Fijian Development
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Big Plan Is Initiated
rE Bill to create a Fijian Development Fund (see April PIM) was passed by the Legislative Council on April 20.
A Fijian Development Fund Board will administer the Fund, consisting of the members of the Fijian Affairs Board with four other members appointed by the Governor.
When moving the second reading of the Bill, the Secretary for Fijian Affairs (Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna) said: “The motives behind the Bill are these —to obtain for the Fijian community some lasting benefit out of the high prices being paid for commodities: to bring the marketing of all economically important native produce under one control; to gain for Fijians a better bargaining position in business transactions and: to help the village communities to emerge from the state of sole reliance on subsistence economy.
“The course the Fijian Affairs Board propose to pursue, after this Bill becomes law, is to see to it that the owners of the Fund provide themselves, before everything else, with cleaner and brighter compounds, better and more permanent houses, good and sufficient water supplies.
“Secondly, they must set aside time for the extension and rehabilitation of cash crops, and contribute towards the construction of durable subsidiary village infant welfare wards where babies, after discharge from maternity hospitals, can be looked after.”
“A development scheme,’’ said Ratu Sir Lala, “which plans to raise, in the first instance, the standard of living of over 10,000 people—and, in my opinion, it cannot fail—and which in the process will ultimately give the Colony’s economy an extra 7 million working hours a year is surely one that this Council can un reservedly support. In the last three years, thanks to the co-operation of the Department of Agriculture, 7,000 acres of native land in the coconut areas were planted in palms: this acreage might well have been doubled had village hous ing been of lime and cement blocks or of concrete.’’
The Fund will be created by a levy of £lO per ton on all natives’ copra sold.