Plan to Meet Clamant

Suva Market

Plan to Meet Clamant Public Need

IT is an astonishing fact that, in the considerable and rapidly-growing city of Suva there is no adequate provision for markets.

The early morning market is a feature of life in all Pacific centres— notably, Noumea, Rabaul, Papeete. In Suva, with its five communities (Euro pean, Fijian, Indian, Chinese and Euro nesian), and its daily accumulations of perishable, tropical foodstuffs, the mar ket is a necessary affair. But, until now, it has been a primitive arrange ment —mostly a meeting of vendors and buyers in the open air under somewhat unhygienic conditions. There are only two small shelter-sheds, incapable of housing the fruit, vegetables, fish, etc, that are brought in.

The Suva Town Board, with the approval and assistance of the Govern ment, now P r °P° se s to spend some £14,000 on erecting a suitable building on a suitable site in the centre of the town.

It is not a good time to undertake public expenditure of this kind. But, as Mr. G. K. Roth (chairman of the Town Board) pointed out, the need is very urgent, and “who can say when costs will be again as low as they now are?"