Fiji-Indian Pot Is Boiling

Discussions High-Light Difficulties of Growing Racial Problem

From Our Own Correspondent

THE editorial on the Indian problem in Fiji published in the October “PIM,” together with several other factors, has again taken the political lid off 'the most difficult current question in the South Pacific—namely, what to do with the Fiji-Indians.

On October 22, the “Oceania Daily News” published an extract from the editorial which had reached Fiji by way of United Press; and on the same day the “Fiji Times and Herald” published the whole works, having, presumably, secured the copy by air mail.

As the October “PIM” had been, published only a day earlier, it can be forecast here, and now that the Indian political reaction will be that this is, yet another abominable line-up of European “vested interests” to stir up feeing against the inoffensive Asiatics, despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing to suggest that this almost simultaneous appearance in three publications was anything other than accidental.

In a diplomatic editorial note, the “Fiji Times” said that the “PIM” article was reprinted “because readers of all races in the Colony are entitled to know how some of the present political and other trends in Fiji appear to competent observers overseas.”

After saying that the article would no doubt be classed in some circles as “part of what a speaker at the recent Indian education conference called the ‘con sistent efforts of the press to undermine racial harmony and whip up anti-Indian

prejudice,’” the “Fiji Times” added: “It might be pertinent to point out that a great many of the extraordinary and sometimes inflammatory inaccuracies ex pressed at that conference would them selves justify a reply in the tone of the ‘Pacific Islands Monthly’ editorial.”

Earlier, the “Oceania Daily News”— which has calmed down to a notable ex

tent since its days of infancy, when it demolished practically everything from the Colonial Office to the Suva Town Board —had attacked the Indian educa tion conference in general and Dr.

Mukherji, the delegate who assailed the press, in particular, and had challenged the doctor to substantiate his allegations.

A LETTER in the “Fiji Times” on Oc tober 23 gives an indication of how some aspects of the conference (which made no pretence to be anything other than another flimsily-disguised Indian bid for further control in Fiji) has stirred up non-Indians.

Over the nom-de-plume “Know Your Enemy,” the writer says: “Ratu Edward Cakobau used the word ‘effrontery,’ to describe Indian Politicians’ claims, despite their contemptible war effort, to share in the trusteeship of the Fijians. He would be hard put to it to find a word to describe the holding on Cession Day of all days—of an Indian electioneering (miscalled “education”) conference, at which, with blatant aggres sion, demands were made that alien cul ture should be forced on Fiji. The pro posal to set up a secondary school ‘with Indian Culture as its background’ is sheer impudence.

“It was notable that the conference did not suggest that this institution should make no call, direct or indirect, on public funds. The demands for increased Gov ernment provision for education for Indians, to make them loyal to India rather than to Britain, are revolting when one remembers how Indians con sistently head the list of income tax de faulters, and the bitter protests by Indian politicians against the residential tax.

“This conference, however, has done one good thing. It has brought out into the

open those who aim at making Fiji a dependency of India. The speakers at the conference and those who have accepted office on the committee have shown that their first loyalty is to India and not to Fiji.”