stray cattle into private enclosures; and-last indignity of all-they made the Consul's servant take his turban off, and threatened to prosecute him for wearing it. This last piece of effrontery precipitated the crisis, and I lost no time in providing Kubu with a hastily drafted code of Police Regulations for submission to the Cabinet. They set forth the offences which the police should prosecute, and those which should be left to the injured party, and among the latter class I included flirting, which I considered to be a matter for the relations of the offenders rather than for the police. Kubu and Tukuaho both agreed with me; Tungi and Sateki were doubtful, thinking it a dangerous innovation. The Chief-Justice did not understand the question, and therefore voted with us; and the Minister of Finance was far away in some fiscal problem, or deep in the difficulties of his domestic commissariat, and did not vote. So the Regulations were passed and printed. The police took them cheerfully until they understood that they were to be debarred from prosecutions for philandering. When this was explained to them, a deputation, consisting of the Inisipeketa and Peter Vi,— whose enterprise as spy had won him his heart's desire, the post of Assistant Inspector,-waited respectfully upon Tukuaho as representatives of their body. They said that when they first read the clause they supposed it to be a mistake, but the Minister had undeceived them. If these Regulations became law their occupation would be gone. Thefts? Why, there were but few thefts, and they were all past finding out, being of various kinds; whereas flirtations were many and easily fathomable, since their nature

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did not vary. But we were obdurate. The law did not make the police moral censors, nor was it so written in the Constitution. The awful word "Konisitutone" silenced argument, and the question was shelved until the meeting of Parliament, when, as I shall presently relate, we were worsted.

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IX.

A SCHOOL OF COOKERY FOR ACCOUNTANTS.

MUTUAL Confidence has so far decayed in this cynical age that the financial powers of statesmen are usually limited to the disbursement of the money voted to them by the Legislature, while even this limited authority is subjected to the rigid scrutiny of an uncompromising auditor. But Mr Baker saw the ignoble suspicion that such a system implied. He said to King George, "Trust me not at all, or all in all," and thenceforth voted his own supplies, kept his own Treasury, and was his own auditor,—a combination of offices that reflects equal credit upon the intellect that devised it and the high-minded confidence of the people who suffered it to be.

But what public character escapes the self-debasing slings of calumny? There were many who dared to throw doubts upon this arrangement, and to ask how the Honourable and Reverend Shirley Waldemar Baker so far transcended his fellow-men as to be exempted from the audit to which other Ministries are subject. It showed a mean and grovelling spirit; but the hydra-headed body called the public is composed for the most part of mean

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and grovelling spirits, who pay their taxes without enthusiasm, and persist in regarding their rulers as men of like passions with themselves. So wise a man as the ex-Premier was not ignorant of the fact that public confidence was worth maintaining, even by pandering to the lower wants of his constituents, and he gave them the independent audit they sighed for. He selected as auditors a doctor, since deceased, an ease-loving soul, who chose life in Tonga because it was far from the irksome conventionalities of an effete civilisation, and the manager of the German firm-both unconnected with his detractors, and above the suspicion of partiality for himself. On the appointed day the books, and as many of the receipts as could be found, were laid before the two auditors, who added up the totals, and ticked off the receipts against the corresponding entries in the ledger. Then they asked for more receipts, and the Premier's office was ransacked without complete success for documents that had been mislaid. The audit dinner followed-a very sumptuous repast, if the viands bore any analogy to the winemerchant's bill,-the audit certificate was signed, and forthwith printed and published to the censorious world.

The auditors conceived that their business began and ended with the books. If the money spent was all accounted for, it was not their affair to ask the Premier whence he derived authority for building a railway, for whom a cargo of strong liquors was intended, or why his club subscription should be paid from public funds. They were called in as accountants to audit certain books, not to ask irrelevant questions. They had perforce to accept the statement of the books as to the amount of revenue,

because Mr Baker said they were correct, and there was no means of checking a calculation that was arrived at by the ingenious yet simple method of counting the balance. of coin in the safe at the end of the year, and adding it to the expenditure. This, by the way, is the best of all methods for ascertaining one's income, because the sum must come out right. Once a-year the Premier published a financial statement, but with this the auditors had nothing to do, and one must reluctantly confess that it was received by the world with cold suspicion.

I have already related that the fallen statesman was very anxious to take away some of his account-books. Not long after my arrival in Tonga he had written officially to demand them, and to challenge the right of an auditor to examine accounts which (he was pleased to say) had received the approval of Parliament; adding that if any adverse criticisms were made upon his financial transactions, he would demand an independent audit of his own. He was indeed so hyper-sensitive upon the subject of this threatened audit, that we felt a pardonable anxiety to lose no time in setting to work.

One glance at the disorder of the books and papers sufficed to convince me that I could not hope to make a complete audit for months to come, and I therefore wrote to the High Commissioner to ask him for the services of an accountant from the Colonial Government of Fiji. The return steamer brought Mr Forth, the present Auditor of that colony. He was allowed a fortnight only in which to attack his difficult task, and, considering the confusion and deficient information with which he had to contend, he made remarkable progress.