It seems to be a common belief among Europeans that one has only to abolish the power of the chief to secure to every native the fruit of his own industry. That this is not so is proved by the example of the Tongans, who, being a less conservative people than the Fijians, are more inclined towards social progress. The powers of the chiefs were there abolished by law in 1862, but, during the forty-four years that have elapsed, the principal result of the change has been to impoverish the chiefs without enriching the people, while the loss of the power of combination has deprived them of the power of building any but houses of the poorest description. And in Fiji the majority, being naturally indolent, are interested in preserving the ancient right of begging property from a relation and the fixed determination of the idle majority to live at the expense of the industrious minority; and the moral cowardice of the minority in not resisting their organized spoliation quite neutralizes the encouragement to accumulate savings which should have resulted from the recognition of private property by English law. No less in Tonga than in Fiji is ridicule the most effective weapon of intimidation. The people are enslaved, but to a more merciless despotism than the tyranny of chiefs--the ridicule of their fellows. If native laws are to exist at all under the new order, this native habit of _kere-kere_ must be swept away. New wants must be developed, wealth must take the place of rank as the factor of social importance, the idle must be made to feel the sting of poverty. The easy-going native must be made to feel the pangs of the _auri fames_, the earth must be cursed for him, competition with its unlovely spawn of class hatred, pauperism, and vagrancy must be cultivated in a people to whom they are unknown, for at present the Fijians have no spur to the acquisition of money except the desire for some particular luxury. The earth need only be tickled to laugh back in harvest. Most of the necessaries of life are produced equally in every village. When a native takes produce to the market it is for no abstract desire for the possession of money; he has in his mind a definite object upon which the proceeds should be spent; a new _sulu_, a lamp, or a contribution to the missionary meeting. If he has no such object he will let the surplus produce of his garden or his net decay rather than undergo the trouble of taking it to the market. Facts never pointed to a clearer conclusion. Under his own social Arcadian system the Fijian thrived and multiplied; under ours it is possible that he may thrive again; but under a fantastic medley of the two he must inevitably go under. No man can serve two masters. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 33: _Studies in Ancient History_, 1876.]