LIFE IN FIJI

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 31, 18 January 1933, Page 10

LIFE IN FIJI

CIVIL SERVANTS’ ELYSIUM IDEAL HOLIDAY RESORT. THE PREDOMINATING INDIAN Fiji is the civil servant's Isle of the Blest, for there have been no wage cuts there; and it is interesting to record that one of the chief among the civil servants living in that elysium is Mr. J. Russell, the Director of Education, who is an old boy of the Napier High School, and who succeeded Mr. J. Caughley, ex-Director of Education in New Zealand.

Those facts were mentioned in an interesting interview given to the “Tribune” to-day by Mr. D. J. McCormick, the recently-appointed headmaster of Hastings Central School, and for eight years headmaster of Suva I Boys’ Grammar School; which school, < by the way, and as photographs show, is a truly noble looking building perhaps twice as large as Hastings’ High School, and set in beautiful surroundings of palms and other tropical vegetation. Life in Fiji, said Mr. McCormick, is very agreeable, and Suva itself has all the social and commercial amenities that exist in any countrytown in New Zealand. One makes one’s own fun, and there is plenty to be made. For instance, some outdoor | games such as tennis and bowls are | played all the year round, and there is delightful yachting to be had on Suva’s beautiful land-locked harbour. Mr. McCormick enthusiastically commended Fiji to the notice of those who are seeking a pleasant place in which , to spend a winter holideg - . It is only two and a half days’ sail fjom Auckland, and in winter the climate is ] beautifully warm and healthy. In the , summer, however, the unaeclimatised visitor finds the humidity rather op- i pressive. The annual raififall in Suva, 1 which is in the wet zone, is 120 inches. ' but on the "other side of the island’ it is just exactly half as much. “People . have the notion that Fiji is quite remote,” said Mr McCormick, “but that ( is not so at all. When I came back , to Auckland our ship left at five o’clock on a Saturday evening, and we were in Auckland just after daybreak on the following Tuesday. Suva is an i ideal place for a winter holiday, and I am sure that if New Zealand people j could realise what a delightful place it 1 is, they would go there in hundreds. ' And I may mention that there is no ' malaria there.” i DISTINGUISHED NATIVES. There are six hotels in Suva, including the quite famous Grand Pacatic; there are two social clubs for men; and two talking-picture theatres (it is only within the last twelve months that Suva has become acquainted with talkies). Tennis, bowls, cricket, and golf are popular games, and both natives and Europeans play Rugby and Soccer football and hockey. The present prosperity of the white community in Suva may be gauged by rhe fact that the members of one of the social clubs —the Defence Club —recently spent £2OOO ou improvements alone. The native population of full-blooded Fijians is 93.000, and there are only 3500 half-castes. It is amazing that the population of Indians is already 76,000, and as the birth-rate is very high, it seems inevitable, says Mr McCormick, that ultimately the Indian population will dominate the Fijian. The Indians and the Fijians, however, live in peaceful relationships with one another, but there has been no intermarrying. “I do not know of a single instance of marriage between Indian and Fijian,” said Mr McCormick. The white population of the island is 4000, and 1500 of that number live in Suva. The Suva Grammar School, of which Mr McCormick was headmaster, is , open only to pure-blooded European boys, and there is another grammar school for European girls. A number of native Fijians, however, have been educated in New Zealand, notably at Wanganui College and Wanganui Technical College. One Fijian who was 1 at the technical college is now a medical student at Otago University; and a chieftain named Rotu Sukuna, after going to Wanganui College, proceeded to Oxford University, and later became a barrister of the Inns of Court. , He is now a district commissioner in Fiji, said Mr McCormick, and is a i most polished and cultured gentleman. , THE INDIAN TAXI-MAN. The education of the Fijian native is mainly in the care of the Methodist , and Roman Catholic missions. Under a tacit agreement of the sort that usually exists in mission fields, the other denominations do not trespass on that particular sphere of the Methodists’ and Roman Catholics’ activities, which are applied to the Indians as well as to the Fijians. The missions are assisted by grants-in-aid from the Fijian Government. In Suva there are small schools also for Chinese and Solomon Islanders, which are under the control of the Anglican Mission, and the Presbyterians and Seventh Day Adventists also have their special mission zones in the island. Mr McCormick was one of twenty New Zealanders who went to Fiji under a co-operative education scheme, and those twenty teachers were appointed to three different schools —the Suva Boys’ Grammar School, the Suva Girls’ Grammar School, and the Levuka Primary School. Besides those schools there are several provincial schools at which native children attend. Mentioning that all household servants are Fijian or Indian men, Mr McCormick mentioned also the curious fact that all the taxi-drivers are Indians. The Fijians, however, like the Indians, had readily adapted them- i selves to the trades and sometimes to professional callings, and made good i clerks and shop assistants. COMPARATIVE PROSPERITY. Speaking of economic conditions, Mr McCormick said that the 1932 sugar crop in Fiji had been a record, and the islands were prosperous and happy in spite of some agitation among the Indian population. The crop that was most affected was copra, for which there was at present only a poor market. Rubber was at one time grown there, but as it cost sevenpenee per lb. ; to produce, and brought only threenence on tbe market, the plantations , had been I’handorel. Pi"enp»le nbo was at one tune a paying product, but .

Fiji could not stand up to the compf. tition of Hawaii aud the Straits Settlements. Banana growers, howevej, were doing fairly well, especially simj* Australia, under the quota system, agreed upon at Otttfwa, had begun admitting Fijian fruit again.

After speaking of the government qf the Islands, and saying that the ciyl servants are mostly English with smaller proportions of Australians ail’d Fijians, Mr .McCormick went on to refer to some interesting instances of the amazing speed of growth that soiiio tropical plants have. A Fijian variety of the solanus, he said, having panicles of a purple colour, and resembling the potato flower, was a w ell known creeper in the islands, and it hnbituaL ly grew at the rate of an eighth of an inch an hour. Weeping fig trees planted by Mr McCormick eight years ago, when he arrived at Suva are now fifty feet high; and there is in th'e islands a vine known as “a mile a minute,” whicli spreads with aninz'ug rapidity through the plantations, and which, if the planter is neglectful, will overgrow palms and trees and smother them beneath it. Mr McCormick concluded by mentioning a fact which somehow gave ii* a feeling of self-satisfaction. In Suva, he said, there is only one I’ sparer- 1 -- the “Fiji Times and Herald.” ft is i n cight-page paper and costs threes pence.