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Clock-Watchers

AS a footnote to “Through the Rewa Delta” (January PIM) : It should be remembered that the usual route for launches and yachts includes the passage through the Rewa Canal. Constructed long before the arrival of Europeans in Fiji, the canal is about two miles long and 60 feet wide. It was cut with wonderful engineering skill to accommodate the largest of the Dld-time Fijian canoes. The objec tive was to shorten, by 20 miles, the journey between the headquarters af the two great chiefdoms, Rewa md Bau.

Many years ago a writer pointed )ut that for this immense task the mplements were nothing more than ‘staves to dig the ground, hands to shovel it up, and baskets to carry it away.”

The Rewa Canal is a useful Fijian llustration to support the well stated case argued by Patricia Jatheson (January PIM) in defence )f the Tongans. The legend of ;raditional indolence among the South Pacific islanders is part of ;he claptrap kept alive mainly by luperficial tourist-writers in the South Seas.

The truth is that the islanders lave always had to work fairly ia,i:d —and in places like Fiji very lard —to produce sufficient food. r urther, in all the low islands life las always been a struggle for bare ‘xistence. Again, the amount of /ork put into the building of houses md large and small canoes, with inly the most primitive implements md no metals (in pre-European lays) should have disposed of the egend at the start.

One reason for the illusion of dleness among island peoples was hat, like many other tropical races, hey wisely adapted their working lours to the climate. The hardest /ork was done in the cooler hours if the day, and many strenuous asks would be reserved for the ooler months of the year. Labour /as thus ruled by the sun and not, .s in Europe and America, by the lock.—J.K.S.

In order to study methods of im iroving work and organisation of ’iji Government Departments, rep esentatives of the London firm of iusiness consultants, Urwick Orr nd Partners, have arrived in the Jolony.

Mr. W. J. Drysdale is the new Commissioner of Inland Revenue n Fiji. He has been acting in the lost since Mr. R. B. Ackland re ired last year. Mr. Drysdale went o Fiji from Australia in 1948 as assistant Commissioner of Inland levenue.

Remember Sir Ernest Shackleton, famous Polar explorer? This adver tisement appeared in The Times in 1901: “Men wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete dark ness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.—Sir Ernest Shackle ton.” Union bosses of to-day may be surprised to know that he could have filled his complement ten times over.

At the end of 1953 the amount held in the Fiijan Development

Fund to the credit of Native Fijian copra producers was £321,154. The money comes from a deduction of £lO a ton from the price received for copra and can be be drawn by the contributors to finance develop ment or welfare schemes approved by the Fiji Development Fund Board.

H To carry out a study of the Fiji national income for the Fiji Gov ernment, Miss Carleen O’Loughlin, of the Australian National Uni versity’s Department of Economics, recently arrived in Suva.