Fiji-Indians Now 49.8 P.C.
p. 67 · Read in the full issue
Of Fiji’S Population
Fiji’s population at the end of June was about 434,000 with the Indians numbering 216,000, or 49.8 per cent. The indigenous group, the Fijians, were estimated at 180,000, or 41.5 per cent., and “others” at 38,000, or 8.7 per cent.
The last official census in the Colony was taken in 1956, and this showed that the population then was 345,000, made up of 169,000 Indians, 148,000 Fijians and 28,000 “others”.
The major immigrant race, the Indians, overtook the indigenous people in numbers in 1946, and since then have gradually increased the lead. But only once, according to official figures, have Indians exceeded 50 per cent, of the population. This was in 1959, when they were estimated to number 50.1 per cent, of the population.
Since then the Indian percentage of the population has fluctuated between 49.4 and 49.8 per cent. The last time the indigenous people totalled more than half the Colony’s population, according to census figures, was in 1921, when the percentage was 53.7.