CONTENTED PACIFIC ISLANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 148, 26 June 1933, Page 6

CONTENTED PACIFIC ISLANDS.

FIJI AND TONGA TO-DAY. (Bv MARC T. GREENE.) The Fiji and Tonga groups are probably the most contented places in the Pacific at the present time, and it speaks volumes for British administration and protection that they are so. Moreover, the contrast in general conditions is sharp between these groups and other p.laces. In Tahiti the economic condition is the most serious ever known there, a,ud the amount of unemployment and resultant distress in American Hawaii has never been equalled in the history of the so-called "Paradise of the Pacific."

Tonga, with its political independence under British protection, and the Crown Colony of Fiji, are both well off and relatively prosperous. Tonga, indeed, is feeling the general stress along economic lines, but far less than other Pacific islands; but Fiji is probably feeling it as little as any place in the world. Accompanying this gratifying condition is the satisfaction with British rule which possesses the Fijians themselves and all the other classes of Fiji's mixed population, except, to some extent, the Indians. These, havinrr some time ago demanded a share in the government of the islands beyond all practicability or propriety, still refuse to send their allotted representation to the legislative Council. But beyond that they show no signs of discontent.

In these days, then, if you include all considerations, practical as well as romantic, it is Fiji that is distinctly the paradise of the Pacific. Here is a group of islands not a whit behind the loudly-vaunted Hawaii in beauty of scenery and not commercialised and exploited to the complete dissipation of every trace of the cxotic and romantic. Though its charm of life and climate may be something short of Tahiti's, yet the difference is but one of degree, and those amenities of civilisation whose lack is felt by the average tourist are more in evidence here than anywhere else in the South Seas. Moreover, the oost of living is amazingly low, a good deal less than half that in Hawaii, and, as < the exchange is now, less for British people than in Tahiti. There is not one thing in Hawaii that Fiji cannot provide, and at about a third 'of the cost. •

But apart from all that, perhaps the outstanding impression the visitor to the Fijis very soon gains is one of the loyalty of the native people to the British Crown. In these days of general discontent with colonial administrations all over the world, some of it justifiable and some merely artificially-stimulated unrest, it is deeply gratifying "to British people and to admirers of British methods to find here in the Fijis what may accurately be termed a model colony. For the ultimate tests by which a colonial administration must be measured are the degree of well-being it has brought to the original possessors of the soil and their attitude toward it. Those are the tests—those, and not the profit the coloniser has been able to make out of the place. By, those tests, then, England, through the medium of Crown Colony administration, has succeeded here in the large Fiji archipelago in a measure equalled in few if any of the colonics oc territories of other Powers. And she has succeeded largely because of one main reason —consideration for the native people in every regard. She has guarded their lands, protected their. interests, and preserved their racial integrity; and that while leaving them a large measure of autonomy and the refraining from interference with village and district government and tribal customs. In the Fijis England has well and truly kept her trust. For it is a triist. this guardianship over the Island peoples, whether Polynesian, Melancsian or Microncsian. It is a trust, and that the white man should never forget. Call it the white man's burden or what you will, it is lirst of all a trust, and as he betrays it will the white man certainly one day be judged. Greatly, then, is it to England's credit that she has not betrayed her trust in this group. And that she has not, the lovaltv and regard of the Fijians for England and all things that are English unmistakably attest. From protection of native lands to such less significant concernments as the consideration paid Fijian chiefs and leaders, England's dcfiliiig with the people of these islands i_s fair and highly creditable. You may see a certain Fijian of high caste, an office-holder under the Colonial Administration, in fact, and incidentally an Oxford graduate, as well as a gentleman by any standard, in either of the Suva clubs on any afternoon. You might see two or three, in fact, and each is dressed, according to the traditional custom, in the white lava-lava and is bare.footed, yet there is no thought of distinction of any kind. This is, T submit, a pleasing thing and highly commendable. More, it is one of the ways to the native heart, and thus an important method of keeping his good will and maintaining a state of amity between the native people and the administering power. Thus Fiji is to-day a credit to England, and the fact tliat the "depression" has affected the Islands far less than it has most of the world lends tranquillity and a largo measure of content to life there. Most of the Europeans of Fiji count themselves happily situated, and to the casual visitor their satisfaction seems well founded.