“I may say that I have no reason to be dissatisfied with the results. I have no doubt that the native magistrates make mistakes, and sometimes grave mistakes; I have no doubt that in individual instances the Roko Tuis are harsh and overbearing; but it is, I think, far better that they should now and then be so than that all share in the administration should be taken away from them. The employment of natives in the administration of the government was, indeed, a financial necessity, for the means did not exist, and do not yet exist, for the payment of such a staff of white officials as would have been required had the services of natives been dispensed with. But had no such imperative cause existed to render their employment inevitable, I should equally have deemed it to be required by considerations of policy. Unless removed from their habitual places of residence, and treated with a harshness wholly incompatible with the understanding on which the islands had been ceded to England, chiefs of intelligence, high rank, and great social influence, would have become, if stripped of all authority, and deprived of all employment except that of brooding over their own changed condition, very dangerous elements in the colony. For, be it remembered, the legal non-recognition of their position would not have in any way deprived them of the power they possessed over those who yielded to them an instinctive and unquestioning obedience. As it is, they are cheerful and willing assistants to the Government in the performance of its duties. “The results of the system actually adopted were apparent when the mountaineers of Viti Levu attacked the Christian villages of the Singatoka. I appealed to the Rokos for help, and named thirty men as the contingent each was to send. Had the same state of mind existed that I found on my arrival, sullen and reluctant submission would at best have been given to the order, and more probably excuses would have been made for the non-appearance of the force; the mischief would have spread, and a long and costly war would have resulted. What was in fact the answer to the appeal? From almost every province came double the number of men asked for—picked men out of a host of volunteers—and the troubles were suppressed by native forces alone, without delay and at a trifling cost....