Pssst! The Reds Read It, Anyway

Last June (p. 19), we published this picture of Fiji’s Governor, Sir Derek Jakeway, and Lady Jakeway being carried ashore on a seat of honour at Lomaloma in Fiji’s Lau Group.

The caption to the picture was headed, “Pssst! Don’t Tell The Russians,” because, we said, “last time we published a picture like this, the Russians kicked up a fuss in the United Nations because, they claimed, carrying people lowers the dignity of the carriers.”

Despite our plea for secrecy, it now appears that the Russians got hold of the June PIM themselves, for at a meeting of the United Nations Special Committee on Colonialism in New York in November, the Russian delegate, Mr. Fotin, quoted from page 44 of that issue in an effort to prove that he couldn’t believe the Fijians had "agreed to remain under colonial domination.”

The passage Mr. Fotin quoted was: “Australian corporations own and operate at least 70 per cent, of Fiji’s trade and industry. Australia, annually, sells millions of pounds worth of goods and service to Fiji and buys virtually nothing from it.”

PIM, of course, is not the only source of information that the Russians quote in support of their contention that the British, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans are wicked colonial oppressors.

New Zealand’s Minister of Island Territories, Mr. J. R. Hanan, complained in the NZ Parliament in November that the Communists in the United Nations had picked up arguments on the Cook Islands to use against New Zealand that had been advanced by NZ Labour Party speakers during the parliament’s debate on the Cook Islands Constitution Bill.