His insouciance, which was kept in check by the law of custom, had its root, like most other evils, in selfishness--a quality which is quite as much at home in a communal as it is in a civilized state of society, where defrauding the commonwealth is looked upon as a venial offence provided that it is not found out. In a communal state of society the instinct of the individual is to do and to give as little as possible. When the law of custom is breaking down, as among the Fijians, discovery entails but little disgrace. In being selfish the Fijian is only being what white men are. He has no patriotism and no nationality; he does not regard Fiji as his country, for Fiji is the whole world as he knows it. The pride that he once took in his own little tribal cosmos is dying out now that he no longer has to fight for it, and he concerns himself less about the natives of the twelve provinces besides his own than an ordinary Englishman troubles about the Andaman Islanders. So that the enjoyment of his lands in his own lifetime is not interfered with, the Fijian does not feel called upon to avert the total extinction of his race by any measures that demand from him the slightest exertion. [Pageheader: WEAKNESS OF THE MATERNAL INSTINCT] The want of the maternal instinct in the Fijian women is no new quality, but the law of custom took it into account and provided against it. The tribes that reared most male children had the most fighting men, and they alone could hold their own. A tribe of habitually neglectful parents was wiped out mercilessly, and within the limit of the tribe the old men and women who had grown-up sons were the last to suffer from want or insult. These incentives to the care of children may not have been constantly before the minds of Fijian parents in the old days, but they moulded the daily life of the community, and gave each member of it an interest in the welfare of his fellows. Under the _Pax Britannica_ a tribe has no longer any interest in being numerous except the fear of losing possession of its communal land, and this fear is tempered by the knowledge that if the land is leased to planters the rent money will go further among few than among many. Parents no longer look to their children to support them in old age. The law protects them from aggression, and they have none of the fear, which besets members of civilized communities, of destitution in their declining years.