Editorial. ..

THE DUMPING OF LAKSHMAN: lesson For All The Territories

HE dumping of Mr. Lakshman, by the Fiji Industrial Workers’ Con gress, has wide interest, and tie comfort, for the South Pacific rritories.

Jearly all the problems which the rritories face in the South Pacific t problems of development. If they mot make political and industrial igress, they will suffer retro ssion—they cannot stand still.

Tiey all are fertile, comparatively pty, capable of sustaining a large ►ulation. Unless they go forward, ag the resources with which ividence endowed them, they ely will attract the hungry people n overpopulated lands, not far iy. ►evelopment calls for a labour ;e. The Islanders, if they are to love as free people, must work, rthing that interferes with their lity and will to labour, is bad. ustralia and New Zealand, which essarily call the developmental i industrial pace in the Islands, cursed and handicapped, in their i development and progress, with irresponsible element in their ustrial organisation, which has i bequeathed to them by trade in freedom. Labour’s liberty has i abused to such an extent that \e countries are increasingly mlsed by senseless strikes which leve nothing—except to inflate ego of the Communist-inspired our czars who direct them. r e have been afraid that, as the Dds became industrialised, and le unions are formed to assume, the workers, the necessary job wage-bargaining, this strike jponsibility also might develop, incident in Fiji shows that, for moment, the unions are guided ome sense of responsibility.

ERE appear to be 11 trade unions in Fiji, representing about 10,000 workers, and they affiliated in the Fiji Industrial kers’ Congress. Until recently, President was Mr. D. B. fliman, an Indian, who is pre it also of the International Air (Nadi) Employees’ Union. One le most important of the affili unions is the Fiji Sugar In ry Employees’ Union. l recent months, there had be°n thy negotiations between the i union’s officials, and the nial Sugar Refining Co.’s man lent; and a complete agreement ; been reached covering wages working conditions, on afterwards, on July 15, the

mass of employees at the Company’s four mills, without any warning or consultation with or permission from their union officials, went on strike and remained out for three days, paralysing the important sugar in dustry.

The strike was angrily condemned by every class in Fiji; and the workers finally surrendered to the overwhelming weight of public opinion, and resurfied work.

Everyone agreed that the new in dustrial agreement was fair, in the circumstances.

The wages which the CSR Co. pays may seem small, compared with ruling rates in Australia, for example; but the rates the Co. can pay in Fiji are governed by the world price of sugar, and that in turn is governed by the highly com petitive selling prices—the result of either very cheap labour or a very high degree of mechanisation—which are quoted by other sugar-producing countries. Once the factor which controlled sugar production was “cheap coloured labour”; other factors are now more important.

Generally, whenever the world’s sugar price improves, the CSR Co. pays its Fiji workers better rates; and the trade union leaders there understand these conditions.

WITH the strike over, the officials of the sugar-workers union, and the Fiji Industrial Workers’

Congress, began a witch-hunt; and some affiliated unions took action.

In all cases, the chain of evidence led directly to Mr. Lakshman.

The Fiji Seamen’s Union, for example, held a mass meeting and demanded that Lakshman be re moved from office. This was significant. All ethnic groups apparently have a sense of respon sibility. Indians predominate in the sugar industry unions; but the men employed in the maritime unions (seamen and wharf workers and so forth) are mostly Fijians. These maritime employees work hard and respect industrial awards and agree ments—very different from their opposite numbers in certain other countries, where union greed and undependableness are steadily bring ing ruin upon all industries based on sea-transport.

On Sunday, August 25, a meeting of the Fiji Industrial Workers’

Congress was held at Lautoka; and Mr. Lakshman was fired.

A motion of no-confidence was moved by the Congress general

secretary a Fijian, seconded by an FH^ 1 0f *, he Seamen ’s Union, a Fijian, and supported by the Secretary of the Public Works Employees’ Union, an Indian, and others. It was carried by 11 votes m Jhe majority insisted that Laksh- S P ha T d encouraged and led the strike. Lakshman declared that he had not incited the strike—only managed” it. 9 D new President is Mr c P Bides!, Jun member of a well-known and respected family.

FIJI is far ahead of other Islands Territories in industrial organ oap. 'Z! n: f u nd dt is comforting to see that the organisation is in responsible hands. There is here an object lesson for Papua and New Guinea. There are more industrial empioyee 8 in P-NG than in Fiji: but, hitherto, they have been rather widely scattered, whereas the Fiji workers have been more concentrated around the sugar mills.

As P-NG industries, established and projected, are developed, the workers will be brought together into more closely-knit communities; and. sooner or later, despite the diffi culties of Pidgin, illiteracy and the primitive village background, the agitators will get to work upon them.

The more ignorant type of Labour politician, returning from conducted tours of the Territories, has squawked on a number of occasions about the urgent need for “Labour education and organisation” in Papua and New Guinea.

Trade union organisation, for collective bargaining, is a thing necessary and desirable, under to day’s conditions. Experienced and wise employers accept such a set-up.

But the whole thing becomes an industrial calamity and a national danger when wild men get loose among the trade unions, undermine the agreements and sow mutual distrust.

There is a lesson for both em ployers and employed, throughout the Islands, in the Fiji incident.

Follow the example of the Fiji workers (Fijians, Indians, Euro peans and Euronesians), and keep check not only upon greedy em ployers, but also upon irresponsible labour leaders.

A broadcast report from a Trade Union Congress in Australia, late in mid-August, that it was “considering the extension of trade unionism to New Guinea,” was not well received in Port Moresby.

The Administrator said that, while there was no law against the estab lishment of trade unions among Europeans, the Territory was at too early a stage of development to make trade union organisation advisable among natives.

He is quite right, of course; but one cannot imagine the political fanatics of Australia being dis couraged by that.