Fijians Seem Grim
pp. 19-20 · Read in the full issue
Plain Talk by Council of Chiefs
From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 29 A FTER meeting for nearly a week, 7*- the Council of Chiefs has ended its 1952 sitting. The Council’s reso lutions and questions will be sub mitted to the Governor and will eventually be published, with any comments or replies the Governor may make.
It is believed the Council has taken up a stiffer stand than in former days over some of the critical problems facing Fiji in general, and the Fijians in particular.
It is said, for instance, that im portant members of the Council have been unprecedently blunt regarding any proposals involving discrimina tion between Fijian and Indian in the matter of liquor laws.
The Council debated the growing threat of swamping of the Fijian race by the rapidly increasing Asiatic population. Nearly 70 years ago the Council of Chiefs asked anxious questions about the increasing Indian population of indentured labourers and was met by soothing—and abso lutely wrong—reassurances by the Governor of the period. If, in 1952, the Council has decided to ask what the Government now intends to do, if anything, about the population problem, a difficult position could develop.
The Fijians hold the balance in Fiji, but have never used their power.
This is due partly to Fijian tolerance and live-and-let-live policy, and partly to the traditional Fijian reverence for officialdom in general, as well as for the background of a Govern ment linked to the Throne.
Since the war, however, reverence for officialdom has worn a little thin, and there are signs that the Fijian commoner now makes a distinction between merely local officials and the infallibility of the Crown.
Europeans say that if anything is to be done to sort out the confusion for which the Fijians’ homeland seems to be headed owing to the growth of the Indian community, the first move can come only from the
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Fijians. And that means the Council
of Chiefs.
Plans And Proposals
In his opening address, to the Council, the Acting Governor made some interest ing statements: — Over £133,000 has accumulated from deductions from amounts earned by Fijians from copra production, and this will be spent on Fijian social welfare projects.
Income from banana production by Fijians has been substantial and satis factory. These growers are to establish a sawmill, for the making of banana cases.
Much was hoped from experiments in pineapple production, now being carried out by the CSR Co. on Fijian lands in Macuata, Vanua Levu. Success would mean employment for many Fijians, and the establishment of an important in dustry.
The estimated Fijian population on December 31, 1951, was 132,889 an increase in the year of 2,916.
A survey of Fijian forests was proposed “with a view to their development on sound economic lines”.
Close examination of the machinery governing native reserves was proceeding, to see if it were possible to provide better facilities for making lands available for settlement and development.