British Grant of £1,800,000

£1,800,000 To Fiji and Western Pacific

Suva, Dec. 20.

rE Western Pacific High Commission territories will receive £BOO,OOO from the Colonial Development and Wel fare Fund over a 10-year period ending in 1950. Fiji will receive £1,000,000 during the same time.

The Colonial Development and Wel fare Act was passed by the British Gov ernment in 1940 and was to extend for five years; Fiji and the WPHC received their first grants in 1943-44; £90,800 was voted to the use of a TB survey in the Western Pacific territories and Fiji, and the prevention of malaria in Fiji.

In December, 1945, the British Par liament increased the fund by voting £120,000,000 to it and lengthened its life by five years.

The extension of time is necessary if the Development Fund is to live up to its name. Little developmental work has been possible in any British Colony in the last five years but much needs to be done at the present time and in the immediate future.

The £BOO,OOO which is to go to the WPHC territories (of which BSI is one) presumably is for development, as dis tinct from rehabilitation, of which the Territories, particularly the Solomons, are in dire need. No scheme of war damage operates in these territories and although the BSI estimates for 1946-47 were discussed at the first meeting of the Protectorate’s Advisory Council in October, 1945, and expenditure of £379,522 (on a revenue of £76,515) is contem plated, no provision has been made for assistance to former residents who have lost their property and livelihood as a result of war in that area.