He Doesn’T Gloss Over

The Man Who Will Suggest A Policy for Fiji

Britain’S Faults

From a Special Correspondent in London • Towards the middle of this year (July-August) the long-delayed Commission of Inquiry, set up by the British Colonial Office to in vestigate the land and population problems of Fiji, will be under way in Fiji. It had preliminary meet ings in London in January. I have just had an interview with Sir Alan Burns, GCMG, who is chairman of the Commission of Inquiry. (With him are Professor A. T. Peacock and Mr. T. Y. Watson.) THE Fiji problem, of course, arises out of the rapid increase in the Indian and the native Fijian communities, seen in relation to the land and production resources of the Fiji archipelago.

“I think we shall find an answer to the problem,” Sir Alan told me; and I got an impression of energy and determination. Sir Alan Burns will be in Sydney in June, en route to New Zealand and Fiji.

Sir Alan has a wealth of experi ence, as a successful colonial ad ministrator, to guide him in a task that has much significance to Fiji, and to the South Pacific generally.

He was an Administrator in the Bahamas and the Leeward Islands: Governor in British Honduras and the Gold Coast of West Africa; and

an Assistant Under State for the Colonies, and Ao Governor of Nigeria. For nine yz he was Britain’s representative - UN Trusteeship Council, andb that capacity he visited many Tt Territories, including New Guu and Western Samoa.

In Defence of Colonialisms

It is interesting to note that S 3 World War 11, Sir Alan Burns < been a strong and efficient chanrr of “British Colonialism” ag£B the attacks of a misinformed Um States and a calculating Commiu Russia—the two potential enei? joining hands, on this subject, howling in chorus.

In his books, In Defences Colonies, Colonial Civil Servant i Colour Prejudice, he provides complete answer to that n«r prejudiced, uninstructed schook so-called thinkers who have fco only greed, exploitation and self, ness in the colonising achievemr of Great Britain in the last : years.

The books make easy readiii pleasantly written, forthrr sincere and balanced, for Sir k does not gloss over Britain’s fas and errors. One cannot escape s reflection that colonisation on i scale established in the British : pire is a colossal job, that only th who do nothing make no mists and that Britain’s accomplishmr in colonisation added enormously the general progress of mankim Readers in Fiji, who soon meet the Burns Mission, may be terested in extracts from Deft\ of Colonies: "Some of the most venomous attaclr colonialism come from the represents! of Indonesia, the Government of v tries, without great success, to bring I

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Sir Alan Burns, chairman of the Commission of Inquiry which will shortly visit Fiji.

Professor Alan Peacock, another memtud[?] the commission. He is 37.

1 the inhabitants of scattered islands esent its rule, and desires to acquire rritory of West New Guinea to which no reasonable claim,” is, of course, is not “colonial e is inclined to add to Sir s pertinent phrases the fol g from an editorial in London’s

Telegraph:

irruption (in Indonesia) is ant; the services (civil and try) are riddled with intrigue: conomic situation is bad; and nd order are unknown in parts ■va, Sumatra, the Celebes and Moluccas.” *e is another extract from Sir s book: respect of her colonial territories, aited Kingdom has an immense re ality, but this responsibility is to ople of those territories and not to df-appointed critics of colonialism, lould ignore the advice, sometimes eaning, and sometimes mischievous almost invariably ill-informed—of itionals of other countries who do are this responsibility.”

mbers of Burns Commission

spite of his busy life, Sir Alan iterests apart from officialdom, a tennis and cricket fan and, e English summer, he spends

much time at Lords. He broadcasts for the BBC and is the chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society’s Library Committee, in which capacity he is taking a special in terest in the Westall collection of original drawings and water-colours of Australia. (Westall was the official artist who accompanied Flinders on his pioneering excursions in Australia at the beginning of the last century.

His drawings and water colours are being reproduced with notes and comments, but the volume will not be ready until next year.) The members of the Commission and their terms of reference are: — SIR ALAN BURNS, GCMG, former British Colonial Governor, and (1947-56) Britain’s representative on Trusteeship Council, United Nations.

PROFESSOR A. T. PEACOCK, Professor of Economics at University of Edinburgh.

MR. T. Y. WATSON, CMG. a former Agri culture Officer in Uganda and Kenya, and now retired.

Secretary Op Commission: Mr. R. C.

G. Strick, formerly District Officer at Ra, Fiji.

They are “to examine the surveys of the Colony’s natural resources and population trends and, having regard to the need to ensure the maintenance of a good standard of living for all sections of the community, to recommend how the development of the Colony and its resources should proceed .