Cane Is Being Planted
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Indians Repudiate Their Agitators In Fiji
Suva, Mayb
INDIAN cane-farmers are giving little support to the efforts made i per suade them not to plant sugarcane in the current season.
On April 22, a meeting of the Kisan Sangh (farmers’ union) at Lautoka sup ported by a show of hands, the appeal of the president (Mr. N. S. Chalmers) to stop planting. Five days later, however, the Sigatoka committee of the Kisan Sangh refused to follow the presided.-'s advice and informed him that while v, o committee supported his attempt tt'' obtain a higher price cane, it in tended to advocate contim plan >?g.
Authoritative reports Si-ate that in other parts of Viti Levu most of the Indian farmers have bc'n planting steadily despite the persuasions—a in some cases, threats —by officials of i’ 1 , , union who have been urging a strike by the fafmers- v- ' In some cases farmers have stopped planting temporarily, only to resume as the Kisan Sangh officials have left th* neighbourhood. In other cases farmers are known to have left the Kisan Sangh, joined another organisation, and proceeded with planting.
Vilikesa Ramaqa, a Fijian Assistant Medical Practitioner on the staff of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Suva, recently spent nearly three months in New Zealand, studying anaesthetics at the Medical School at the University of Otago. The Medical Officer in charge of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital re ports that Vilikasa has benefited greatly from his New Zealand studies.