Fiji’S Liquor Headache Is

Looming Again

From Our Own Correspondent

SUVA, July 25 INTIMATION that the Govern ment of Fiji contemplates re opening a controversial issue—the liquor question—was made by the \cting Governor (Mr. A. F. R. Stod lart) in his opening address to the Fijian Great Council of Chiefs on uly 22.

Mr. Stoddart told the Chiefs that he question of amending the Liquor )rdinance by the removal of “certain estrictions” on the drinking of liquor iy Indians was due to come up for onsideration. He asked the Council f Chiefs to advise him whether the resent restrictions on Fijians should e retained, relaxed or modified.

The present system starts out with irtually a blanket prohibition on Tjians and Indians alike, but ex mptions commonly known as quor permits—are granted to a trictly limited number of Fijians ver the age of 30, and to a much reater number of Indians, many of 'horn are surprisingly young. Most f these permits allow the holders to rink beer at hotel bars, but a com aratively small proportion include )irits, and a still smaller proportion ermit the holders to buy bottled quor.

At the top of the alcoholic tree are handful of Fijians and Indians who re exempt from liquor restrictions ► the same extent as Europeans, This system, like most liquor sys ms in all countries, has a good lany loopholes and leakages. Fur icr, it perpetrates, in Indian polit al eyes, the most heinous of all imes—discrimination between In an and European. It is also cord lly disliked by certain, but by no cans all, liquor-trading interests.

N 1947 the Government, which • was suspected rightly or rongly—to be motivated by (a) a ;sire to appease Indian agitation, )) a desire to please various un ified “selfish interests” behind the enes, and (c) a desire for more venue, proposed in effect to remove e liquor restrictions on the Indians hile retaining virtual prohibition r the Fijians.

This was described by a former overnor as removing racial dis imination and protecting the jians.

The proposal provoked an angry ter-racial controversy. It produced petition to the Secretary for the

Colonies (who referred it back to the Legislative Council) from the heads of all the Christian denomin ations. Also, the Government’s plan was opposed by the licensees of all Suva’s six hotels. In the Legislative Council situation became so volcanic that the amendment Bill was side tracked to a select committee which, after two years of wordy internal conflict, got nowhere.

When the liquor Bill turned

up again in the Legislative Council with the select committee’s inconclusive report, in 1949, the war started all over again. The Fijians opposed it; all but one European op posed it; and the senior Indian mem ber opposed it. (The senior Indian member made no secret of the fact that he was torn between the urge to back “equality” and the urge to pro tect Indian families’ pay packets).

Of the five non-official members who supported the Government the four Indians did so on the grounds of “non-discrimination.”

The basis of the implacable Fijian- European opposition was that the Government could not prevent large

scale bootlegging if liquor supplies were thrown open to all but the Fijians, and that the Fijians particu larly in the villages, would become in many ways the economic victims of alien vultures. It was acknow ledged that already certain Chinese, part-Eurpean, European and Indian bootleggers were doing well, but it was argued that this evil was small

compared with the prospective open ing of the illegal liquor trade to every irresponsible Indian in Fiji.

In the end the Government drop ped its proposals and all went on as before.

"CMJIAN permit-holders continued to be increasingly outnumbered by partially-exempted Indians, and this caused resentment. Indians with permits looked down their noses at Indians without permits; and that caused more resentment. Difficulties arose at mixed social gatherings at which nobody liked to ask who had permits and who had not, and more than one hotelkeeper was driven to retire by the strain of constantly

separating wheat from chaff am customers—and under the eyes policemen who, as likely as not, no permits themselves and, b< human, also cherished a grieva Whatever the Government’s proposals for the Indians may and whatever has inspired them seems unlikely * that it can escap great deal of inter-racial acrim< This time it is almost a certa that the Fijians will demand eqm with the Indians in any changes are made—and hang the co: quences.

The Government, of course, two possible alternatives—either drop all racial liquor restrictions to impose a permit system for races, including Europeans and p Europeans. An increasing nun of Europeans see the second alt ative as the only possible way ( On December 31, 1951, a tota! 15,521 exemption permits were force. Of these, Indians held 11, and Fijians and other Islanders gether only 3,915. Details w< Indians—Restricted beer, 3,1 restricted liquor, 1,677; bottled b 565; bottled liquor, 6,122; full pen 67; total exemption, 17.

Fijians and others —Restri< beer, 2,507; restricted liquor, : bottled beer, 321; bottled liquor, ( full permit, 17; total exemption,