Ousing, Liquor And

[?]-soldiers Exonerated

Ther Problems

[?]Om Large In Fiji

iNE of Suva’s notorious tales — F the rumour-based fabrications which often gain a degree of dence through persistent repeti n by persons who have no regard [accuracy—was dealt with by the vernor (Sir Ronald Garvey) when iressing the Legislative Council the opening of the Budget session November.

Chis particular slander was that cUers returned from Malaya were, some extent at least, responsible the latest of the periodical out aks of night-prowling and phial trespass in the capital. ’he Governor said that of 27 con lions during the first nine months 1955 for prowling offences and ninal trespass, not one concerned returned soldier from Malaya. i handful of reprobates had lied the fair name of the Fijians i way which had chagrined them Sir Ronald continued. It was icult to believe that a people who I manned the Battalion which I earned a magnificient reputa i in Malaya could at the same e produce the miscreants who i penetrated the cases of criminal ipass and night prowling.

EFERRING to the drift to the towns, the Governor said that certain types of young Fijian ame an easy prey to bad com y. They took to strong drink developed evil ways of life, own housing conditions were bad mitigated against normal good aviour, and housing was also bad the villages, where innumerable Tied couples shared houses. With >e conditions in the villages, it not altogether surprising that ng men were attracted to town hoping that they would find er conditions. his comment by the Governor wers to some extent the easy taken by those people who ntain that the Fijians, in their i interests, should invariably be tent with submergence in the iges. Almpst everything militates inst the idea of such sub gence in the case of young Die, and particularly in the ! of the many hundreds of ng men whose ideas have been )adened” in one way or another long service overseas. (Govern it and Army spokesmen have at js implied that the assignment Malaya would be of inestimable cational and character-building

antage to young Fijians).

n top of this there is the un iable fact that a sizeable pro

portion of the Fijians who have moved from villages to towns have done so to secure better schooling for their children. And a pertinent argument in support of this domestic policy is that most Fijian parents believe that without good schooling their children will be left hopelessly behind by children of other races in the campaign for economic improvement.

IN the course of the statement quoted, the Governor men tioned the liquor problem, which is growing in Fiji as in many other Island territories.

Sooner or later the whole question will have to be faced. In the mean

time, for Europeans to say that non- Europeans must be “educated” in the proper use of alcohol is pure hypocrisy. There is not a European country to-day which can claim to have “educated” itself successfully in the proper use of alcohol. Even traditionally wine-drinking France has fallen by the wayside in the last decade or so.

There is possibly no more actual drunkenness in Suva than there is in cities of similar size in Australia or New Zealand, but the results are more deplorable in a city where wage-levels are comparatively low and the cost of all alcoholic liquor, including beer, is comparatively high. (Continued on Page 93)

t Mr. Pat Costello, one of Suva’s liost prominent and respected Itizens, told a PIM representative a Sydney in November that in his pinion, the liquor situation in Fiji I steadily deteriorating.

Mr. Costello, with long experience s an observer of the liquor trade n both sides of the fence, suggested coupon system in the case of per ms who hold liquor permits. Each aupon would bear the number of le permit to head-off any “trad ig” in coupons attached to permits.

Whatever difficulties this system ight involve —and some are obvious -it would at least enable the srmit-holder, in cold sobriety, to itimate in advance how many >upons he was likely to consume in fixed period, and how much his imily budget would be depleted. he recorded number of coupons sued to a permit-holder would also •ovide a general check on con niption in the permit groups.

Mi’. Costello conceded that with e steady increase in the number permit-holders, especially among ung Indians, the system would ean a great deal of paper-work for mebody—presumably the police.

Whether the coupon system would iply to Europeans (who do not me under the permit system) is lother point. It would doubtless supported by all those who con id that Europeans, being primarily

responsible for the liquor problem in non-European countries, should be put in the same box as other people as an alternative to the idea of total prohibition, which, whether feasible or not, crops up at times in some responsible quarters under the pressure of distressing events. if Mr. A. G. Mitchell, an Adminis trative Officer, arrived in Honiara, BSIP, from Sudan, on September 20.