Fiji Japanese

There Might Have Been Fiji Japanese

• Probably few people in Fiji today know that there was once an experiment by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company to introduce Japanese labour into the big Fiji sugar industry. It failed because of disease.

From J. P. Shortall, in Suva The experiment was recalled in Suva in September by Mr.

J. C. Potts, Principal Manager in Fiji for the CSR, when giving an address to the Fiji Society on the history of the sugar in dustry in the Colony.

MR. POTTS said, “On April 25, 1894, there arrived 305 Jap anese engaged on better terms than Indian migrants.

“Distribution was 50 Rewa, 50 Ba, and the balance to Labasa. Although housed and fed to the Japanese Government requirements, they ex perienced much sickness and mortality, deaths in Fiji totalling 87, mainly from true beriberi.

“The remainder were repatriated, a further 38 dying on the return voyage. Beriberi caused enormous mortality in the Japanese Navy until conquered by changes in diet.

Many Japanese settled in Hawaii, and this no doubt prompted the ex periment.”

Worked in Hawaii

Had the experiment Mr. Potts spoke of been a success, as it may have been had it been delayed a few years, when the cause of beri beri was better known, the history of Fiji might well have developed along different lines.

If the history of Hawaii, and the history of those few Japanese who were resident in Fiji in pre-World War II days is any guide, there would certainly have been a blend ing of the races and an avoidance of some of Fiji’s present problems.

There may be those who firmly oppose such blending—but none can deny that Hawaii, with a compar able land mass and population has developed into a prosperous and

peaceful community.

In his contribution to Fiji’s history (the address will eventually be printed by the Society) Mr.

Potts also traced the stories of 34 separate enterprises involved in the sugar industry in the Colony since Dr. Isaac Mills Brower, a former United States Naval surgeon, and Mr. Robert Sherston Swanston, originally of India, established the first mill at Wakaya Island, in 1862.

David Whippy, of Wakaya, was the next in the field in that same year. He was followed by W. H. O.

Brewer and P. Joske, in 1872, at Suva, their mill being close to the

site of Morris Hedstrom & (■ pany’s present store.

In the following year Brewem Joske established another miij Suva near Whan Construction 0 pany’s present establishment, came J. C. Smith & Co., at H qaqa, Ovalau Island, in 1874,, a second mill at Tole on the I River, in 1876.

These enterprises preceded i CSR, which was next to enteir field at Nausori, in 1881.

Referring to the CSR Nausorr which will be finally closed o at the end of the present s season, Mr. Potts said that uj the end of last season this had crushed 7,627,017 tons of since its opening on July 17, : He also noted that this mill vided the first public electric lit ing system to appear in Fiji.