Solutions for the Fiji-Indian Problem

LATELY, there have been two notable contributions to dis cussions of the Fiji-Indian problem. We are encouraged to hope that a way out of what ap peared to be an ugly situation can be found.

The Indians and the Fijians, under enlightened guidance, may themselves provide a solution. The younger Indians —especially those born in Fiji—are disposed to accept the fact that if they are to have a worthwhile future in the Pacific, it must be shaped in genuine co operation with the owners of Fiji —namely, the indigenous Fijians— and that the Fijian people must be assisted in every way to themselves handle their national obligations.

If that can become the basis of future policy in Fiji—genuine Fijian-Indian co-operation, under European direction for a while — the whole aspect of Fiji affairs will change for the better. Such a solu tion becomes possible because of the steady progress that is being made by the Fijians in the social, economic and political fields.

Another solution is presented in an article, in this issue, wherein is made the suggestion that the Fiji-born Indians should be encour aged to settle in the British Solo mon Islands, and develop the re sources of that huge archipelago.

The most acute angle of the Fiji- Indian problem is the rapidity of the natural increase of the Indians in Fiji, which is contemporaneous with an equally notable growth in the Fijian population. Within a few years, Indians and Fijians will be

jostling each other for possession of land, and that must create most undesirable conditions.

But if there are made available in the Solomons a sufficiency of land and opportunities for the sur plus Fiji-Indians, there need be no population crisis in Fiji; while the British Colonial Office, in its turn, will be supplied with an answer to its now hopeless question: “What shall we do with the British Solomons?”

Of course Australia, at first glance, will shudder in horror at the idea of establishing another Asiatic community within a few hundred miles of the Queensland coast. But it is not suggested, for a moment, that the Solomons should be open to immigration from India. The Fiji-Indians, born in Fiji, speaking English, regarding themselves as British citizens of the South Pacific, are not in the same category as the overcrowded masses in Mother India. They, established and prospering in both Fiji and the Solomons, could become just as good citizens of the British Com monwealth in the South Pacific as are the large Japanese communi ties of Hawaii good and valuable citizens of the United States.

These things are presented as worthy of consideration. We can no more ignore the emptiness of the undeveloped Solomons than we can close our eyes to the implications of the present conditions in Fiji.

Mr and Mrs. W. M. Fell, of the Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony,, are on leave in the UK.