered whites by about a hundred to one, attempts at government failed and law and order were at the best temporary.8 Since the source of disorder was the European population, overwhelmingly British, it became the responsibility of Westminster to protect Fijians from permanent degradation at the hands of an avaricious foreign element.

The problem of government in these islands became linked with another disruptive and vicious element, where British nationals once more played a leading role. This was the labour traffic.9 Here, too, there were two aspects to the difficulty; first, the need to regulate recruiting and, second, to ensure fair treatment of the labourers by employers. Just as the passage of foreign jurisdiction acts, and appointment of consuls had failed to satisfactorily bring Britishers in the Pacific under the aegis of English law, so did the efforts of the imperial parliament to influence the labour traffic prove insufficient. Recruiting abuses persisted despite the passage of the Imperial Kidnapping Act of 1872.10

Nothing practical, it appeared, could be done to safeguard labourers from the caprices of exacting employers. With the setting up of the Cakobau government, and its functioning in its earlier stages, there seemed that some solution would be found. This was asking for too much. Cakobau’s ministers did not possess the authority essential to impose their will on others because of their virtually bankrupt financial position, and repeated opposition from whites. Besides, lacking the essential resources, they could not have controlled the labour traffic even if they had made a genuine effort. Pressure upon them was great, for the demand for more labourers was ever increasing until they completely succumbed to the folly of coercing Fijian defaulters of poll tax, the Lovoni rebels against Cakobau and members of the tribe responsible for the Ba murders, to be hired out as labourers to European planters, who would no doubt reciprocate by upholding the Cakobau government’s right to rule. The demand for more labourers and the non-concern of employers for the scruples involved in obtaining and retaining them, are recurrent themes of nineteenth century Fijian history. Any government putting the labourers before the employers by passing ordinances to ensure honest recruiting, and fair treatment of labourers, or restricting supply in favour of Fijian welfare, was certain to bring upon itself the self-righteous wrath of the planters.

Meanwhile, as Cakobau and his ministers stumbled from crisis to crisis, a constitutional one, of threatened secession by Fijian chiefs, a financial one, in the form of bankruptcy, one of economy, with the fall in cotton prices, Gladstone informed the House of Commons, on 13 June 1873, of the Layard-Goodenough Commission appointed to investigate the possibility of annexation.11 Layard and Goodenough saw annexation as the only solution, and procured from the major Fijian chiefs and Maafu, an offer of cession which, however, was conditional.12 They supported their conclusion by reviewing the events in Fiji since 1865, emphasizing that the European settlers did not see support as obligatory for a government started without the general consent, while one in their interests, would ignore the Fijian except as a payer of poll-tax, a possible labourer, and a consumer of imported goods.13

Though Goodenough’s actions embarrassed the Colonial Office, Carnarvon himself was convinced that the lawlessness of the British settlers pointed to annexation, quite apart from the arguments about commerce, strategy and the suppression of kidnapping.14 On 18 May, 1874, he received a telegram from Governor Hercules Robinson of New South Wales informing him that his government demanded the annexation of this archipelago.15 By July 9, Carnarvon had made up his mind to take the final step, and on 10 August, he sent a telegram to Robinson instructing him to visit Fiji to negotiate an unconditional cession as the terms offered to Goodenough were unacceptable.16

Annexation came with the signing of the Deed of Cession at Levuka on 10 October, 1874. It had come with reluctance, and had been forced upon Westminster because the predatory intentions of British settlers threatened Fijian interests. The colonial secretary, Lord Carnarvon, speaking in the House of Lords on 17 July, 1874, stressed the moral duty of Britain to native peoples;17 he made clear why Fiji could no longer be allowed to wend its tortuous way:

There are English settlers in such numbers, English capital is so largely embarked, and English interests are so much involved in the peace of the Islands, that it would not be safe to fold our arms and say we would not have anything to do with the Islands.18

It was the presence of Europeans then which necessitated annexation.19 Alone, the Fijians would have been permitted to carry on as they wished. It is unlikely that the cries of the missionaries would have mattered, unless vital imperial strategic interests were involved, which they were not in Fiji. European impact on Fijian society had brought in its wake drastic changes; it had altered the relations between a chief and his people, heralded land alienation often at a gift of trifles, fostered the worst abuses of blackbirding; in fact, wrought a revolution which, if uncontrolled, would certainly have had permanent and disastrous consequences for the Fijian population. Britain would not permit these, and could check them, only by direct control in the form of annexation.

Yet the European settlers looked forward to this step.20 They awaited utopia, but received disillusion. This difference between the settler dream, and the reality of British paramountcy in Fiji, determined the nature of the ruler-ruled relationship after 1874. For the subject of federation between Fiji and one of the Australasian colonies, another issue is relevant here, and that is, the role of Australasian sub-imperialism in the annexation of Fiji. Professor McIntyre, after an examination of the various factors, which led to Fiji becoming a British colony, has concluded:

In the South Pacific the British Government had to lend an ear to the elected colonial governments of New Zealand, Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.21

In fact, during the nascent stages of the evolution of British policy in the South Pacific between 1855 and 1874, Britain herself was for long, of the opinion that imperial responsibility in that region could be shared with, if not shouldered, by the Australasian colonies. It was even hoped that New South Wales might be persuaded to accept Fiji as an appanage. This was not to be. Both the colonies and Her Majesty’s government treated Fiji as a football, which they tried to pass to each other. The settlers in Fiji were not unaware of this; on 26 April, 1871, Leefe, later to emerge as the leader of the federation movement in the 1880s, asked Lord Belmore, the governor of New South Wales, for protection of settlers in Fiji.22 The attitude of mind of the Fiji settlers, seeking amelioration of their difficulties through the Australasian colonies, was already in existence before Fiji became a crown colony. The desire for federation after 1874, was both the natural and logical outcome of this intended, but abortive relationship envisaged by Britain. But once the Deed of Cession had been signed, the British changed their attitude. Henceforth, Fijian affairs were to be the concern of the mother country alone, and she would brook no interference. Out of this British volte face, and the Fiji settlers’ non-acceptance of it, there arose the drama, (perhaps melodrama is a more accurate term for it) which is the concern of the following pages.

Endnotes

1. Fiji Argus, 9 October, 1874.

2. Fiji Times, 14 October, 1874. After 12 years of British rule another Fiji newspaper, based in Suva, the capital, was to write in a completely different tone, and with the advantage of hindsight, was to be closer to the truth than either the Fiji Times or Fiji Argus, in saying: Although the English Government did decide to accept the cession of Fiji, they did it in a very half-hearted manner. They would rather not have done so, if they could have helped it. The probability is that they knew very little about the place and cared less. Suva Times, 17 February, 1886.

3. Parnaby, O.W.1964. Britain and the Labor Trade in the Southwest Pacific, Durham, N.C. 44-48.

4. Many gold-seekers on their way from California to Australia, in the days of the gold rush, called in at Fiji, and a few of these, charmed with the freedom and lawlessness of the country returned to it when it was no longer easy to make rapid fortunes in Australia. Coffee, F. 1920. Forty Years on the Pacific. 164.

5. According to Legge, J.D.1958. Britain in Fiji 1858-1880. London. 44-45, the white population in Fiji numbered about 30 to 40 (his source being Pritchard, W.T. 1866. Polynesian Reminiscences. London. 209). This number had risen to 1,288 in 1868 and 2,000 in 1870. Thomson, B.1908. The Fijians. A Study of the Decay of Custom. London. 54, claims there were 166 adult Europeans in Fiji in 1861, and by 1869, the number had increased to 1,800. The Cyclopedia of Fiji, 1907: 24, says that in 1871, the estimated number of settlers was 2,750; in 1881, there was a decline to 2,671, and by 1906, it had slowly increased to 2,726. Whichever authority we may accept, the point that is clear, is that there was a rapid and substantial influx of whites into Fiji from 1860 to 1871, and thereafter, the number was virtually stationary. Another work gave the white population as 2,500, of whom 2,300 were British citizens, and of the rest, 200 were Americans. (Britton, H.1870. Fiji in 1870. Melbourne. 16.) More recently it has been written: A total of 158 ships arrived in the port of Levuka that year [1870] including 43 from Sydney, 43 from New Zealand, and 8 from Melbourne, and the European population rose from 1,250 in December, 1869 to 2,670 by the end of 1872. Young, J.M.R.ed.1967. Australia’s Pacific Frontier. Economic and Cultural Expansion into the Pacific 1795-1885. Australia. 11.

6. Thomson 1908: 54.

7. Cited by Legge 1958: 97, from Thurston to Robinson, 20 December, 1872. Enclosed in CO to FO Minutes, 26 March, 1873. Foreign Office 58/139.

8. The Fiji Argus, 12 February, 1875 said that there was a time when the settlers might have moulded circumstances to their own liking but their petty jealousies, political animosities and low personal ambitions, all combined to render this an impossibility.

9. For a full treatment of the subject see Parnaby 1964.

10. For an account of abuses involved in the labour trade, especially after 1872, see Scarr, D.1967, Recruits and Recruiters: a Portrait of the Pacific Islands Labour Trade in The Journal of Pacific History. Vol. II, 5-24.

11. The subject of the annexation of Fiji and British policy-making concerning the South Pacific is discussed in detail in McIntyre,W.D.1967. The Imperial Frontier in the Tropics, 1865-75. London. Chapters 7,8, and 11.

12. According to Commodore Goodenough, Cakobau on 20 March, 1874, agreed to the annexation of Fiji by Britain but ceded only the Government of the Country, not his men or his earth. McIntyre 1967: 326.

13. Cited by Morrell, W.P. 1960. Britain