Fiji

Further Recollections of a Decade in Fiji

By Na Matanivanua

Part I

FOUR Governors held office during my residence in Fiji—Sir Murchison Fletcher, Sir Arthur Richards, Sir Harry Luke, and the present Governor, Sir Philip Mitchell.

None of them had an easy time, for the joint office of Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific is no sinecure. The Governor who spent most of his time in Fiji was always accused by residents of the High Commission territories of neglecting their islands —what moans there have been from the Solomons in the past on that score!—whereas the Governor who spent much time touring in the High Commis sion islands earned the criticism of Fiji.

Sir Murchison Fletcher had the reins of office during an extended term at a most difficult period—that of the depres sion and the worst of the Indian political agitation. Though he was not popular with many sections of the community, Sir Murchison handled a difficult job with considerable ability. His was the thank less task of starting the ball rolling for the change in the Constitution (which cut down the number of elected members) and the abolition of the Municipal Coun cils of Suva and Levuka.

Rightly or wrongly, a section of the community took this as a retrograde step, not in the best interests of democracy, and to them, politically, Sir Murchison was an enemy of the deepest dye.

Through it all, Sir Murchison remained the perfect gentleman, always approach able, and always willing to listen, what ever the shade of one’s political opinions.

HIS successor, Sir Arthur Richards, immediately showed himself a man of strong character. He was a fine speaker, and quite obviously a man marked for promotion in the service.

That promotion came sooner than any expected, for industrial troubles in Jamaica, and the death in harness of the .Governor of that Colony, called for a I strong man.

Sir Arthur was selected, and left after a very short term in Fiji. He made a job of Jamaica, collected his GCMG, and went, on promotion, to govern Nigeria.

Sir Arthur was popular with the ser vice, largely because of his oft-proclaimed ideas of what conditions in the 'Civil Service should be; but whether he would have retained that popularity if he had been unable, owing to circumstances, to carry out his plans will never be known; his residence in Fiji was not long enough.

SIR HARRY LUKE came to Fiji from Malta with a brilliant scholastic and literary record, and his was the task of taking the Colony through the early period of the war. Like his predecessor, Sir Harry was something of a martinet, who never hesitated to apply a ruthless closure to an over-verbose member of the Legislative Council.

He had the difficult task of adjusting the Colony to a wartime economy. In addition, he had the cares of the High Commission territories, increased a hun dredfold when Japan invaded some of them. When the history of the war in the Pacific is written, Sir Harry will occupy a high- place, because of the bril liant diplomatic work he did when New Caledonia was hovering between allegiance to Vichy and Fighting France.

Much credit for the swing to Fighting France must go to Sir Harry Luke.

WHEN Sir Harry resigned, compara tively recently, to make way for a younger man, the choice fell on Major-General Sir Philip Mitchell.

Sir Philip is a war Governor, govern ing in extraordinary times, and it is yet too soon to say what the result of his stewardship will be. Present indications are that he is by no means neglecting the civil side of his post for the many war time duties it carries. Time alone will tell the full story of his rule.

CHIEF Justices are usually in office longer than Governors; and only two held that office in the period of which I write.

Captain Sir Maxwell Maxwell-Ander son, bluff retired naval officer, a martinet who ruled his Court in the manner of a quarterdeck court-martial, was one with an unequalled ability to quell, in torrid terms, any over-enthusiastic barrister. He was a stickler for Court etiquette, both as regards dress and deportment, and a judge with a wonderful flow of judicial invective on tap to apply to any unfor tunate prisoner whose crime particularly incensed him.

The second (and present) Chief Jus tice I refer to is Sir Owen Corrie, a quiet-spoken gentleman, who never raises his voice, appears at times to be lost to his surroundings in the Court, but never misses a point in the most wearisome of legal arguments. His summing up is

always a masterpiece of unbiased presen tation of fact and law. (His retirement was reported in August

“Pim.”)

MENTION of Governors and other offi cials recalls the Council of Chiefs, and the ceremonies and speeches attendant upon the official opening of this meeting.

The Council is now held in different parts of the Colony; but I recall one Council, at the historic island of Bau, some years ago. All the highest in the land, and their ladies, were present; and there was a magnificent luncheon spread for His Excellency and the official party.

The menu included oysters on the shell, which were attacked with gusto. The point is that those oysters were no respecters of exalted rank; and, 24 hours after the feast, all the best people were writhing in the throes of shellfish poison ing. There were sardonic chuckles among some lesser folk, officers of the Defence Force Guard of Honour and others, who had been at the Council opening, but not at the Vice-Regal luncheon. This com mon herd had dined apart—an excellent lunch, although it did not include oysters.

Historic Bau, with its beautiful rara , (village green), a natural ampitheatre, is a place to be remembered. Ancestral seat of the paramount chiefs of Fiji. King Cakobau and his descendants, it is sat urated with memories of other days—of the days when Tanoa and Cakobau Rex ruled, and when club law prevailed. On top of a little hill is the graveyard of the chiefs, from which one can look across to the island of Viwa, a mission station over a century ago, and where the first mission press was set up and that book lover’s rarity, the Viwa edition of the Hazelwood Fijian grammar, was printed.

The Methodist Mission has done much for Fiji, but why, oh why, did it plant a mon strosity of a church on the rara of Bau, so out of keeping with its surroundings.

Surely some building to blend more with the scene could have been designed.

SOME notable chiefs have ruled at Bau, and two of those of recent years come to mind. The late Ratu Pope Cakobau was a splendid, commanding figure of a man. with all the easy dignity of a Fijian gentleman—a fine sportsman and a wonderful host. Then there is the present Roko Tui Tailevu, Ratu Isireli Tawake, soldier of the last war, a sports man with a great sense of humour, and a lavish host.

One must not forget the ladies of Bau; and in that connection one thinks imme diately of that} grand old lady, Adi Cako bau, who has all the dignity of true breeding; a chieftainess of the first rank, and a power in the land of Fiji.

No mention of the chiefs of Fiji is com plete without reference to the most dis tinguished of them all—that courtly gentleman, brilliant scholar and fluent orator, Ratu J. L. V. Sukuna, a true leader of his race. Decorated with France’s Medaille Militaire for service In the French Foreign Legion in World War I, a graduate of Oxford University, a barrister-at-law, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, he has served his country through the years as clerk, cadet, District Commissioner, Native Land Commissioner, and now is Secretary for Fijian Affairs, the first native Fijian to rise to the charge of his department, a post where the best of his talents can be made. He has succeeded a long line of distinguished administra tors in the Native Affairs Department, in the decade of which I write—Messrs A A. Wright, A. L. Armstrong, H. C. Monck ton and C. E. de F. Pennefather—and it will be interesting to see who eventually

succeeds him. If it is desired to continue with a Fijian at the head of native affairs, it will indeed be difficult to find a man qualified and worthy to take over from him.

IN the years before the war put a stop to new building, the face of Suva was undergoing constant change—the old ramshackle town was gradually giving place to a small city of modern concrete buildings.

Naioaoi one time hot-sianf ntid tVip nearest Suva ever had to a red-light district, had its shacks torn down and its swamps filled in to make room for the costly new Government buildings, which rose on ground that was once a cesspit of humanity.

Government officials moved from the old buildings—that terrible old rabbit

warren of rambling wooden structures, some of them brought from Levuka when the capital was transferred in the 80’s— and instead; of huddling on a corner of a verandah or in a section of corridor, found themselves in spacious * offices.

Some were so spacious that an official seated at a desk in the middle of a huge room looked almost lost. Presumably, spacious surroundings were meant to pro duce spacious thinking; but the main result has been that the new buildings, so far as junior members of the staff are concerned, are rapidly becoming almost as crowded as the old.

In the business area of the town, the pre-war years saw many changes. The Union Steam Ship Company tore down its rickety old building and replaced it with a fine concrete structure, duly opened by a shipping magnate to the

tune of popping champagne corks. Brown & Joske, Ltd., became W. R. Carpenter (Fiji), Ltd., and blossomed out, the old dismal dungeon-like store giving place to a modern emporium. The Orange Crush bar and Swann’s old pharmacy disappeared to make way for the new Tolo uuildings, housing the pharmacy and Noel Levy’s curio shop. Then the Bank of New South Wales tore down its old building and outdid the opposition Bank of New Zealand with Suva’s most imposing block of offices.

Thp Tilar Thpatrp onened in the earlv butthe M uZfsal Si a barn-

Uk:p’ cfSShSp kS street stfll drew

Sn Satindav niShts

when occasfon and all the tediSs ThevstUl do th A shnmftk the olace of Universal There P was a me place of me universal, mere was a

third picture-show known successively as the Pacific and the Avalon, but it even tually disappeared.

Gumming Street, better known as All Nations Street—though I am told it is not a shadow of what it was before the great fire —still smelled of all the nations living and trading within its confines.

Nubukalou Creek, at the rear of Gum ming Street, used to look fine on a moon light night, quite a Venetian effect with the arches of Morris, Hedstrom’s building on one side; but the smell was a bit overpowering. Nubukalou is literally pool of the gods, and one can but assume that those particular gods were deficient, in their sense of smell. Or perhaps, in their day, the pool was not filled with punt-loads of odiferous dogo firewood or equally odiferous fishing boats,.

IT was unfortunately my lot to make only one visit to Levuka, the old capital, still living in the memories of its departed glory. In my day its many pubs had dwindled to two; and, since then, the old “Polynesian,” or the “Polly” as it was familiarly known, has gone, too, leaving only the “Royal.”

Levuka was a friendly town, quite devoid of the petty social distinctions of Suva, and the experience of a Levuka welcome of visitors is one never to be forgotten. Who can forget the beauty of Levuka, its houses perched on the hill side, its pretty little swimming pool and its super-hospitable inhabitants?

CONTRAST to Levuka is Lautoka, the Colony’s sugar capital, where the CSR Company (commonly, “The Company”) rules the social order with an iron hand. In Lautoka and the other sugar towns an officer of the company— that is to say, a member of the office staff or a field overseer—may not socially know one who is not an officer, say a skilled mill mechanic. In fact, the officer who dared to have a drink in a hotel

with a mechanic would probably be on the mat over it. It used to be a saying that in the sugar districts it was easier to buck the Government than the company.

Lautoka made criminal history in Fiji —no common murder, but a life-size bank robbery—when some unknown thief' lifted the mine’s payroll from the Bank of New South Wales and got clear away with it.

To-day the Lautoka bank robbery is just another unsolved crime.

THE mining boom of the thirties is another vivid memory. Bill Borth wick’s belief that there was gold in them thar hills was proved, and his backer, Pat Costello, who grub-staked the old prospector, made a fortune. So did others —and some lost them. Dave Riemenschneider sold a claim for £25, if I remember correctly, to Lawler, an Eng lishman, who made a fortune out of it and retired to live in the Old Country in affluence. That mine to-day is one of the Colony’s richest. Many were the wild cat companies floated. To-day, the names of most of them are forgotten; and the Vatukoula field has settled down to steady production from Emperor and Loloma. Now there is a flourishing town where, 10 years ago, were barren hills— in which, according to the “experts,” there was no payable gold.

Monsieur and Madame Maurice Berge, of Noumea, recently celebrated their dia mond wedding by a short religious cere mony at Noumea Cathedral, followed by a family reunion, where their health was drunk in champagne. They were married in France 60 years ago and came to New Caledonia in 1898, where M. Berge worked for the country’s largest store, until he retired in 1929. This store, Maison Bal landes of Bordeaux, also feted the occa sion; 300 people were present to drink the old couple’s health.