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THE

DIVERSIONS OF A PRIME MINISTER.

I.

A BLOODLESS REVOLUTION.

HE High Commissioner had sailed for Tonga in H.M.S. Rapid. His official visits to the island kingdom had generally been so uneventful, that for the first three weeks of his absence from Suva the public interest in his movements had been languid;

but when the day appointed for his return had passed, and Saimone of the signal-station had swept the southern horizon in vain for a fortnight, "the beach" began to occupy itself with the usual pessimistic speculations. The Rapid had run short of coal-had broken down-was piled up on a new reef: King George was dead at last, and there was a row among the natives: Baker had been shot at again, and was hit this time. To the professional news-mongers of the beach only one

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suggestion did not occur-namely, that the "Honourable and Reverend" Shirley Waldemar Baker, First Minister of the king and the State Church, had fallen from his high estate, and had been removed from the little kingdom. where he had so long ruled the natives for their good and his own profit.

The tongue of rumour was hushed at last. Suva awoke one morning to find the Red Cross fluttering from the signal-staff, and her Majesty's ship, ironically christened the Rapid, creeping slowly along the reef. Almost before the yellow flag had been hauled down the news flashed along the beach that Baker had indeed fallen, and could not again set foot in Tonga for two years on pain of imprisonment.

A sketch of the events of the last few years cannot be avoided, but it shall be a sketch in outline only.

When George Tubou became king in 1845 his people were in the white-heat of a conversion to Christianity. The missionaries had taught them to read and write, and to pass a simple code of law. They had imbued them with envy of the dignity of civilised States, their law courts, their police, the uniforms and salaries of their officials, and their other blessings of civilisation-including taxes. All these the Tongans might have if they were shown how to begin. For years there was no one to direct their nascent aspirations. Their teachers had no enterprise, and devoted themselves to the spiritual rather than the temporal needs of their flock; but at last with the necessity came the man. Mr Baker was a genius in his way. None knew better than he how to work upon the feelings of his congregation, or could better gauge the exact

THE BOULANGER OF TONGA.

3

moment to send round the collection-plate. None could lay out the funds thus collected in church-building with better effect. None was so jealous of the honour and independence of Tonga, warning her when any of the great nations cast greedy eyes upon her emerald shores. He designed the national ensign, and the royal standard with three club-knives, such as the European officers strap to their sides, and a dove carrying a branch in its beak, and the Great Seal, and many other things that make a nation. respected. These were foreigners' things and their meaning was therefore not known to Tongans, but they were the emblems of civilisation. He it was who ordered the timber for the palace and the churches and all the public buildings, which cost a great deal of money. And lastly, it was he who persuaded a German Consul-General to come to Tonga in a man-of-war to make a treaty, so that Tonga was recognised of the Great Powers: for this honour only a small island was given to Germany as a coaling-station, and for his labours as interpreter between the plenipotentiaries Mr Baker received, as was right and proper, a decoration from the German Emperor.

Then Unga, the premier and the king's son, died in Auckland, and Mr Baker, out of his love for the king, brought back the body to Tonga in a German man-of-war, and consented to fill the place that Unga had left empty. For charges had been made against Mr Baker-the great are always envied and a committee of his peers in the Methodist Church had advised his removal to Australia. Thus Unga's death saved him from the pain of leaving the Tongans whom he loved.

Now the king had a grievance against the Conference.

Every year the mission collected for church purposes large sums that were not spent in Tonga, but were transferred to some other circuit more in need of money. He contended with reason that this money ought to be spent for the benefit of those who had contributed it. Mr Baker, as head of the mission, had been the most active in developing a doubtful method of collecting funds; but as he, too, had a grievance against the Conference who had profited by his ingenuity, and turned round upon him when the facts became too notorious to admit of denial, he threw in his lot with the king. After King George he was now the most powerful man in the kingdom, and his power could be greatly developed, provided that the missionaries left him alone. He had to choose between conciliating or fighting them, and he chose the latter alternative as more consonant with his tastes. If he failed, their opposition to him could not be more bitter than it was before; whereas if he succeeded in driving them from Tonga, his government would be independent of all opposition, while his thirst to avenge his private wrongs would be gratified. It was a bold scheme, and it very nearly succeeded.

King George had long been asking that Tonga should be constituted a separate Conference, having control over its own finances; but unsuccessfully, because the Wesleyan authorities felt that an infant Church, whose members were but yesterday practising heathen rites, and who were never remarkable for diffidence or stedfastness of purpose, were scarcely in a fit state to be freed from leading-strings. Mr Baker began to irritate this old sore. He suggested to the king that, if the Conference persisted

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