‘Screeching Unlimited’
p. 56 · Read in the full issue
Letter to the Editor AFTER a short period of right eous indignation, the people of Fiji can only comment, with ridicule, upon the “screeching un limited” with which the sensation making newspapers of Australia treated our September earthquake.
The purpose of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, in dis tributing such inaccurate informa tion, is rather more obscure than that of the newspapers, whose life blood depends upon massed sales.
The stories of eye-witnesses re turning from Fiji to Australia are mostly too absurd for comment; but two may be referred to.
One said: “Thousands of natives and Europeans screamed and ran.”
One might imagine that this re ferred to the Fijians. The natives did not panic and accepted this visitation with the same stoicism with which they confront other natural disturbances from time to time. Whatever the impression gained by the so-called eye-witness, his judgment must have been so seriously impaired that it probably influenced his rather precipitate departure from the Colony.
Then there is a short story asso ciated with another Australian newspaper comment. This was the statement: “Fiji isn’t the same any more; nobody smiles or laughs.”
Shortly before Suva’s quake, a NZ newspaper published a cartoon showing the conclusion of a monu mental cash collection taken dur ing a church service, and bearing the caption, “It always happens like this after an earthquake.” This cartoon came into the possession of a Suva resident who sought the advice of local clergy, shortly after the earthquake, as to the correct ness of this portrayal. He was promised by the reverend gentle man that after the next Sunday the correct answer would be forth coming.
However, on the following Mon day, the lay enquirer was con fronted with a rather indignant request from the Church as to the present whereabouts of his copy of the cartoon. This was produced from his pocket; and he was then greeted by the remark: “That is quite in order; but in the collection yesterday, there was a 10/- note pinned to a copy of that cartoon.”
So, “Fiji isn’t the same any more, nobody smiles or laughs.”
I am, etc.,
A. C. O’Reilly.
Suva, Fiji.
The Transactions of the Fiji Soc iety for the period 1841-47 were being published in New Zealand during October. The two volumes will contain a great deal of interest ing material on many aspects of Fiji.