Fiji-Indians Looking At The New Hebrides
p. 20 · Read in the full issue
• On June 6. a small party of leading Fiji-Indian business men left Nadi, Fiji, for New Hebrides, to make a private survey of business opportunities in that large archipelago.
THIS could be an event of economic and political signific ance. Fiji is ruled by the British Colonial Office, and is becoming a little overcrowded, in relation of racial needs and land availability.
The New Hebrides (an Anglo- French Condominium) has a great deal of unoccupied land, especially in the large, climatically-desirable islands of the Southern Hebrides.
The Fiji-Indians in the party in cluded Mr. Sathis Narain, managing director of the Narain Construction Co. Ltd., Mr. Udit Narain, archi tect; and Mr. Abdul Lateef, barrister and solicitor. They all are Fiji-born
men, typical of the young Indians who have been educated in Fiji and Australia, and all are well known and esteemed in the Fiji business world.
New Hebrides is a rich and spaci ous archipelago. It is capable of much additional settlement and de velopment; but it has lain for 60 years under the paralysis of the Condominium. French influence! there is now strong; and the atti-i tude of the French partner in the Condominium therefore would be an important factor in any scheme to encourage Fiji-Indian enterprise to go in there.