Council Of Chiefs
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Under Fire
From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, June 12.
THE Fiji Council of Chiefs will hold its biennial meeting at Nasova, Suva, next month at a time when its powers and functions have been brought into public discussion as a result of the implacable Fijian opposition, in the Legislative Council, to any proposed change in the Colony’s constitution.
The advocates of “democratic repre sentation” (certain European and Indian political groups or individuals) have made no secret of their ambition to force, if possible, some sort of “democratic sys tem” on to the Fijians whether the mass of the Fijians want it or not.
But as far as independent observers can discover, the idea of “party politics” and election brawls is utterly foreign and distasteful to the average knowledgeable Fijian. As far as can be learned by any non-Fijian, the Fijian people ai’e pro foundly suspicious of any move to foist anything on them before they know exactly what it is all about. And this at titude rises from an openly-expressed fear that Fijian “democracy” as interpreted by the hopeful constitution-changers of other races would be wide open to dangerous manipulation by interested Europeans, or Indians, or both.
To the constitution-changers the Council of Chiefs is an autocratic group of dictators subservient to the Govern ment and concerned primarily with maintaining its own privileges and its un doubtedly great power as the Fijian rul ing body. To European and Indian Left ists it is anathema as a “great stronghold of reactionism.”
To non-political moderates, the Coun cil of Chiefs is nothing of the sort.
There is nothing to show that it is merely a deadweight stifling all Fijian political and social advancement, but there is a good deal to show that a fairly large proportion of the members have an eye to chiefly interests rather than the interests of the Fijian people as a whole. And this point is important at a time when there are almost daily signs of intense Fijian awareness of the urgent need for ’energetic and well-directed moves if the Fijians are to retain their right ful place in their own land.
After all, it is the Fijian people who are faced with the mounting pressure of alien competition, not the chiefs.
In recent months (and notably during the Anti-TB Fund campaign) angry and sometimes furious European protests have been voiced in the press and elsewhere against the continual exploitation of the Fijians by means of “appeals”—nominally voluntary “appeals’* but actually pre sented in the form of veiled compulsion— which realised tens of thousands of pounds at the expense of people who simply could hot afford to pay.
Lately this has developed into criticism of some aspects of taxation as applied to Fijians by the Fijian Administration, and it has been recalled that long ago a Government report stated that Fijian taxation had reached saturation point.
The questions are now being asked: What return do the Fijians get for the taxes they pay to their own administration?
And what exactly does the Council of Chiefs, with its wide powers under the Government, do for the Fijian people as a whole?
Unless this question can be answered effectively by proof of the council’s re cognition that its main function is to speak for and guard the interests of the Fijian race, it will remain the target for bitter political assaults from outside its preserves.