Rarawai breaks a record

Fiji's Rarawai mill in April broke the safety-first record for sugar mills in the Southern Hemisphere. At 5 p.m. on April 7 its workers had clocked 3,000,000 man hours without a single lost-time accident. Rarawai is owned by South Pacific Sugar Mills, a subsidiary of the CSR.

One of the oldest mills in the South Pacific it began crushing on July 12, 1886. The nearby plantation which served the mill was originally owned by partners Spiers and Mclntosh, who were murdered in 1871 by Fijians from the middle of Viti Levu who grew cotton. They were buried on the site of the present Ba Post Office and Court House. The plantation was the scene later of the planters’ revolt against the Cakobau Government, which resulted in the deportation of De Courcey Ireland.