Fiji’S Youngest Industry

Vatukoula Flourishes on What Was a Bare Area Eight Years Ago

By W.M.E.

GOLD-MINING, the youngest of Fiji’s industries, in ten years has devel oped to the extent that it threatens to occupy top position on the Colony’s table of export values. The industry is at a stage where it is a distinct power in the economic life of the islands.

In the hills at Vatakoula, on the island of Viti Levu, location of the well-known

Loloma and Emperor mining companies, is the Fijian counterpart of an American boom town. It was virgin land eight years ago, unsuitable for agriculture, and almost equally unfit for pasture. To-day, it is the richest area in Fiji.

Native labourers at the mines enjoy a higher standard of living than their con freres in other work throughout the

Colony. As an industrial township it approaches labour idealism in regard to conditions and higher wage stabilisation.

Remunerative returns for work attract more native labourers than required.

More than 5,000 people now depend on a living in a town that was non-existent a decade ago.

Vatukoula, which means “rock of gold ” is pleasant to the eye. The small plots of garden or lawn in front of tidy rows of cream and green-painted bungalows receive regular attention. There is little detraction from the the fresh, neat appearance of the town by the scattered, uniformly-built homes of the native workers, whose wages range from 5/- to 14 - a day, according to ability and type of work performed.

These houses cost the native worker the reasonable sum of £2 a month. In addition, however, the mining companies have established villages for their lower paid employees.

Recreational facilities and living condi tions have been given the attention they deserve. Health has received due con sideration. No evidence of occupational diseases was disclosed in a radio graphical and clinical examination of the mine workers in 1939.

Tennis courts and football fields equipped for night play, a golf course and cricket grounds, afford ample recrea tion, while the town also boasts a cinema theatre and billiard parlour. Chinese and European general stores and a post office complete the township.

FIRST to find gold in the Tavua area was William Borthwick, prospecting on behalf of Pat Costello. The dis covery was made near a tributary of the Nasivi River, in 1932. The field attracted Australian investors, resulting in the for mation of the Emperor and Loloma companies in 1934.

For the first time, the people of Fiji realised the truth of century-old stories of “gold in them thar’ hills.” Every boat in the months that followed brought prospectors and miners with dreams of riches in the new fields. Financial speculation for a time was feverish. New companies were formed and older ones from overseas acquired interests. Only the Emperor group survived.

It was not until 1935 that the Emperor company began production. Its plant was greatly enlarged five years ago.

Reputedly the fifth richest mine in the world. Loloma began large-scale opera tions in 1937.

The last ten years have been the most exciting in Fiji’s economic and industrial history. No doubt anxious to see the formation of a new industry which might b elp to solve the employment problem for the islands’ increasing Indian and native population, the Fijian Govern ment gave prospectors every encourage ment.

Prospecting in Fiji, however, is difficult work. Jungle and under growth in this rugged country obscure the underlying structures. The effects of weathering and oxidation are

excessive, and the difficulties of field examination are greatly increased by heavy tropical rains. Travel in the interior has mostly to be done by river canoes, or on foot. Native paths cross hills and dales with complete disregard of grade. Nevertheless, competent min ing authorities opine that geological and other indications justify prospecting on a more extensive scale than hitherto attempted.

Post-war activity may bring Fiji into greater prominence than have its sugar growing potentialities in the past, and the benefits to the Colony should be far-reaching.

This may elevate the Fijian to higher living standards, for which some agita tion is probable. There is dissension in certain quarters against keeping the native chained to a despotic system which maintains labour wages at between two and four shillings a day, with no guarantee of continuous employment.

The whole country should benefit from future development, arising directly and indirectly from gold-mining. In all pro bability, there will be improvements to the existing highways and the provision of scenic roads into the interior. These would have the dual purpose of opening up the interior—parts of which are more isolated than many places in Australia 50 years ago—and providing additional tourist interest.

PRESENT producers on the Tavua field, apart from the Loloma and Emperor companies are Costello’s Mines, Limited, Fiji Mines Development, Limited, and J. H. H. Millett, on the Homeward Bound Mine. The Natalau Gold Mining Syndicate is producing on the Vunda mining area, near Lautoka.

Reports of gold discoveries in Fiji date back to the middle of last century. The presence of gold in the Waimanu River, Viti Levu, was known for many years,

while discoveries were also claimed in the Navua River, Viti Levu; on the island of Kandavu; in the Yanawai River, Vanua Levu. and at Navakandra kala, near the Yanawai. The discovery of payable deposits near the Yanawai led to the formation in 1932 of Mount Kasi Mines, Limited, and prospects were suffi ciently bright to justify considerable expansion of activities in 1934.

Alluvial gold deposits are low in grade, and the paucity of these accounts for the failure of early prospectors—although one, A. Nicol, was reported to be making a living over 50 years ago from deposits in the Yanawai. However, the unusually fine degree of sub-division of the metal and the rapid flow of the streams, par ticularly during the rainy season, cause unfavourable settlement conditions.