Too Colourful

Pictures Of Fiji

Unhappy Effect of Royal Visit

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, Feb. 8.

SOME of the publicity given Fiji from the Royal visit does not present accurate picture. Some splash the “Idyllic South Sea Island” and there are people in Fiji who are a little dismayed at the oxotic, colourful picture of Fijian pageantry and carefree plenty that is being built up by films, news papers and magazines.

Nowhere is it emphasised that the two glittering days and nights of the Royal visit were something lifted high above the humdrum facts of everyday life. No visitor at Suva or Lautoka during the Royal Visit appears to have been told that in the fairly near future Fiji will have to make some very difficult de cisions. Overseas records of De cember 17-18, while giving a more or less faithful account of a gorge ous two days, create the illusion that here is a land with no worries, no problems and no apprehensions.

LONDON Daily Mirror gave a double-page spread of pictures under the headline, “South Sea

Island Magic.” They were excellent, but few of the Daily Mirror's 4,000,000 subscribers are likely to know that there is virtually no relation between the exotic pictures and everyday life in Fiji.

Many reports published in London unintentionally implied that Fiji is still practically an all-Fijian

country. In this respect there has been a good deal of journalistic mixing-up of Fiji and Tonga, “Queen and Duke Fly to the Blue Lagoon” stated a five-column Lon don headline. The story was about the visit to Lautoka, “scene of the British film, ‘The Blue Lagoon.’ ”

The film, of course, was made mainly

in a London studio, but many of the outdoor scenes were filmed in the Yasawa Group, well across the western sea from Lautoka. On De cember 18, flower-bedecked Lautoka really did look picturesque, but that is not the same thing as a Blue Lagoon setting.

Injudicious glamorising in the overseas press is one thing; but quite another is the attitude taken in a considerable number of Colonial Office statements, reviews and reports.

Sometimes Fiji gets no mention at all in general surveys, and at other times it only creeps into notice with a fleeting reference. The New Year Review by the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton)), for instance, noted in a few words that there had been a Royal visit to Fiji—but mentioned nothing else, largely because most of the statement was taken up by the uproar in Malaya, Kenya, Uganda and British Guiana, and by last year’s earthquake in Cyprus.

Here again it seems to be tacitly suggested that Fiji has nothing to worry about, and people may be for given for presuming that in the eyes of the Colonial Office anybody who is seriously concerned about certain overshadowing trends in Fiji to day is simply a nuisance, if not a downright troublemaker.

This rather links up with the criticism of occasional officials who work in Fiji for comparatively short periods and seem to be constantly (but inaudibly) muttering: “For goodness sake let’s keep everything juiet until I get out.” In some cases such criticism is unfair; but Dccasionally, in the post-war period, it has seemed well-deserved.

Last year, a PIM contributor wrote a sharply-worded note about i Government official who made carefully soothing—not to say fatu )us—replies to pertinent questions after he had given a lecture on Hji in London. This sort of thing s as exasperating as the fulsome naccuracies produced by transient visitors who make a superficial sur rey along well-beaten paths.

In yet other cases there is a luspicion of deliberate window- Iressing by writers whose status is ufficiently high to warrant their )eing quoted as authorities but yhose information is apparently wrong and whose deductions are inreliable.

In view of the care and atten lon lavished on the noisier units of he Colonial Empire, it may be wondered whether officialdom is not ►utting a premium on the stupidity if fanatical nationalism.

Fiji may be comparatively small; • may be remote from London; and, iecause it is not in a political erm e n t based on hysterical lationalism of one kind or another, t seems that it will continue to be verlooked unless something goes ump in the night, somewhere.

If this is the attitude in high

places, it is a mistake. A good many unpleasantnesses around about the Empire (including British Guiana) could have been headed off if the Colonial Office had properly faced trouble while it was still at the peaceful stage of political problems.

H Mile. Roberte Charon, daughter of Monsieur Robert Charon, Nor wegian Consul in French Oceania, and of Madame Charon, was married in France, on December 22, to Monsieur Jacques Lafleur, Senator of New Caledonia. The parents of the bride, at pre se n t touring Europe, are expected to return to Papeete later this year.

A Bank of NSW Review of the Fiji sugar industry shows that sugar represented 57 per cent, of export earnings in 1952, with copra provid ing 26 per cent, and gold and silver 12 per cent. Figures for 1953 were not analysed.

J Mr. M. Gray, LLB, has returned to Australia from Tarawa with his wife after resigning from Govern ment service in the G & EIC last November, and it is reported that he will join a law firm in Mel bourne. Mr. D. R. Freeguard, who succeeded Mr. Gray as Secretary to Government, G & EIC, has been appointed District Officer, Canton Island. Mr. I. Turbett now has been appointed Government Secretary.