"Get Back to the Land”

Acting-Governor’s Advice to Fijians at Council of Chiefs

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, Sept. 29.

THE first Great Council of Chiefs held m Fiji since November, 1933, was opened by His Excellency the Acting- Governor (Hon. Juxon Barton, 0.8. E.) at the historic island of Bau, the old native capital, on September 16.

The crossing from the mainland to Bau was made in picturesque fashion. It being low tide, His Excellency and Mrs. Barton were placed in a punt, which was then hoisted on the shoulders of a party of Fijians in full ceremonial costume, and carried bodily across the mud flats.

After an official luncheon provided by the Roko Tui Tailevu (Ratu Popi Cako bau), His Excellency inspected a guard of honour provided by the Fijian section of the Defence Force. At the Council House he was accorded the customary cere monial presentation of tabua (whale’s tooth) a root of yaqona, and the cere monial making of kava, after which he addressed the Council.

His Excellency said: “I wish to sound a note of warning. Education does not consist in fitting oneself for a post as a clerk, and the knowledge of English does not mean that there will be an easy post waiting for the scholar. We have now reached a stage when only a few of the boys leaving school can be absorbed in the Colony’s service. What is required in an agricultural country like Fiji is in telligent producers, men who will not only

create wealth for themselves, but who will also make their country rich.

“At various meetings I have said that you were born on the land, that you live on the land, that you will die on the land, and that you will be buried in the land.

It is to the land that you must look as a child to its mother, old though you may be.

“If you are to remain a race in the face of the competition with other people, I advise you with all the power at my command to realise* late though it is, that it is in agricultural and manual edu cation that you will find your strength, and not in books alone.

“With that warning, that the Fijian will die as a race unless he learns how to cultivate his land, I will turn to agricul ture.”

His Excellency then outlined the crops of Vhich the Fijians could make a suc cess: bananas, copra, tobacco, rice, cot ton, and mixed farming, as well as the cultivation of sugar under the Colonial Sugar Refining Co.

“Yours is a very rich agricultural coun try,” continued His Excellency, “and you are not making full use of it. There are many other countries without your soil and your rainfall where the natives are ahead of you as producers. While in Fiji you are fortunate in not knowing what famine means, the first essential is to maintain sufficient food crops, and not to cultivate one crop to the exclusion of others.”

His Excellency referred to the value of trees and forest conservation, saying: “When I spoke on education, I warned you that your real education was the intelligent use of your land; now that I have spoken on agriculture, I warn you that if you neglect the land, the land will neglect you.”

An interesting ceremony followed the

meeting when the Chiefs made a presen tation known as the burua ceremony, in honour of the late King George V. This consisted of tabua from each province, a huge viaglti (feast) and rolls of tapa cloth and mats.

The piles of taro and yams, and many live and roast pigs made a picturesque sight laid out in front of the large house in which the Council was held.