Fiji Newspaper Storm

American Professor Causes Fiji Newspaper Storm

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, Feb. 28.

Professor J. W. Coulter, Slither

of “Fiji: Little India of the Pacific,” in a paper read, in absentia, at the recent Pacific Science Congress in New Zealand, quoted an opinion that Fiji might do better if it were “a land of teeming Indian hamlets and farms.”

To this the. Fiji Times retorted editor ially that such a development would be possible only if (1) the Deed of Cession were torn up: (2) the British colonial policy, as applied to indigenous peoples in their homelands, were torn down; and (3) the Fijian record since 1874, including the magnificent Fijian Second World War contribution, were erased from the history of the British Empire.

Whereupon the Pacific Review, a new Indian weekly, with distinctly Leftist leanings, came up with a leader headed “When Coulter Talks Sense,” and furi ously assailed the Fiji Times as “one of the reactionary bosses of the South Pacific.”

At which the “Oceania Daily News”— a year-old daily which is supposed to have no love for the Fiji Times —alleged that the Pacific Review was practically a Communist organ anyway!

Mr. J. .Gaffney also returned rec:nTy to Kavieng. With him came Mrs. Gaffney, who is new to the Territory.