Ferment Over Fiji’S Population Problem

SUVA, July 25.

MR. A. A. RAGG’S repatriation scheme, for the Indians in Fiji, as outlined in the June PIM, and the bomb neatly dropped in the New Zealand Parliament on July 18 by Mr. H. Dudfield, have left Fiji almost audibly abuzz with European, Fijian and Indian discussions. Discussions in corners, that is, not in the open.

Mr. Dudfield spent about three years in Fiji with the New Zealand troops during the Second World War.

And nobody gets more resentful over the prospective swamping of the Fijians by aliens than New Zealand ex-soldiers. Apart from that, in the war and post-war years Fijians in the Dominion have built up an impressive force of goodwill towards the Fijian people. To-day, Fiji and the Fijians get more publicity in the New Zea land press than any other South Pacific island territory or people.

Despite the great strength of Aus tralian interests in Fiji, there is no question that in recent years the Colony has moved closer to the

nearer Dominion. Geography, de fence and swift air communications have a lot to do with it, but the key factor is the wartime legacy of genuine respect and mutual liking be tween New Zealanders and Fijians.

A New Zealand paper commented re cently: “To-day Fijians are welcomed throughout the Dominion with en thusiastic affection.” It gave the reasons for this as the Fijian war record, the Fijian cricketers, Rugby players and Empire Games athletes, and the splendid records of Fijian students and other temporary resi dents in New Zealand.

In the meantime, Mr. Ragg is carrying on. In the “Fiji Times” he points out that the Acting Governor, when addressing the Council of Chiefs on July 22, referred to the steady increase in the Fijian popula tion (now estimated at almost 133,000), but in doing so gave “only the bright lights and omitted the sombre shades.”

Tabulating the increases among all races except the Europeans (who de creased by 274 to 6,227 in 1951), Mr. Ragg stresses that while the es timated Fijian increase in 1951 was 2,993, the estimated Indian increase was 4,907. Further, the Fijian in crease percentage was only 35.35, while the increase percentage of the alien races totalled 64.65.

“This,” says Mr. Ragg, “indicates that the Fijians and Europeans are on the highroad to political and economic elimination by their ever

decreasing proportion in the total population, and yet nothing effective has been done to correct this mani fest injustice.

“Furthermore it is tragic to think that those whom we have coven anted to protect are losing their country by peaceful invasion and yet

we are sending our boys (Fijian and European) to fight aggression over seas.”

Australian engineers are now building a lighthouse on a half-mile wide rocky outcrop 20 miles east of Thurstday Island.