To Corruption

CHARGE THAT FIJI NATIVE POLICY IS LEADING

Is The Government Being Misdirected?

By “Voice In The Wilderness”

I LIVE in a district populated entirely by native Fijians, and I see a great deal of the corruption of native affairs that is caused by a Government policy based on ignorance and misdirec tion.

This later Government policy, that is directed to the enforced return of the Fijians to village life, means the loss of at least two generations of progress.

The individual initiative of the Fijian, that has been developed over this later period, is now to be crushed under the heel of communal life, sponsored by the Socialist policy of forcing the Fijians back to the nearest version of original and primitive Fijian social and domestic culture.

The very small minority of thinking Fijians who have striven to maintain their individuality will now have, under the new native regulations, a harder road to hoe and a longer road to travel. While, on the one hand, the Government has forbidden the old institutions of kerekere and varu (native custom of requiring things without payment), on the other hand it has enforced communal life, which is a hotbed of inescapable op portunity for kerekere, with all its evils.

While on the one hand it has sent large numbers of natives to the outside world, to be educated in the white man’s ways, it has forced the Fijian equivalent of “the mah in the street” into a narrow rut, so that the “educated” natives, when they return, will be able to impose the will of the Government—and, inci dentally, their own—on these prepared victims.

THAT this new regime is to be forced on the Fijians is proved by many in cidents. Here is one.

When the Government ordered the natives of a certain district to cut their copra, and send it to a certain trading firm, without individual payment, a cer tain native would not give consent to have the copra on his tribal land in cluded. He was the head man of his tribe, and he had the authority, with the consent of his fellow tribesmen, to speak for the land and the copra in question.

The village headman, however, acting on the orders of the district headman — and he, in turn, on the orders of the provincial headman—had the nuts cut and the copra sent away, in the absence of the rightful owner.

The aggrieved native sought the advice of a European solicitor, and gave him instructions to take action. The members of the Civil Service, whom this matter concerned, were contacted by correspon dence; but, in accordance with the usual practice, no replies were given—in fact, the present impenetrable wall that sur rounds the Native Administration was made more manifest.

IT always has been a source, of amaze ment to me that so many crimes could be committed in Fijian villages by Fijians, and nothing was done about it. As I became better acquainted with the country and natives, however, I found the solution—too little European super vision.

It might surprise the outside world to know that in these native villages such crimes as carnal knowledge, incest, rape, theft, assault and homo-sexuality are rampant. The reason that not one tenth part of these crimes becomes known

officially is that European officials rely implicitly on their village and district headmen for honest reports of their dis tricts generally. In many cases, the village and district headmen are too deeply implicated to make these matters known.

As long as native Fijians are substi tuted for Europeans in the various posi tions in Fiji, official or otherwise, as is the practice under the new scheme, the situation will become worse and worse and a return to the dark ages becomes in evitable —in fact, it is now well on its way.

The disinterested European is still the best protection for all concerned, es pecially the native; but a misguided Government policy works on another theory. While most civilised people to day agree that there must be a process of evolution in politico-social progress, our political idealists ignore it absolutely, and endeavour to implement their idea that a Stone Age race can govern itself by the simple expedient of giving a super ficial education.

(Continued on page 73)

THIS unofficial chaos in native affairs finds a parallel in the Fiji marine 'situation.

With more and more natives being given positions as masters in the trans insular trade, more and more accidents are occurring—and increasingly fewer are being reported. It is not necessary to look far for the reason. Incidentally, more natives are not being employed in this trade because natives are preferred by the European employers, but because the limited number of qualified Europeans and part-Europeans leave the employers no alternative.

THERE are also unsatisfactory condi tions in the medical department, in spite of the wonderful work done in Suva in training the medical students.

Once allocated to a country district, the average Native Medical Practitioner pro ceeds to settle down to a comfortable life, and his nickname of “Aspro” has not been misapplied.

Aspros are so convenient —they can be sent by the patient’s relatives to his dis tant village.

By force of necessity, it will be only a matter of a few years before the present pampered native will be relegated to his proper position, where his self-seeking and lack of sense of responsibility will have no opportunity of harming his fellow creatures.