Fiji Sugar Troubles

Indian Agitators May Drive CSR Out of Colony

OWING partly to conditions created by the war, and partly to the bad behaviour of a large section of Indian sugar-growers, the sugar industry of Fiji was severely dislocated in 1943; and it is reported in Sydney that, fail ing improvement, the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. may withdraw from the

Colony altogether.

Last year was a year of acute labour troubles. First, there was a strike of Indian mill-hands; and, when that was settled, the Indian growers demanded higher rates, and refused in the interim to cut their growing crops.

Fiji Government and CSR explained, again and again, that rates could not be raised unless the British Food Ministry would agree to pay more for sugar; and growers were urged to prepare a case for the Ministry, and get on with cutting.

Growers refused to cut. Then the Government appointed a Commission, which examined every aspect of the claim. It found some concessions neces sary, but it generally concluded that the controlled economy of wartime made any higher cane rates impossible.

BY this time, it was plain that the growers' pleas were not genuine.

The whole case was the plaything of factions within the Indian com munity, who were engaged in a bitter wrangle. Facts which emerged were;— • The Fiji Indian community, made up for the most part of peace-loving and harmless peasants, is being torn this way and that by political agitators, who take the fullest advantage of the liber ties they enjoy in British Fiji. The agitators play upon the age-old ani mosities between Hindu and Moslem, and upon a general Indian belief that they have a grievance against “British exploitation.” • Influences which definitely are hostile to the United Nations have been working among these Indians. In sharp contrast with the British, Fijian and Chinese communities in Fiji, the Indians (with the exception of a few individuals) have done absolutely nothing to assist the Allied war effort. • "Dollar prosperity,” common through out the South Pacific during 1943, has affected Fiji. This has given a large section of the Indians a certain in dependence of cane-growing, and thus they have short-sightedly defied the Government and the CSR, and displayed considerable arrogance.

Sections of the growers, late in 1943, broke away from the agitators, and cut their cane; in other cases —as in the Rewa district —the Fijian chiefs lined up

their villagers and set them to cane cutting. They said they did it to avoid economic waste and help the war effort, and wanted no payment; but the CSR insisted on paying them cane-cutting rates. In other cases, the uncut cane was allowed to perish. The net result was that some of the mills did not work, and the year’s output of cane was seri ously reduced —a bad thing for Fiji and the company.

There have been some unpleasant in cidents. Two rival deputations of Indians chanced to meet m the lobby of the Governor’s offices, and squabbled there. "Washing their dirty linen in public” was how a native Fijian leader described it. rE situation was discussed by the Fiji Legislative Council in December, and there was plain speaking.

Significant speeches were made by the distinguished Ratu Sukuna and young Ratu Edward Cakobau, who both re proached the Indians with "singing a hymn of hate while Rome was burning.”

Ratu Cakobau said he was accustomed to a communal system where individuals were compelled to give their services, when such services were required for the good of the whole community.

The Acting Colonial Secretary, Mr. J.

D. Ranki'ne, asked pointedly whether the Indians really wanted the industrial matter settled, or whether there was not "somewhere a hand that kept stirring the pot.”

The Governor, Sir Philip Mitchell, has shown extraordinary patience in dealing with the endless arguments of the Indian agitators; but there are indi cations that the period of appeasement is coming to an end. If 1944 is going to be like 1943, there will be stern develop ment —perhaps as follows: — The CSR Company will consider its Fiji investment in relation to the prob able world demand for sugar, and the Indian labour situation; and may pos sibly decide to cut its losses, and with draw altogether from Fiji. In that event, the Colony will lose its economic backbone.

That development almost certainly would be followed by a proposal to repatriate, from Fiji, most of the 90,000 Indians now living there. The Indians were permitted to settle in Fiji as cane growers. If they are not to grow cane, there is no place for them in Fiji, where the land belongs to the now steadily ex panding Fijian population.

It looks like a first-class headache for the South Pacific Regional Council—if and when it begins to create a new heaven and a new earth after the war.