Notes From Fiji
pp. 21-22 · Read in the full issue
Honoured by the King
SUVA, June 18.
IT was announced by His Excellency the Governor (Sir Murchison Fletcher) on June 4, that the King had conferred knighthood on the Chief Justice, Captain Maxwell Maxwell-Anderson, C.B.E., K.C., R.N. (Retd.).
The Order of Member of the Most Ex cellent Order of the British Empire (Civil Division) was conferred on Mr. N. B.
Casey, Superintendent of Prisons, and Sowani Puamau, First Native Medical Practitioner in the Gilbert and Ellice Colony.
Commenting on the award to His Honour the Chief Justice, the “Fiji Times,” in an editorial, said: “It is interesting to note that many Fijians refer to the Chief Jus tice as the ‘vosa vakandua,’ the man who speaks once. By this they mean that the Court speaks the last word, either yes or no, and that what is said is final. In their manner of expressing things, it indicates the respect with which they regard the Court, and such respect could not be built up in any other way than by strict and impartial administration of the laws of the nation.”
Sunless, Rainy Weather
Fiji, at least that part in the vicinity of Suva, did not live up to its reputation of perpetual sunshine during May. The daily average amount of sunshine during the month was 2.3 hours. For the sixteen days from the 13th to the 29th, the grand total was only 1.1 hours, giving a daily average for the period of 0.07 hours.
The rainfall for May was greatly above the average, totalling 20.92 inches, com pared with an average for 50 years of 10.19 inches. There were 25 wet days in the month and the greatest fall in any one day was 2.99 inches on the 21st. The rainfall for the first five months of the year totals 83.47 inches, 23.02 inches above the average.
Finances
When it was learned, at the end of April, that Fiji’s Customs revenue for the first four months of the year was £17,601 below the estimates, some pessimistic prophecies were heard; but with the close of May, the figures show a remarkable recovery, the revenue for the five months being only £8,019 below the estimates for the period under review—a recovery of £9,582 during May.
Import duties for the five months totalled £108,295 compared with an estimate of £112,084, a decrease of £3,789. The total revenue for the period was £118,358, and the estimate was £126,377.
Five Years For Opium-Smuggli Ng
Close on the heels of the case against L. V. Khatri, who was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude and fined £250, for attempting to import Indian hemp, the Chief Justice (Captain Sir Maxwell Max well-Anderson) had to deal with another drug case at the recent criminal sessions of the Supreme Court. George Keat, a well known local Chinese, who pleaded guilty to a charge of being in possession of six tins of opium, was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.
The accused was caught in possession of the drug on board the R.M.S. Aorangi, where he collected the parcel containing the opium from a Chinese passenger, Wong Chow, who was charged with at tempting to import opium, but acquitted on the grounds that he had no knowledge of the contents of the parcel, which had been delivered to him in Sydney by an unknown Chinese acting on cabled instruc tions from Keat, who knew that Wong Chow was returning to Fiji.
Sentencing the accused, His Honour said: “George Keat, you have pleaded guilty to this offence, which is a very serious one.
Only eight days before you committed the offence, every publicity, so far as publicity can be given in Fiji, was given to the case against Khatri, yet within a week you had the effrontery to commit this. I worked out very carefully the punishment in Khatri’s case, and I was very tempted to try the effect of seven years in your case.
It is a crime against the law of nations — even that of China —your own original
country. The law takes no notice of either the value or quantity or what a person could make if he successfully disposed of the drug. I am bound to take a serious view in spite of what has been said, nor. only in this case, but in every case—the higher the position, the greater the fall.
I cannot make any difference which would be construed outside this Court as racial distinction —it does not matter whether the accused is European, Chinese, Indian or Fijian. There is no difference between
your case and Khatri’s. This trade has to be put down, and the very least I can do is sentence you to five years’ penal servi tude. And I give full warning from this bench that if five years will not put it down, I will increase the term from time to time.”