Interesting Survey By

Methodist Missionaries

THE annual report of the Department of Overseas Missions of the Metho dist Church of Australasia, just pub lished, is a neat octavo volume of 64 pages, wherein the mission work in Fiji, Tonga* New Britain, Papua, India, Northern Australia and Samoa is inter estingly described.

A significant section of the book deals with the Indian community in Fiji.

The great majority of the 80,000 Indians in Fiji, it is pointed out, are Fiji bom; they regard Fiji as their motherland, and the Rewa, and not the Ganges, is now their ancestral river.

The missionaries say that, as between the Fijians (who are landowners, but not ardent agriculturists) and the Indians (who have little land, but are intensely devoted to agriculture) very grave prob lems must presently arise. They point out, also, that while the whole Fijian population is rapidly embracing Christi anity, not 2 per cent, of Indians have been converted. They hold staunchly to their old faiths—Mohammedanism, and the various Hindu religions.

Rev. and Mrs. E. A. Codd and their small daughter Gilliam, passed through Sydney'early in June en route to Ade laide and Perth, where they will spend short furlough. Mr. and Mrs. Codd will return to Siota, 8.5.1., where they are engaged in mission work for the Melanesian Mission, by the November “Malaita”.