Fiji Critical
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
Of Long
Overseas Leave
PROBABLY because administration is partly disorganised by the unusually large number of “Actings’’ in senior positions, there is in Fiji a spate of criticism of the British Colonial Office system at the present time.
It centres mainly on the overseas leave system. Taxpayers who are having a pretty grim struggle to carry on are sourly disposed towards the idea of contributing to the costly overseas travels of officials in the higher brackets.
Nobody has yet explained adequately why New Zealand or Aus tralian Civil Servants in Fiji should get trips to England; or why Fip born Indians in the Government ser vice should be provided with over seas leave trips—especially when so very few Fijian civil servants go over seas.
The grant of facilities for overseas leave is, of course, a survival of the old Colonial system, when Fiji was a very distant and isolated part of the Empire. To-day, life in Fiji is no more isolated or arduous than life in North Queensland or the Mediterranean, and the system seems to need revision.
The only serviceable wharf for overseas ships in the BSI Headquarters area in recent months is the new wharf at Tulagi. The last of the war-built wharves at Honiara (30 miles from Tulagi) collapsed in a storm. Photo, by G. C.
Jordan, shows (top) the Malaita coming in to Tulagi harbour and (lower) the ship berthed at the new wharf.