Agreement

Fiji Indians And

C.S.R. Co.

Introduction of a New Agreement

IN the eyes of Indian sugar-cane growers of Fiji, the Colonial Sugar Company is inevitably a big bad wolf; and, recently, when the company pro posed a new system of paying the Indian growers for their cane, the grow ers wrapped themselves in a mantle of suspicion, and refused to believe that there was anything but a nasty catch in it somewhere.

Actually, the new arrangement is an attempt by the C.S.R. Co. to introduce a fairer and more equitable method of paying the growers, as a whole, for their cane. The growers are paid ac cording to the sugar content of the cane.

There is one particular time, in the sea son, when the sugar content is at its maximum. But the mills cannot take all the cane at that particular time.

The cane deliveries must be spread over many months. A few growers get in, and secure the benefit of the maximum sugar content; but the great majority must deliver their cane at other per iods, when the mills can take it, and when it does not carry quite so much sugar.

When the general manager of the C.S.R. Co., Sir Philip Goldfinch, was in Fiji last year, he, with the officials of the company, devised a system under which the whole of the growers will be paid according to the season’s average sweetness of the cane—and under which they definitely will be better off, and which also provides for the growers participating in any rise in the world value of sugar. This, generally, is the basis of a new form of agreement which the company now is introducing as be tween itself and the Indian sugar-grow ers of Fiji.

Rut the growers did not like it a bit.

They are small peasant people of limited intelligence, and they were convinced that the company was “pulling a rough one”. As a result, they refused to accept the agreement in many places; and, in certain districts, they even ceased to plant cane.

There was a long conference on Janu ary 27 between the Governor, Sir Harry Luke, and a large deputation of repre sentative Indians, headed by Mr. M.

Tawahir Khan, president of the Kalin Sangh, and Mr. Vishnu Deo, who is the representative of the Indians in the Legislative Council.

As the result of discussions, numerous misunderstandings were cleared away, and the Indians finally accepted the Gov ernor’s assurance that “the Government would give every protection to growers anxious to proceed with their planting, and no illegal interference with their freedom of action would be tolerated for one moment.”

The situation seems now to have been cleared up, and it is expected that the agreement will be generally accepted.

Miss Sheila Porteous was married to Mr. Russell Abel, at Kwato Mission.

Papua, on February 17, by Mr. Cecil Abel, brother of the bridegroom. The bride is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs.

W. J. Porteous, of Dunedin. N.Z., and the bridegroom is the younger son of the late Rev. and Mrs. C. W. Abel.