How to Solve Fiji's Racial Problem and Develop

This Rich Colony Old Half-Caste Resident Urges European Immigration

Letter to the Editor

A LETTER appeared in this paper re cently written by Major Willoughby Tottenham, of Savu Savu, Fiji, deal ing with a subject which, besides being delicate and involved, is one that has irked the brain and Patience of many a political thinker in these Islands. It was

his contention that the half-caste rep resented the happy compromise between European and native, and the one best suited to take the lead in the country.

The half-caste had knowledge of the mentality and language of both races which the full European or native could never hope to attain.

In direct contrast with this, a letter was published in your March issue by an alleged Fijian native, Raivoka, who gave his aspirations for the Fijian race, and described the menace of the half-caste.

When Raivoka writes of a full Fiuan. he is a little ill-informed of what a Fiuan really is, and I should suggest for him a considerable study of Fijian history. rE Fijian, of many centuries ago, was a short, woolly-haired type— what is usually termed a Melanesian or Pacific negro—who was, as far as we can determine, a mixture of the original negritos with other races of taller stature.

These others, judging by the facial characteristics of the modern Melanesian, came from very many races.

Some centuries ago. a superior, fair skinned race, of sea-faring and warlike habits, established themselves as the aristocracy of these very primitive and backward people and, of course, mixed with them. This intermingling went on for centuries, creating a half-caste upper class. The last century, in Fiji, the ad vent of the European coincided with a greater influx of this fair-skinned superior race—the Tongans—so that in some parts of Fiji the Polynesian type now far outnumbers the black, ugly, un intelligent Melanesian type; and all the ruling families of Fiji are direct, or in direct, descendants of these “foreigners.”

Durmo - last century, there was an in flux of Europeans to Fiji and, in accord ance with the usual procedure, they also mixed with the inhabitants. As is usual in the case of a sunerior invading race, these newcomers were able to take the highest ladies in the land to wife, and most of the old-fashioned half-caste families are descended from these unions.

Very many of the offsnring, however, reverted to the native rite in marriage and. after five or six generations, their total descendants must number tens ol thousands in a Fijian population of just over one hundred thousand, which does not leave much room for the Melanesian- Polynesian hybrid. Even some of the highest chiefs in Fiji to-day are direct descendants of the original Europeans.

Raivoka, for all he knows, may be de scended from one of these mixed unions, and perhaps can thank the European blood in him—if he is lucky enough to have any—for his mental ability.

Raivoka wants the Fijians to be a superior race; but the only superiority they ever had was from Tongan or Euro pean sources. He wants the Fijians to develop national pride and idealism, ana I suppose he wants the Europeans to train them, at the expense of the British taxpayer, as usual. With TB rushing like wild-fire through the race —thanks to laziness in providing better housing and food and to extensive kava-drmkmg bouts— lasting all night, in spite of new laws—the Fijians have little prospect of coming up to Raivoka standards or expectations.

Raivoka certainly attributes great strength to the small part-European Fijian community. The census, taken two years ago, showed an increase in ten years of only 839. and represents only

1.6 of the population of Fiji. When he writes of their great influence in Fijian customs and language he unconsciously pays tribute to the strength of their mixed blood. fTTHE same attitude that Raivoka holds JL was shown in the Tavua mines trouble last December, when between 800 and 900 full Fijians attacked some 50 half-castes individually, in their homes— and showed themselves up for what they are. With less fear of reprisals from the Government than if they attacked Europeans, the Fijians (worked up by a few leaders) reverted to type, and became the savages they are at heart, when they smashed the windows of the half-caste community, broke into their houses, beat the men with sticks, and attempted to ravage the women.

A lot could be told about this affair, which would do no credit to the Fijians or to the Government. The whole matter has been hushed up. as it reflects on the feeble Government policy. Many of the half-castes left the area, and found jobs in Suva, rather than risk again the results of a weak native policy.

In my remote district —and, I imagine, in all native districts of Fiji—the small half-caste minority are already voicing their fears about native action. They say that if the Fijians could do so much in the comparatively well-controlled dis trict of Tavua, there would be no chance whatever in these remote parts. The full European is too thick-skinned to feel the respect or fear of the native that the half-caste does —no doubt, owing to his better understanding of the native.

Raivoka praises the Hindu, whom in his ignorance he imagines to be the only Indian in Fiji. He doesn’t know there is a large number of half-caste Fijian- Indians in Fiji, and most of them Hindu- Indian offspring. rE bulk of the part-European element of Fiji are the descendants of the superior race that settled in Fiii. Thev made it nossible for all communities.

Lilian included, to live more like human beings, and to be able to visit friends in neighbouring villages without being clubbed for the oven. Above all they made it possible for natives like Raivoka to go to the schools of the people who brought about the happy compromise of European and native—and from there write about matters which he probably will never understand.

It was a good thing for New Zealand that the Maoris had not the knowledge and foresight of Raivoka in land matters, otherwise New Zealand to-day might be just what she was centuries ago—a land of swamps, impenetrable forests and wasteland —instead of a well developed little nation. We can thank Government tenderness for a shiftless race that Fiji to-day is a backward, undeveloped country.

It was not for the want of trying on the part of the pioneers of this country. Most of whom returned, broken-hearted to their own countries—or left the evidence of their existence in their half-caste progeny. It has long been forgotten that the part-Europeans here to-day represent the pathetic failure of a pioneering effort on the part of the Anglo-Saxon race, which strove to make this a country worth while. Thanks to unsympathetic Gov ernment, the colonising instinct and effort were frustrated.

The failure of European colonisation is not confined to the past. Every year sees more full and part-Europeans leav ing Fiji to seek opportunity in other countries. rnHE Government is apparently oblivious X to the possibilities of the country’s most desirable element, and goes seeking a solution to the racial question In its ignorance, it concentrates on its

archaic and useless policy of bolstering up the Fijian against the Indian —as if a Stone Age race could be sufficiently awakened to compete with a fully awake

Asiatic race, numerically superior in the Colony!

Better for the country, and better for the world, to see Fiji a teeming land of

tiny Indian hamlets and farms, producing for the hungry millions, than the almost stagnant country it now is! But better by far to see. it an agricultural and pastural paradise, as it would be if Government policy provided for a large influx of assisted European settlers, who would not only make this country an asset to Empire but would do far more for the native Fijians than can be done under present conditions. rm, piiii arl c crp thP rigMfVTandownUleSSTthly 6 were here when the Europeans arrived, is not sound. If Britain had withheld her annexation for another 50 years—and provided the Americans and French had not grabbed the country, as they were prepared to do vrhen Britain came in—then

another race would have been the land owners, whom Britain would have pro tected. I refer to the Tongans, who were over-running Fiji, and who would have conquered the whole of Fiji if Britain had not interceded.

Britain’s policy always has been to pro tect the land rights of the latest con querors—the people in possession—and, in accordance with that, the British them selves should have taken over Fijian lands.

Their insistence on leaving land rights to the shiftless Fijian Is having dis astrous consequences The time is almost here when Britain must first consider the European blood in the Colony, both part and full, and then provide for an influx of the white race, that always brings health and

prosperity to all concerned. Fiji then will be on her way to her rightful posi tion as the seat of Western civilisation in this part of the Pacific.

I am, etc..

Mixed Breed.

Fiji, April.