FIJIAN TENSIONS DESCRIBED BY GEOGRAPHY LECTURER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29459, 10 March 1961, Page 26

FIJIAN TENSIONS DESCRIBED BY GEOGRAPHY LECTURER

The 1960 Burns report on Fiji was one of the most significant documents ever published on the territory, or on any other colony, but latest news suggested that very few of the more important recommendations of the report would be carried out, Dr. R. F. Watters, lecturer in geography at the Victoria University of Wellington, told the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Geographical Society. If this were so. things would grow worse than they were already, he said.

Dr Watters recently spent two summers in Fiji studying village life in both Fijian and Indian communities.

The main difficulties he listed as a precarious economy. the cleavage of culture. the rapid population in-

crease, the low productivity of the natives’ Fijian land, the slow rate at which the Fijian culture was changing, and the rising tide of nationalism. One of the worst features was the racial tension between the Indians and native Fijians. This was not immediately visible to the tourist at Suva, but there was a cold hatred between the two races and often a hot hatredThe Indians regarded their culture as superior to that of the Fijians, and looked down on them. while the Fijians resented the presence of the Indians and were very jealous of the “paramount position” in the islands which had been guaranteed them in the Deed of Cession and subsequent legislation. The Indians clung to a declaration made by a for-

mer British Government that their rights were to be in no way inferior to those of other races. The Indians, with 49 per cent, of the population as against the Fijians’ 41 per cent., produced twice as great a proportion of the national income, including both exported and homeconsumed goods. as the Fijians. This was although 84 per cent, of the land was reserved to the Fijians under the Deed of Cession. and that under the Native Land Trust Bill much Fijian land now leased to Indians was being taken back into reserve for the Fijians as the leases expired. Land hun-. ger was one of the Indians’ main grievances. The more rapid natural increase of Indians than Fijians indicated that friction would

probably grow more acute as the years went by, if nothing was done to rectify the position. The Native Land Trust Bill was insulating the Fijians from Indian competition. when it was necessary that the Fijians should give up many of their old ways of life and enter into a more competitive commercial existence, said Dr. Watters. It was a tragedy that the pleasant communal way of life which the Fijians treasured should have to be criticised, but the situation compelled it. At the same time, the Indians also needed to revise their thinking in many ways. Many of them could think only of sugar cane and antagonism to the Colonial Sugar Refinery Company. Agriculture by both Fijians! and Indians needed to be broader-based and to take in much more of the land, which was only being farmed to the extent of 9 per cent, of the territory compared with an estimated potential of 62 per cent.