I have, therefore, much pleasure in forwarding herewith for Your Honor’s information a copy of the Report made to the Foreign Office, for the year 1866, and, if desirable, I shall give instructions that a copy of present year’s Report be forwarded in January next.

I shall be at all times happy to give any information in my power upon matters connected with this consular district.

I have, &c.,

John B. Thurston,

H.M. Consul in Fiji and Tonga.

His Honour the Superintendent of Auckland,

New Zealand.

REPORT ON THE TRADE AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE FIJI ISLANDS DURING THE YEAR 1866.

The following Statement of the Tonnage and Shipping employed in the trade with Fiji during 1866 shows a slight increase on that of the preceding year.

Estimated Aggregate Tonnage, 1865, 3,926; 1866, 4,024.

Number of ships employed — British (Hamburgh), 1865, 23; 1866, 27. Foreign, 1865, 3; 1866, 3.

QUANTITY AND VALUE OF EXPORTS DURING 1866, COMPARED WITH THE TWO PRECEDING YEARS.

The quantities of imports cannot be accurately ascertained on account of the irregular nature of the island trade. The following is an approximate estimate of their value during 1866:—

At the commencement of the year the prospects of the white settlers in Fiji seemed most favourable. The success which had attended the cultivation of the cotton, the introduction of foreign labour, and the arrival of additional settlers with capital, induced us to form most sanguine hopes of the rapid advancement of Fiji.

On the 30th January, however, a violent hurricane passed between the two larger islands of Fiji, lasting sixteen hours, and severely injuring the district in its course. The effects were confined within a space of sixty miles in breadth, outside of which no traces of its passage appeared. The cotton planters had hardly repaired the damages which their property had sustained from this visitation, when a second storm burst over the entire group, committing still greater devastation. The cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit trees especially suffered. Two-thirds of the cotton trees were twisted out of the ground, and the most advanced plantations, on the banks of the river, were inundated and swept away. The yam and taro crops were destroyed, and many flourishing coffee plantations buried in the silt brought down by the floods. Such violent cyclones it is well to know are rare in Fiji, and one of equal force has not been felt here for twenty years. The cotton planters, men of small means, who had invested all in their plantations, were reduced to great distress; but seeing the necessity of rapid exertion to repair the evil, they began their labour anew, clearing the land and planting the seed afresh. A long drought, which generally in these latitudes follows such violent storms, has however somewhat checked the growth of the plants.

Had this year been as favourable as the preceding one, there was reason to expect that the exports from Fiji would have been four times the quantity of last year; but the destruction of the nut trees and cotton crops, and likewise the loss of many of the small craft which carry on the island trade, gave a severe check to the progress and industry of the country, which it will take some time to recover from.