Nothing can well be imagined harder than the present position of the planting community in these isles. Many of them, gentlemen by birth and education, came here long years ago and sank what money they possessed in purchase of land and the necessary outlay thereon. Or, still oftener, they started with the terrible drawback of having to borrow money at high interest—a yoke which, once assumed, could rarely be shaken off. Then followed long, lonely years of hard toil, too often resulting only in bitter disappointment from failing crops or devastating hurricanes, which in a few hours swept away the fruits of months of toil. Even when these disasters have not occurred, low prices and enormous expenses of freight to the colonies, as they call Australia or New Zealand, of storage there, and finally of transit to England, have reduced profits to a mere cipher. And thus it is that, utterly ruined and overwhelmed with debt, with health shattered by privation, and lack of what we deem positive necessaries of life, a very large proportion of the planters are left stranded,—literally without the means to get away, helpless, and wellnigh hopeless,—living just like the natives, on yams and wild pig, knowing no greater luxury than a bowl of yangona, and unable from sheer poverty to obtain the commonest comforts of civilised life. There are many houses in which beef and mutton, rice, barley, or flour, wine or spirits, even tea or coffee and sugar, are wellnigh forgotten luxuries. I am told that on the occasion of Sir Arthur’s arrival, when about two hundred of these gentlemen assembled at Levuka to meet him, many were compelled to absent themselves from sheer inability to face such small expenses as were involved by the journey and hotel quarters. Others could only meet it by bringing with them supplies of poultry and vegetables for sale in Levuka. Many are unable, from sheer poverty, to hire a sufficient number of labourers to work the estates, which at present they cannot sell,—all land-titles being so insecure, that until they have been formally examined and acknowledged by the British Government (Lands Commission), no capitalist would dream of investing in what might prove so worthless a speculation; and though the Lands Commission are doing their utmost to push on their work, it is a slow and difficult task, involving endless patient inquiry, and weighing of conflicting evidence. So, at the present moment, these people actually are worse off than they were before annexation—a sad discovery for men who had looked on that event as a magic spell which would at once disentangle this disordered skein. And they are now more down-hearted than ever.