The Johnson Plan

No Pigeon-Hole

The Johnson Plan For Fiji Land

SUVA’S Mr. W. G. (Tui) Johnson is going to make sure that a land plan for Fiji, which he presented to the Legislative Council in June last year, is not going to find a convenient resting place in some Government department pigeon-hole.

Mr. Johnson put a great deal of time and thought into the plan, whose object is to develop and secure the Fijians socially, politic ally and economically; and at the same time make land surplus to their requirements available to people who will put it to use.

Mr. Johnson raised the matter again during the budget debate in the Legislative Council last De cember, He told members he had heard support for it in various quarters. One comment was that it was “wholesome and positive.”

The Colonial Secretary, Mr.

A. F. R. Stoddart, in replying to the debate, said that the plan had been sent to London to the Secre

tary of State for the Colonies (Mr.

Alan Lennox-Boyd). Mr. Stoddart remarked that the state of Britain’s finances might affect consideration of the plan. (Mr. Johnson’s plan was that all Fiji land should be taken over by an Authority and re distributed to individual Fijians at a cost of £8 to £l2 million and the surplus to be leased to non-Fijians).

Mr. Johnson envisaged an orderly changeover from the Fijian com munal system to an individualistic basis, and most people believe this desirable and necessary in view of the economic conditions by which the Fijian people are surrounded.

Their communal structure, suited as it was to times now long past, is probably the greatest danger to the survival of the Fijians in their own country. The communal system ties up Fijian land. It denies land to many who would use it, and it preserves land in the hands of many who will do little or nothing with it.

The greatest obstacle to the kind of Fijian progress in view is the Fijians themselves, the bulk of whom cling tenaciously to the old way of life.

The vision of Fijian families securely established on areas of

land which, to all intents and pur poses they could call their own (and not clan land) and from which they could produce enough foodstuffs for their own requirements and a surplus for sale, is something which must appeal. tA native of Susu Island, in the Solomons group, Dinny Susu, who many years ago was indentured to work on the canefields at Bunda berg, died early this year at Rocky Point, Queensland, at the age of 110.

Dinny was employed by Mr. Sam Johnstone, who pioneered the first sugar mill at Mossman, in 1894.

Dinny had lately been living with other Islanders at Rocky Point. t Seven Sisters of Mercy from All Hallows Convent, Brisbane, were presented with their Mission Crosses at a ceremony conducted by the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Romolo Carboni, of Sydney, at St.

Stephens Cathedral on January 29.

Later they will go to work among the natives of the Sepik River, New Guinea. They will be the first Sisters to work in this inland area, and will be under the supervision of Bishop Arkfeld, of Wewak—the “Flying Bishop.”