Nothing In Fifty Years.

Metropolis Of The South Seas

Suva, Now a Beautiful, Modernly-Equipped City of 15,000, Has Grown From Nothing In Fifty Years.

From Our Own Correspondent.

TWO Councillors retired from the Suva Municipal Council by ef fluxion of time this year, and so the usual elections were held to fill the vacancies.

Some time ago it would have been difficult to find candidates suitably qualified who had the necessary en thusiasm for public service to allow themselves to be persuaded to stand for election. It is a thankless task at the best of times, and especially so in a small community where personal jealousies obtrude themselves. How ever, during the last couple of years, there seems to have been a stirring of the public conscience, and the last two annual elections have been remarkable for the profusion of talent which has offered itself. It is a pleasing sign that the ratepayer realises more and more the privileges bestowed upon him by Downing Street in regard to self-gov ernment.

The Municipality of Suva is like a little republic of its own, living happily and prosperously under the protection of Great Britain; and, as its develop ment is set a stage further on than its sister towns in the Pacific, it may not be out of place to describe it briefly.

In 1909 the Municipal Institutions Ordinance was passed and Suva and Levuka were proclaimed as Municipal ities. The Ordinance provides that for the government of every town a council should be constituted to consist of 6 members for up to 600 ratepayers; 600- 2,000 ratepayers, 8 members; and 2,000 and upwards, 10 members. Any per son over 21, of whatever nationality, who pays rates on any property and who is capable of reading, etc., the English language, can be put on the electoral roll and can be elected as a councillor. In the case of Suva the principle is one man one vote; but Levuka has not reached this stage and is still at the point where cumu lative voting is permissible—i.e., for property assessed at under £25 per annum the ratepayer gets one vote, but if the annual value is over £150 he gets 4 votes.

The Municipal Council of Suva con sists of 8 members, because the num ber of ratepayers is held to be over 600—the population is, in fact, over 15,000. Three members retire in each year, except in the third year, when only two members retire. Elections take place annually and the members thus elected sit for three years.

Immediately after the annual elec tion the new Council meets to elect their Mayor for the coming year, who on this occasion is Mr. G. F. Grahame (of Newcastle, N.S.W.) a member of the well known legal firm of Ellis and Grahame. The Mayor is entitled to be addressed as “His Worship”; and after election is solemnly invested by the Town Clerk with the robes and chain of office. He is accorded every courtesy and recognition by the Fiji

Government, and takes a prominent place in all “ceremonial occasions.” The office of Mayor is highly esteemed and is often the subject of unrecorded battles for supremacy!

Recent previous holders include names so well known in the life of the community as those of Sir Henry Scott, K.C., the Honourable Henry Marks, C.B.E.. the Honourable Alport Barker, M.L.C., and that of the pre sent Mayor.

The Council has a staff which con sists of the Town Clerk, who is the Chief Administrative Officer and who is invariably possessed of qualifications under Local Government Acts in Aus tralia. The present Town Clerk, for example, came to Suva from Inverell (N.S.W.) and his work in Suva has been so successful and his genial per sonality so well received that his term of office has been extended time and again.

Under him are the Deputy-Town Clerk, the Town Engineer and the El ectrical Engineer, the three next most important officers. Then come sani tary inspectors, a town gardener, a town librarian, etc., etc. It is the usual framework upon which is draped the cloak of local self-government in any enlightened community, and like every where else it is the framework which does the work whilst using the Council as the cloak for its activities.

The ratepayers on the electoral roll number 522, of which about 70 are Indians. Of these, 424 went to the poll to elect two out of the 6 candidates offering at the last election, which shows how much the franchise is ap preciated and how vivid is local in terest in civic affairs, especially when it is remembered that a certain per centage of those on the roll must in evitably be absentees at the time of the election.

The estimates of expenditure and revenue for 1932 show that the annual Income will be close on £4,500, a reduc tion on last year due to a pruning of expenditure and economies in various directions which permitted a reduc tion of the rates from lOd. in the £ on the unimproved capital value down to 9Sd. This reduction is more in the nature of a gesture compatible with the times, since there has been no extravagance in civic administration, nor is there any overwhelming burden of civic debt.

Altogether Suva has a public debt to-day of about £105,000 —not a very large sum for a town of which the revenue in 1931 from rates alone was just under £20,000, and whose ratable value of property exceeds £500,000. Of that amount of debt, approximately £35,000 is owing to the Fiji Govern ment, from which the town took over (many ratepayers think unwisely) the responsibility for the expensive and inefficient sewerage works carried out by the Government in Suva about two decades ago. From the public itself

the town has borrowed £88,000, but by means of sinking funds it has already paid back £13,400, and each year sets aside as high as 2 per cent, of certain loans, quite apart from such items as a denreciation reserve of 4 per cent, on the Joan capital of £55,500, employed in the electricity undertaking. It will be obvious that conservative finance is a feature of the civic administration of Suva.

That the ratepayers have had value for their money is evidenced by the miles of tar-macadam streets and con crete pavements, the well-kept public buildings and the beautiful patches of garden which surround the town. The sports ground at Albert Park, built out of reclaimed land, is an expanse of turf which accommodates three cric ket grounds and was sufficiently large for Air-Commodore Kingsford Smith to land upon it in 1928. in the South ern Cross, on his epoch-making flight from San Francisco to Sydney.

The municipal activities are varied.

One of the most important is that of generating and supplying electric light and power. Originally this was from a steam plant, but this proved unsatis factory and was later superseded by Diesel engines. The town has erected concrete poles and a system of mains under such capable supervision that the service has been practically unin terrupted for more than a few hours during our last two hurricanes.

Electric light is to be charged for at 9d. and power at during the com ing year, a reduction from 4d. in the case of power, which it is hoped will stimulate use of household electrical appliances, such as stoves, kelvinators, etc.

Public health figures very largely in the civic programme, and two Euro pean inspectors are continually em ployed going round the town, testing milk samples, etc. Very fine public baths were constructed on the sea front at a cost of over £10,000, whilst the existing Carnegie Library was much enlarged and now houses the Tourist Bureau and the Museum. The library itself is under the care of a live lib rarian and an arrangement has been made with a well known circulating library in London whereby continual supplies* of recently published books, just withdrawn, are shipped to the Car negie Library in Suva.

Altogether Suva forms a very inter esting study in development under pat ernal guidance—especially so when it is remembered that in 1871 it was en tirely non-existent. It shows, too, that European, Fijian, Indian and Chinese interests can be successfully harmon ised —at any rate up to the present stage of development.

To the outside observer. Suva to-day appears at least a safe and stable place.