His Split-Second
p. 27 · Read in the full issue
Timing
How Minister Dugdale Impressed Non-official Fiji
From Our Own Correspondent
Suva, Aug. 27.
lIJI, conversationally, is still con cerned with the recent visit of the Rt. Hon. Mr. John Bug le, Minister of State for Colonial fairs, whe spent the first half of e month here, but who has now parted for the Solomon Islands, i New Hebrides and Sydney.
The Minister, by working night id day, can be said to have gone erywhere, looked into most things d seen a lot of people.
Local Government servants, who e not famous for doing things in hurry, were considerably im essed by his energy, his inquiries hind the red-tape curtain and by e fact that, although he arrived th some ill-conceived ideas, he peared willing to modify them on st-hand examination.
Local business men were not so pressed. The local planters’ ganisation was unable to place ly of its problems before him,
although a comprehensive statement had been prepared for presentation at Suva. Before anything could be said on the subject of planting, that particular meeting folded up, and the Minister whisked off to another appointment.
This, in fact, appears to have been the fate of most delegations to the Minister. He apparently ap portioned his time with the aid of a slide-rule and a set of dividers and, when time was up, to the second, the delegation was dis missed —more often than not with its best arguments unpresented.
This is the first time in 25 years that a Minister of the Crown has visited Fiji, and residents, official and otherwise, attach more impor
tance to it than say, residents of Papua-New Guinea, who accept these lightning visits of galloping
politicians phlegmatically.
It now just remains to be seen if anything concrete comes of Mr.
Dugdale’s visit. Unless he is much less of an orthodox politician than he seems, the answer to that will probably be “nothing.”
The planters at Savu Savu were able to get a meeting with the Minister, and were told flatly that a contract price was a contract price and if the price had fallen instead of going up he couldn’t see them coming along and offering to take less. (See elsewhere: Minister’s statement in Solomons about copra)