Glorious company : the Polynesia Company in Melbourne and Fiji / Max Quanchi.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 138-152) and index.

Introduction -- Melbourne: A deep interest in the Islands -- Fiji: Opportune moment -- Is there a company to be got up? -- Shareholders -- Is it all to end in a fizz? -- Suva plantations -- Chicanery, deceit, and ruin -- The forty thieves -- Interminable correspondence, remonstrance and refutation, 1874-1877 -- So far as this government is concerned -- A place in history.

"Fiji in the 1860s was the scene for an investment scheme that involved settlers from Victoria heading to Suva and other districts to become cotton planters as part of the Fiji Rush. Melbourne was then home to many get-rich-quick schemes driven by wealth from the Gold Rushes and a booming metropolis, and Fiji seemed an ideal destination plenty of land, a labor force that could be imported from Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, high prices for cotton, and a glorious company to manage share sales and land grants. Was the Polynesia Company a scam? Did it have a realistic plan for expanding European settlement in the islands? Should it be known for founding the modern-day capital of Suva?"--Back cover.