iva's Working Classes May

Ent Warning About

[?] Prices And Scarcity

iva's Working Classes May Demand Higher Wages

From a Special Correspondent

SUVA, June 1. is time that High Authority realised that the low-income le in this City of Suva —and are the great majority—are being adequately fed. This is direct result of the facts that, commoner types of food —esilly proteins—have increased in while wages have not moved 11, or very little, is desirable that men doing y work should have a really nu re diet. Under present condi ; they cannot afford it. Tak- Public Works Department staff standard, the average wage of -skilled men is £5/4/6, and of filed £3/4/2. The average is nd £4/10/nts have gone up cruelly. A •ied man on a labourer’s wage

frequently pays £1 for a room. No matter how economically he buys, he cannot provide food of quality on the £3 or £4 per week that is left.

In the markets these days a small bundle of dalo costs 5/-, and the fishermen ask 5/- to 6/- for a fish of moderate size. One part-Euro pean man told me that he bought dalo for his mother because that was the food she preferred; but that for himself he bought Euro pean potatoes—brought in from New Zealand to sell at ninepence per pound, and therefore cheaper.

AND that is the aspect of this matter of food and wages which does most urgently call for Governmental attention. There is said to be black-market racket eering in indigenous foodstuffs. It

is scandalous that the industrial classes in a rich and fertile country like Fiji should be forced to pay such high rates for common food — prices so high that it is cheaper to buy overseas potatoes.

The coastal flats and river valleys of this country should be able to provide food in abundance for ten times this population.

Employers here protest strongly at the idea of a gen eral wage rise. They cannot have it both ways.

If they cannot induce the Gov ernment to take action to reduce food prices, wages will have to rise.

The production per capita may be low. as employers say: but what can you expect of manual workers who try to live and work on bread and tea for breakfast, bread with some little flavouring at noon, and a of vegetables, with a very little fish or meat, in the evening.

I noticed that Walu Bay workers buy, from a travelling van, for one shilling, a small portion of curry and rice, but there is very little meat or protein in it. Dr. G. Hemming, who is in charge of John Bayly’s Health Clinic at Walu Bay, has commented upon the low nutritive value of most of the food available to these people.

I have spent some time among the working people now, and I can

assure you that discontent with the position they are in is rife, and in creasing. The authorities would be wise to deal with the situation with out delay.

IT is not a matter of raising wages, to buy the restricted quantities of food—that will only increase the demand and raise the prices higher. It is a matter of (a) find ing out why insufficient food is being produced; (b) to what ex tent prices are being affected by

market-rigging, and (c) wl

should be done to quickly and su stantially increase food prod) tion.

It probably will be found thal major cause of this very unsat factory position is the failure! the people to properly use the lan and that this failure in turn] directly linked with the unava ability of suitable land.

From my own observations,! would say that the position is grd ing worse every week.