"Monty's" Link With Fiji
p. 34 · Read in the full issue
BRITAIN’S leading soldier, Field-Mar shall Lord Montgomery, in Australia this month on an official visit, has a connection with Fiji—although he himself probably is unaware of it.
Some seventy years ago, Solomon Islands natives were taken to Fiji as in dentured plantation labourers. The Ang lican Church took an interest in these “displaced people”, and cared for them; and finally, to help the Solomon Islands community, the Rev. W. Floyd, Vicar of Levuka, formed the Solomon Island Mission.
In 1893 a Bishop from Tasmania, who was passing through Fiji, confirmed 73 members of this Mission. He was Bishop Montgomery, father of the present Field-Marshall.
“Monty” spent his early years in Tas mania, before his father’s transfer to England.
There is still a community of Solomon Islanders in Fiji—at the villages of Wail ailai and Wailoku.
Mr. Cyril S. Belshaw, a New Zealander, has been awarded the Emslie Horniman scholarship for anthropological research.
He is at present taking a post-graduate course at the London School of Economics under Professor Ravmond Firth. Mr.
Belshaws’ subject of research is the economic life of the natives of the Solomons, New Hebrides and New Cal edonia where he has already done con siderable work for the Institute of Pacific Relations.