Are the Missionaries There?
I have before me a copy of the official weekly newspaper of Tahiti, the Messager de Tahiti, published under the auspices of the administration of the colony; it bears date Sept. 13, 1883, and gives an official report of the details and value of the imports and exports of the colony of Tahiti for the year 1882. The former are represented as amounting to 4,391,530 francs, or £175,661 sterling. These goods were taken to the island on 108 ships, twenty of which were French and eighty-eight bearing the colors of other nations. The total exports for the same year are reported in value as amounting to 3,901,934 francs, or about $148,077 sterling. Thus it is seen that in the course of about seventy years the commerce of eastern Polynesia, with Tahiti as its center, has grown from literally nothing to the annual value just stated, and this does not include a large amount of value going into our own colony of New Zealand from several of the islands of Hervey and Society groups. Whatever claims commerce may pretend to as to precedence in civilization in some parts of the world, it cannot be denied that the missionaries were many years in the field before its commercial resources were in any way developed in the islands of the Pacific in general, and in Tahiti and surrounding islands in particular. In fact, in commercial circles in later years, it is customary, when contemplating a new field of business enterprise in any group of islands, to inquire, "Are the missionaries there?" and an affirmative reply is in some sense a guarantee for security, if not for success.—The Chronicles of the London Missionary Society.