Fish-Canning

Suggested as Fiji Industry

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 17.

IN his address to the Fiji Legislative Council last month, the Governor (Sir Harry Luke, KCMG) said that a Bill would be presented to the Council to control and organise the Colony’s fisheries. It would incorporate the most important of the recommendations made by Mr. J. Hornell, an expert ichthyologist, who made a survey of the fishery re sources of Fiji a short time ago.

His Excellency pointed out that, despite the abundance of potential supplies of fresh fish, 100,000 lb. of canned fish was annually imported into the Colony, valued at some £22,000. He expressed the view that, as there are now two canneries in Fiji, fish-canning should be a local enterprise, with the surplus fish being frozen or smoked. Other economic as pects, such as waste products (fish meal, fish liver oil, etc.), tortoiseshell, oysters, and sponge culture, offer a wide scope for experiment.

When the Bill was brought before the Council, some of the unofficial members opposed it on the grounds that £2OO would have to be voted immediately for a fisheries assistant in the Department of Agriculture and this might eventually lead to heavy expenditure in establishing a Fisheries Department. They doubted, too, whether fish-canning was practicable, since there was no guarantee of con tinuity of supply of bonito or saqa.

The measure was finally passed by 21 votes to 10. One of its most notable clauses provides heavy penalties (£5O to £lOO and 6 to 12 months’ imprisonment) for taking fish by the use of dynamite.