LIFE IN FIJI.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 9 March 1925, Page 4

LIFE IN FIJI.

SOME IMPRESSIONS. BANANA INDUSTRY. INDIANS AND NATIVES. By this morning’s train a settler of many vears standing and an erstwhile schoolmaster of Eltham, Mr. T. Thomas, left Hawera en route for Fiji, where Mrs. Thomas and he will spend the winter. I'hey have spent a previous season in the islands, and just before Mr. Thomas left lie gave a Star representative a few impressions and experiences of life in those isles. Naturally enough, the first question was the general conditions ruling and how the white man fares who decades to live there. The climate is such that the European resident does little actual work, especially as labour is so cheap and plentiful. “But,” said Mr. Thomas, “it is not the native who does the work. They are like big children, easily led and influenced, full of good nature and with few vices, but they do not. like work. The Indians, concerning whom so much political capital has been made, are the workers, provided they are treated right by their employers. In the banana plantations they wil] work all day long it the place and the management suits them.”

Mr. Thomas recorded an incident which illustrates that point. A plantation had flourished and progressed well, tlie Indian employees were doing good and apparently willing work; but there was a change of manager, and a change came about with the Indians. They would not stop, and apparently the new man did not know how to manage them. The difficulty is made none the lighter by the Government, because Fiji is stiff ruled from Downing Street, and the Government are afraid that firm or drastic measures may offend India-. All measures concerning the Indians are subject to this fear of giving offence to India. In consequence Indians get special treatment and pay no taxes, while on the native Fijians is j>ut a poll tax of- 30s a head. Against this, however, they get hospital treatment free and other services.

It is worth mention that many years ago Mr. Seddon offered’ tc> take the islands under the wing of New Zealand, an offeo, however, that was not acceptable re the British Government. Many residents consider it was a mistake, and believe they would be better iff under New Zealand rule, like some other island Dominions.'

The Indians, too, though good workers, are many of them bad characters. They are almost immoral and know little restraint in life. Murder and outrage are fairly common, and cases are reported often where their cleverness has enabled them to commit a murder and make it appear like suicide. Though the Indians are good workers —and this applies generally, and especially to dairy farm work —in the plantations they prefer to have what is called “task work.” That is to have a portion* of work, say digging, marked out to be done in a day. If they work hard and do it in less time they ha,ve the rest of the day to themselves.

As mentioned before, Indians make good' dairy farm workers —and there is quite a lot of dairy farming done on the islands. An employer thinks he has done well to* secure the Indian for his farm labourer. /

Of Chinese there, are not a great*, number, and most of those who have settled there have taken up storekeeping, and do not seem to- “cotton” to other forms of work. Banana cultivation is one of the staple industries, and until iust after the war it was flourishing." Huge quantities of bananas, up to perhaps sixty thousand bunches, were at one time exported monthly to Australia. Then, however, the Federal Government came into the picture ..with their tariff wall against Fiji, put up to protect the like industry started for the benefit of soldier settlers in Queensland. The scheme, however, failed. The tariff has continued, and the fruit export trade of Fiji has been practically ruined. Growers still export* to New Zealand, but there is only one boat, which is sufficient to carry all the requirements for this Dominion. It is a problem to get the fruit cut and packed in the interior just at the right time and in the condition to carry and reach the Auckland market just right. Consequently shipments are often spoilt. In the cultivation of the banana it will perhaps be of interest to know that each tree, a single stem bpars one bunch, and when this is taken the stem is cut down and several suckers come up, to be used for the next crop,* one being left and the others transplanted. A man can make a living on to fifty acres, for labour is cheap and the cyclones one hears of in the islands strike Fiji very rarely, the, average being estimated at once in about twenty years. There are several different kinds of bananas, the three best known being a small kind of very delicate flavour known as lady fingers, the huge cooking banana, a very large type which is chopped off square at one end, and those one sees in New Zealand. The first-named will not stand export. Other crops grown in Fiji, and from which "great returns are secured, are maize and Mauritius bean. Wonderful crops of maize are grown, and over, two crops cart be taken during the year. Large quantities of this are cut green and exported to Queensland. The bean is a large one, with a tough, rubberlike pod, very difficult to get off unless the worker has the knack.' The Indians dig and pod them for -a very small wage, about a penny per lb, putting the beans in the sun to dry, when they are then nodded fairly easily.

Mr. Thomas is firmly of opinion that it would have been much to the advantage of the islands had the offer of Mr. Seddon, made so many years ago, been accepted by the British, Government. The people generally are lazy and unprogressive, and the* continual dilatoriness of Downing Street, with their ever-present fear of Indig, has been a great deterrent to progress in the island colony.