Of Fiji’s Problems

Need For Wider Airing Of Fiji’s Problems

From a Suva Correspondent The many political problems of Fiji won’t be solved unless all the issues are continually there for discussion, but there is a feeling among many people in Fiji today that far too much is being done or discussed behind closed doors.

rHERE is unmistakable appre hension among thinking Fijians, specially the younger ones, that the aders are not talking enough to the sople. There is also apprehension mong people of all races that ambers of leaders are speaking with vo voices—one in public and one i private or for the benefit of small roups.

As a result, some people are not ire that the Government’s decision i hold the promised constitutional Iks in London—with representatives avelling there from Fiji—is a good ea.

The talks, they think, should be in iji, where people outside the narrow rcle of delegates could know what’s ling on and make their thoughts id wishes felt. This way changes >uld not be imposed from above.

"Lack of Knowledge"

It is the present lack of exact lowledge of real opinions and real ends that is so worrying in Fiji iw, and the situation was under led recently with the publication in he Fiji Times of a long series of ports on the land question •iginally published in the Indian nguage newspapers.

The Indian reports seemed to in cate that this question of land as being made a pretty live issue nong the Indian population (which :counts for almost half the popula m of Fiji) and that Fijian land vnership was being attacked at eetings of Indian farmers.

Anybody who has merely followed e occasional public statements ade by some Indian leaders in nglish could be forgiven for hav g thought that all was sweetness id light, but the recent addresses dicate that the situation is different.

As Fijian MLC Ravuama Vunivalu linted out after the Indian views ere given wider currency at second ing, it was strange that the two [dian MLC’s responsible for some the statements hadn’t made them

recently in the Legislative Council, where they could have been dis cussed.

The MLC’s, Mr. A. D. Patel and Mr. S. M. Goya, are two leaders of the loosely styled “Federation”, a body which first came to public notice in 1960 when there was serious trouble in the Fiji canefields which cost the Colony more than £2 million.

General burden of the recent Indian statements is that the Fijians have most of the land and are going to get more because Indian leases won’t be renewed after they expire; land is being taken from the Indians under the pretext of reserves and the Indians will be landless after independence (which “will surely come”); and the Indian population will have to stop squabbling among

itself and get organised if it is to beat the land problem.

The difficulty, of course, is that the Fijians regard their land as inviolate, and these kinds of rumblings are not going to make tempers any easier—especially when they are carried on behind scenes, What Fiji needs is a full and open airing of all the problems and all the thought-trends, so that attitudes are a matter of record not conjecture, Otherwise there is too much room for mischief-making.

Fiji's

First

Lady

Lady Jakeway, vivacious wife of Fiji's new Governor, Sir Derek Jakeway, says she is thrilled with Fiji. It has far exceeded her ex pectations, and as a keen gardener she is especially enchanted with Government House grounds, Suva, in which this photo graph was taken in February by Rob Wright.