New Suva City

Some Remarkable Angles On Building

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, May 20.

OUVA is in line for a new three storeyed, £lOO,OOO Post Office, on the site of the present vener able relic, and a new Customs House (also £100,000) in Rodwell Road, on the city side of the pre sent wharf area.

The Council’s Finance Committee has approved “in principle”; but, although this phrase implies some delay, the urgent need is likely to hurry things along.

If building is a sign of prosperity, Suva is booming. Nevertheless, it is noted that nearly all the major jobs in recent years have been Government projects.

An exception is Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral, the first portion of which was opened in 1953. The Synod of the Diocese plans to start soon with the foundations of the nave and tower.

What was to have been Suva’s tallest building, the seven-storey South Seas Hotel, is still as it w T as when building ceased on September 14, 1953 (Suva’s Earthquake Day) and the trimmed-down plans now provide for only two or three storeys.

Because some tourists complain

that the charges of the present Suva hotels are sometimes too high for what is provided, local cynics suggest adopting the new Lord Howe Island scheme of taxing tourists one shilling a day so as to provide funds for improved accommodation. This would at least follow the Fiscal Re view Committee’s famous plan for making everybody pay for what they get.

Meanwhile, an enormous slice of Suva’s total building bill continues to be provided by Indian owners.

Houses, small shops and small blocks of flats have mushroomed in amazing numbers in the post-war years.

If somebody would work out the total area of Suva Peninsula land that has passed into Indian hands since the Second World War, the result would be astonishing.

Until the late 1930’5, Suva was still largely a “European” city. To day, European ratepayers are in a minority; and, what is almost equally significant, there is a small but increasing number of Suva Fijians who are quietly building small houses for themselves.

At intervals the claim is made, mostly by Europeans, that the Suva Fijian householders provide a glar ing example of taxation without representation. This point has been readily conceded by the present Mayor of Suva, Mr. D. M. N.

McFarlane, who has made no secret of his desire for Fijian representa tion in the City Council.

Beef cattle breeding is still be ing developed in Western Samoa.

Six Hereford stud bulls were sent from New Zealand to the Repatria tion Estates in April, and two Poll Hereford bulls will be sent shortly.