The

The exports of cotton last year reached 4,000 bales, the largest portion Sea Island, of an average of 300 lbs. each bale. quantity of cocoa-nut oil exported reached 500 tuns, the larger portion of which was the produce of Fiji, assisted by contributions from the neighboring small islands.

Besides cotton and cocoa-nut oil, they have coffee, oranges, maize, the latter yielding 150 to 200 bushels per acre, and, with the oranges, finding a ready sale in the New Zealand market. Then, again, the biche de mer, or trepang of commerce, is gathered in considerable quantity and sent to China, where the mandarins and nobles use it in soup. This article is expected to supersede by and by the use of cod liver oil in cases of consumption.

On some of the islands are valuable beds of the mother-o'-pearl oyster. The Fijians are only ordinary divers, but natives from the Dangerous Archipelago (Pannotu group), to the eastward of Tahiti, are men for this work. We have seen one of them go down in twenty fathoms of water to reach an anchor that had been "slipt" by the captain, and which was regained by this man's "veering" a small line through the ring, to which line was attached a stout warp. For this work he was paid double the price asked, receiving for his labor forty fathoms of calico instead of twenty, a payment that would make him comfortable for the rest of the year.

The fruits in Fiji are not numerous, but excellent in quality: banana, pine-apple, the vii or Brazilian plum, custard apple, guava, and oranges are the principal. In vegetables they have the sweet potato, taro, yam; and all English seeds, such as lettuce, radish, turnip, &c., grow very well. From experiments just being made, it is expected the Assam tea will find a habitat. The Fijis lie in latitude 15° to 20° South Pacific, and longitude 177° E. to 177° W. The climate nine months of the year can not be surpassed, the thermometer ranging from 75° to 80° at mid-day, falling at night to 55° and 60°.

From December to March it is hotter, and may be termed disagreeable; a great deal of rain falls, and the thermometer runs up to 95° and 100° in the shade. At this season also high winds or hurricanes may be expected-although not nearly so

The government of the country is diffi cult to describe: King Thakombau and his chiefs hold the principal authority, and this is being strengthened by delegates representing the interests of the whites being sent to Parliament to help him and his people to frame laws for the good of the group. In this way his power is being consolidated.

It is now seventeen years since the King embraced Christianity through the efforts of the Wesleyan missionaries; his example and influence have done much throughout Fiji, as is evidenced by the large numbers attending Christian instruction. It is said 110,000 attend the churches on Sunday besides a considerable number on week days. Of the agencies employed to work out this scheme there are twelve Wesleyan missionaries and a host of native teachers; ere long all Fiji or nearly so will become nominally Christian. The French Roman Catholic priests work away, but not with much sign of progress; they have been in Fiji now for the past twenty-six years, and scarcely can they collect 2,000 converts. Communication is frequent between the colonies, New Zealand, and the islands, by small vessels, but a new Steam Packet Company about being floated will revolutionize this; they engage to land passengers in Fiji by sea and railway on the thirtyfifth day from leaving England and on the fortieth in New South Wales.

We would not advise any one to settle in Fiji without being possessed of 500l.; with this sum he can purchase his land and properly establish himself by getting in his seed; after that the crop he raises will do the rest. He must not be afraid of putting forth his strength; the soil will respond to his efforts; where good seed is planted it never fails to produce. He must make up his mind to live a life of solitude for some years, but if his heart be in the work he will scarcely find time to

be dull.

The cession of the islands has twice been offered the British Government, and declined. They are a group that would at once pay all the expense of their government, and year by year have a larger revenue. The policy of Great Britain is in

is utterly impossible to exaggerate the importance of these fortresses, a series of positions which almost command the very heart of Europe. Many years ago the Archduke Charles, who possessed a military genius perhaps only inferior to Napoleon's, used to say that the military superiority of France arose from the chain of fortresses with which it was surrounded, whereby it was enabled, with equal facility, to throw delays in the way of an invasion of its own, and to find a solid base for an irruption into its neighbor's territories; and that the want of such a barrier on the right bank of the Rhine was the principal defect in the system of German defence. Count Bismarck has rightly pointed out how invasion upon invasion has been the result of the possession of these positions. And we cannot from any point of view blame his rigid determination that these great advantages shall be transferred to Germany. It is assuredly also for the peace and advantage of the world that a pacific nation, rather than a warlike and marauding nation, should hold these keys of Western Europe.

In those days this series of fortresses was the leading strategical feature in France, either for attack or defence. Within the last generation the fortifications of Paris have become of the highest strategical importance; at the time when we write, of the highest importance of all. When Napoleon set out on his great offensive campaign, Paris only possessed an octroi, which the emperor directed should be strengthened with palisades and artillery.

The fortifications were the work of M. Thiers. M. Thiers is justly entitled to a premier place among the leaders of Republican France. The fact is nothing to us that he is not on the Committee of Safety. Though he declined a place on that committee he has done it what service he could by his unavailing mission to the great courts of Europe. In London alone he seems to have been of use in promoting the meeting between M. Favre and Von Bismarck. Any government at Paris, or at Tours, or at Toulouse, is the most provisional of all provisional governments. The people will only yield it a random and intermittent obedience. We are glancing at the actual rulers of France, so far as the unhappy disorganized land has any real rulers of men. We cannot assign any degree of permanence to the

present extemporized government while the strongest army in France is under Bazaine, and while the Red flag is waving at Lyons. We shall first speak of the great statesman who devised the fortifications, and of the illustrious soldier who now defends them. It probably will be found, however, in the issue, that Strasburg has exhibited the best defence of fortified places, and that Von Uhrich is the exemplar soldier of France.

When M. Thiers brought forth his original proposition it was opposed on grounds which now possess a painfully intense significance. While Talleyrand opposed the project on political grounds, Soult said openly that to make a fortified city of Paris was to expose it in the event of war to bombardment and capture. The causa causans of their erection strongly illustrates that point in which M. Thiers so strongly illustrates the peculiar temperament of his race. The proposal was made in a moment of rage and groundless panic. M. Thiers had refused, on the part of his government, to have anything to do with arresting the march of the Viceroy of Egypt on Constantinople. England forthwith, in concert with Austria, Russia, and Prussia, after long delays, became joint signatories to a treaty for the protec tion of the Porte. Lord Palmerston's bold movement in the Mediterranean came like a thunder-clap on the French premier, who nourished the Napoleonic idea that the Mediterranean might be a French lake. M. Guizot in London, M. Thiers in Paris, thought it an unpardonable affront to France that this great treaty should be made without her co-operation. It is even said that M. Thiers suggested that the French should seize on Malta by a coup de main. Louis Philippe was too cautious. He knew that he should be offending the sympathies of the Treaty Powers. He substituted M. Guizot as his premier in place of M. Thiers, while, as some sort of answer to England's diplomatic victory, he so far met M. Thiers and the popular feeling, that a vote of four millions sterling was obtained for encircling Paris with fortifications, and putting it in a state of defence. It cannot be doubted but M. Thiers has most materially favored that war-spirit which has so long been the bane of France by the nature of his writings. He it is who has told of the Napoleonic war, not in the sober, truth

loving spirit of the true historian, but in that romantic, false way in which Victor Hugo told of the battle of Waterloo in "Les Misérables," and with that brilliant bravado with which Alfred de Musset responded to Becker's Rhine-song. The French people appear stricken with a kind of color-blindness; they appear to have lost the faculty of discerning truth, the most prominent sign of that corruption and demoralization which have eaten as a canker into French life and society.

If there had been any unsparing critic of the French military system, any one whose stern denunciation of that system has almost risen to prophecy, that man is General Trochu. When he brought out his remarkable book, "L'Armée Française en 1867," it ran through sixteen editions in three weeks. The same year produced the Duc d'Aumale's "Institutions militaires de la France." General Trochu made various confidential appeals to the war department at Paris, pointing out the imperfections and abuses of the French military system. His prophecies, like those of Cassandra, were disbelieved, and then he resolved to publish, declaring that no other remedy was left him but publicity. With a resolution that has been justly called heoric, with a frankness that spared no man's feelings, he laid bare every weakness and every sore, reckless what degree of unpopularity or hatred his uncompromising truthfulness might procure for him. Trochu foreshadowed in his book the results of the present most disastrous campaign. The best hopes would have been for France if she had listened to the words, wise, true, and bold, of her frank soldier, and had learned wisdom from his teaching. General Trochu, we need hardly say, is a strong Orleanist, and it is believed that the government of Paris was with great hesitation and reluctance committed to his charge. But he was one of the best French officers, had never ceased to be on active service, and his character stood extremely high in general estimation. He had come, we need hardly say, from St. Cyr and the Staff School, and served several years in Algeria under Marshal Bugeaud. He had much of that blunt wisdom and keen sense for which Bugeaud was so remarkable. He gives Bugeaud's most favorable reminiscences of the English infantry in the Peninsula, with the famous remark that it

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was the best infantry in the world, but fortunately there was very little of it. Trochu was one of Marshal St. Arnaud's aides de camp in the Crimea in 1854, and after the Marshal's death he was made general, and commanded a brigade of Infantry until the end of the Russian war. Like Bugeaud, he confessed to a great admiration of the English. He contrasted their order and discipline with the destructive and marauding habits of the French soldiers. When he was asked how he hoped to improve his troops, he answered "En les faisant vertueux." In the Italian campaign of Solferino he commanded a division, in which he showed a respect for non-combatants in a manner quite new in the methods of French warfare. It is said that he began by degrading an officer to the ranks for insulting a peasant woman, and wherever he marched his track was distinguishable by the uninjured dwelling-houses and the unharmed mulberry trees still clothed with vines.

The general unsparingly pointed out the gigantic sham presented by the French army. He asserted that that army did not really exceed one-fourth of her nominal effective strength. He denied that this army, such as it was, was in any degree duly trained and fitted for war. He declared that the fundamental principle of every army lay in its motive force and its mechanical power, and in both respects he has some severe criticisms on his countrymen. What he says of French insubordination-how a French soldier unwillingly pays even the customary signs of external respect to his officers-has been signally verified in the present campaign. Even at Strasbourg this has been mournfully exemplified. He condemns the French commissariat, and does not hesitate to say, in defiance of all traditions of all armies, that recourse must be had to civil mercantile contractors. He condemns as absolutely worthless for military success, that kind of popular enthusiasm which a few months ago prompted the cry à Berlin! He thinks that cavalry will have an increased importance in war—as has been illustrated by the Prussian Uhlans-and points out how the French cavalry have been overladen. He considered that Prussia possessed a much higher degree of the moral elements of military success. The General points out that the first thing for an army is to

raise the moral and intellectual standard, in which the French have been so deplorably wanting. He severely criticises some of Napoleon III.'s pet plans. He says that it is quite a mistake to encourage, as the Emperor encouraged, old soldiers to re-enlist. An old soldier, he says, is not an old man, but a trained recruit, who has learned his business. Again, he declared that the Emperor made quite a mistake by forming picked bodies of troops. The army at large is weakened and demoralized by the subtraction of the best men. We need hardly point out what singular force of truth belongs to these criticisms, which have all the character of vaticinations. It is popularly said that General Trochu is the best military strategist that France possesses, as well as one of inflexible firmness. It has, however, been answered that he is best as a military critic and theorist, and that his work as a subordinate has not properly tested his powers. In singular contrast with his present position is his Breton home, where the Trochu family first prosperously carried out the innovations of modern agriculture, and covered the sterile, heathery, rocky land near Vauban's fortifications of Belle Isle, with woods, pasture lands, and rich meadows.

On that memorable Sunday when the Republic was proclamé a provisional government was acclamé, placarded in the streets of Paris as a government of national defence. Foremost among them were les trois Jules, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, and Jules Simon, and the names of Emmanuel Arago, Cremieux, Gambetta, Garnier-Pagès, Glais-Bizon, Pelletan, Picard, and Rochefort. M. Arago, be it observed, is not the Prefect, but the Mayor of Paris. Some of these men possess conspicuous ability. Probably, at any time, M. Picard would be a good Minister of Finance, and M. Gambetta a good Minister of the Interior. M. Cremieux, a barrister of high repute, was in 1848, as he is now, Minister of Justice at the Second Revolution. His energetic action at Tours, when he strongly argued before a republican meeting against displacing all functionaries of all grades nominated under the Empire, gives a conspicuous proof of moderation. He is, we believe, of Jewish extraction. On M. Gambetta has devolved the whole of the domestic government of France, and his work has

been exceedingly difficult. He has had to appoint anew prefects in every department, tried men who would act for the best and act for themselves as soon as the investment of Paris should put a dead stop to centralization. stop to centralization. It was sad that a minister who has never governed should be obliged to appoint prefects who had never governed. The docile, imperialistic character of the old prefects rendered their removal an absolute necessity in order to satisfy republican feelings. M. Gambetta was absolutely unknown till the epoch of the Baudin Monument two years ago; but the remarkable attitude which he took up in the Chamber, the clear courage with which he opposed the Empire from the very commencement of the war, brought him at once to the front. The most remarkable prefect whom he has appointed is M. Esquiros at Lyons. M. Esquiros knows England as well as poor Prevost-Paradol did. He studied Holland well, but he studied England still more minutely, as he showed by his work on "Religious Thought in England" and his monograph on Cornwall.

The two principal members of the National Committee of Defence appear to us to be Jules Favre and Garnier-Pagès. They have many points of the closest contact and similarity. They are both old men. M. Garnier-Pagès only wants a few years of seventy. M. Favre, or, to give him his full name, Mons. Jules Claude Gabriel Favre, was born in 1809. Both came from the fiery south, Favre being born at Lyons and Pagès at Marseilles. Both of them may be said to have been nursed and reared in revolutions. Both of them were actively concerned in the revolution of 1830. In the three glorious days of July Garnier-Pagès distinguished himself during the disturbances at the barricades. Favre had been a law student at Paris, and afterwards practised as a barrister at Lyons. Even in that republican city, where the Red flag now waves, he was known for the ultra-republicanism of his opinions. He vehemently espoused the cause of the ouvrier class, among whom he gained a boundless popularity. He came to the Paris bar in 1835. When called upon to plead in a great cause, the Press, he commenced a famous speech by the words "Je suis républicain." It heightened the impression entertained of his vigor and courage to know that