Indian Expansion In Fiji

BECAUSE of t’heir natural Increase, the number of Indians in Fiji is gradually overtaking that of the Fiji ans, the Commissioner of Lands, Surveys, and Mines in Fiji (Mr. F. R. Charlton) explained at a dinner tendered him by the Old Boys’ Association of the Brisbane Grammar School in Brisbane in April.

Th,e Indian birthrate was high, and the death-rate low, he added. The Fijian birthrate was high, but the death-rate probably three times that of the Indians.

Fijian women were lackadaisical, and did not give their children proper food. Fiji ans numbered 97,651 in a population of 198,379, and Indians 85,000.

The half-castes (people of mixed de scent), with a population of 4,574, ex ceeded the European population by 546.

Fiji had no malaria, sleeping sickness, or yellow fever, but it had the diseases common to more temperate zones, and filariasis, which was mosquito-borne.

Mr. James A. Lawrence McAndrew, well-known in the Buka District of New Guinea, died at Namanula Hospital, Rabaul, on April 15. About 15 years ago he accepted the position of planta tion overseer for Choiseul Plantations Limited and later was manager of the Buka Trading and Plantation’s property at Bonis. Recently he joined the staff of W. R. Carpenter and Co., Ltd., to manage their Kuradui and Maulapao plantations at Kokopo.

Mr. L. Luscombe, of Darwin, has been transferred to Thursday Island to take charge of the wireless station, replac ing Mr. Gerald Walters, who has re turned to Sydney after considerable service at T.I.