CONCERNING FIJI.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 47, 4 May 1911, Page 3

CONCERNING FIJI.

When, guided by lighthouses and modern seamarks, you enter the reef-encircled harbour of Suva, and see before you the town of the same name with its down-to-date wharfs, hotels, telephone wires, and orderly streets it is difficult to understand how the place, almost within the present generation, could have been the scene of cannibalistic orgies of the most ferocious kind. Yet lately men were living there who had escaped from the cannibals of the island while watching the heating of the ovens in which they were to be cooked, and who had seen the natives, preparing to feast) upon a baby. Fiji, of which Suva is the capital, is really nearer to New Zealand, from which it is about 1,100 miles north, than from Australia, although most people associate it with the latter, from whose nearest point the archipelago is about 1,400 miles east. There are 260 islands and inlets in the group, of which about one-third are inhabited by natives ; the whites being almost entirely confined to Viti Levu, or Big Fiji, which is about the stee of Wales, and to Vanua Levu, which is slightly smaller. Even yet there are many who regard Fiji as being more noted for cannibalism than for anything else, but the practice has been almost entirely stamped out sinee the islands came under British rule about 36 years ago. Nowadays the natives—such as are left of them because the race is dying down—have not only given up their evil habits but have become earnest Wesleyan Methodists almost to a man, or woman p thanks to the self-denying efforts of missionaries of that denomination who reached Fiji long ago while it still owned what was perhaps the worst reputation for barbarism of any group in the Pacific. Fiji is further singular in being the only colony of importance annexed to the Crown of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria. Time after time it was tendered to the Colonial Offlae by its native “Kings,” and the offer was only accepted in the end when it was recognised that, if it was not, the archipelago would probably bocome a resort of broken men and criminals,, who would become a nuisance to Australia and to New Zealand.

Since its annexation the colony has made enormous progress, and Suva is now the seat of Government from which the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific rules hifi far scattered charge. Fiji is, of course, a Crown Colony, but there is an extensive system of local Government in which the natives take an intelligent part, so that elderly men, who, as children, may have witnessed cannibal foasts, and may even have partaken of “long pig,” as human flesh is colloquially called in Polynesia, have become respected members of District Councils interested in matters of drainage and the like.

Situated as it is within a few degrees of the equator, Fiji cannot be described as a white man’s country, although the sea breezes to which it is exposed modify its heat, and prevent it from being actually unhealthy. The mean temperature for the year is 80deg., falling to 50 deg. at the higher levels, such as Nandarivatu, where there is a sanatorium 2,000 feet up amongst richly wooded hills.

Sugar has boen Fiji’s chief product since the archipelago became a British possession, and it now possesses one of the largest sugar factories in the world, equipped with machinery of the most modern type, most of which has been constructed in England. There are no railways except in connection with the sugar plantations, but communication is easily maintained by means of rivers of exceptional size considering the area of the islands. Thus the Rewa, on Viti Levu, is navigable by steamers of considerable tonnage for forty miles from its mouth. The volume of water in these streams is maintained by a very heavy rainfall ; there is a record that 9 feet of rain fell over one area in four monthß, and that in what is known locally as the dry season.

The rubber “boom 1 ' will assist Fiji, becauso indiarubber lias already done well, and several plantations of Para rubber trees were - laid out several years ago. Tea of the Indian variety has also proved successful, but Fiji tea is unlikely to reach the home market in quantity, as most of what has been produced has been easily sold in Australia. Coffee has been tried, and did well until it was spoilt by blight, and now its place has been taken by bananas, the cultivation of which has lately become a big industry in the archipelago. On ths whole, except for the risk of hurricanes which ooour at intervals of about five year 5,% there are less favourably situated colonies than Fiji in the Empire, a fact' testified to by the existence in the archipelago of various white communities numbering about 5,000 inhabitants in all.—-“ Weekly Telegraph."