Indians' Place In
pp. 63-64 · Read in the full issue
Fiji
Agitation to Share in Trusteeship Over Fijians
Prom Our Own Correspondent
Suva, May 19.
WHENEVER things get lively in Fiji’s Legislative Council on the thorny subject of the proclaimed para mountcy of Fijian interests in Fiji, it is a certainty that at some stage an Indian speaker will get up and say in a hurt tone that there is no justification for the assumption that the British are and should be the sole trustees for the Fijians.
In fact, one Indian Legislative Coun cillor has declared, more than once, that “the Indians in Fiji, as loyal subjects of the British Crown, have as much right to be regarded as trustees for the Fijians as have Europeans.”
This argument, such as it is, is the basis of an article published not long ago in New Asia, the official organ of the Indian Colonial Society, whose head quarters are at Madras. The article was written by New Asia’s correspondent in Fiji.
Referring to the Legislative Council debate on the implementation of the Deed of Cession (the debate, held in July, 1946, was a damp squib, as far as any long-range effect was concerned), New Asia’s Fiji correspondent says;— “All that we wish to say is that the Indian members took a very bold stand and, in a body, they mercilessly exposed the soi-diant trusteeship of the Euro pean community in Fiji. In this matter, the acting Secretary for Fijian Affairs (a Fijian) also by his able and very sen sible observations, could not see his way to support the motion on the principle that the Deed of Cession binds all, Euro peans and Indians alike.”
Actually the acting Secretary of Fijian Affairs, whom the correspondent des cribes as a Fijian, was the present District Commissioner, Southern, (Mr. j.
Judd). At the time of the debate the Secretary (Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna) was in England.
WITHOUT referring directly to last year’s abortive attempts by Indian delegates to the United Nations to get an Indian finger into the pie of British and American trusteeship and other territories, the article states.— “No one has come out of this (trustee ship) broil with clean hands. Even the United States, a champion of democracy, claimed ‘exclusive trusteeship’ over Jap anese mandated islands, and declared them to be strategic areas over which the Trusteeship Council has no power of in spection.
“This led to stout opposition from
Russia, and she refused to take her seat in the council. The outlook for trustee ship is thus doomed.”
This is padded with abuse of the Euro peans in Fiji and in South Africa, It ends with a quotation attributed to a native representative in the South Afri can Senate: — “It is by a general development—which must be carefully noted for their (Euro pean) own safety—that the coloured races in future stand together and re sist the conception of white supremacy.
Any attempt to perpetuate that concep tion must lead to increasing friction on a world scale, instead of on a national scale, as in the past.”
The point of quoting this article in New Asia is that it gives a good indica tion of the sort of Asiatic propaganda that is being handed out, not only to Indians in Fiji but, what is more signi ficant, to the Fijians.
As a footnote to the trusteeship ques tion, it may be noted that “The Times,”
London, on April 7, reported that after a commotion in Kenya a proposal to give the Indians in that colony equal political representation with the Euro peans had been abandoned. The oppo sition to the plan fought it on the ground that the Government had no right to extend to Oriental immigrants trusteeship of native peoples.
Kenya, it seems, is many years behind Fiji.
Passing through San Francisco on his way to France, M. Quesnot, who will rep resent Tahiti on the Council of the Re public, had discussions with Pan Ameri can Airways officials with a view to get ting the company to establish a line between Tahiti and the West Coast of the US.