Court-Martialled For

Burning Cane-Field

JT would appear from the following extract from the Fiji “Times” of December 8, that one of our Allies in Fiji is mixing in local politics. Maybe this lad is a recent recruit to the “Black Devil Society” whose melo dramatic specialty is burning cane fields to prevent their being har vested:— At a United States court-martial, held recently at Nadi, an American private was convicted of the following offences:— Unlawfully entering a Court House, the property of the Government of the

Colony of Fiji, with intent to commit a criminal offence, to wit, larceny therein; wilfully and wrongfully attempting to burn a Court House, the property of the Government of the Colony of Fiji; wil fully and wrongfully burning a held of sugar-cane, the property of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. He was sentenced to dishonourable discharge, total forfeitures of all pay and allow ances due or to become due, and con finement at hard labour for five years.

Mr. G. M. Rodger, who was a public servant, before 1939, in Papua, is now Captain Rodger, of the New Zealand Forces. He had three years with the NZEF in the Middle East; and is now on duty in one of the Pacific Territories.