NEW STRIKE IN FIJI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18040, 15 March 1922, Page 7

NEW STRIKE IN FIJI.

INDIAN LABOURERS IDLE.

PROTEST AT WAGES OFFER.

INDIAN DEPUTATION'S VIEW.

[from our own correspondent:.]

SUVA. Marcii 8. The great bulk of the Indian labour on the sugar plantations ceased work on February 25. Happily it is the slack season i on the sugar estates. The strike is due 11 to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company j haviug reduced wages to Is 6d. This has j been erroneously stattd as Is 6d a day. It is Is 6d for a " ;ask " and a task can be completed in from four to five hours, any common labourer can earn 18s a week without too much exertion. The ' outlook in Fiji is very bad. Many firms ■ and the Government are dismissing employees. When the members of the deputation ' appointed by the Government of India 1 were entertained recently by a largo gathering •>( Indians at Samabula, Mr. Veni katapathi Raju referred to labour condiI tions in the colony. "Wo know the pre'sent difficulties under which some Indians ' are labouring," he said. "I cannot ignore ' the recent action of the Colonial Sugar j Refining Company in reducing the wages from 2s 6d to Is 6d a day, knowing full well that many Indians are without resources to meet the high cost of living. I may be excused if I state that the company embarked upon a short-sighted and ruinous policy, which will necessarily bring untold misery on Indians and eventually necessitate the closing of the sugar industry. "Instead of applying themselves to the question of what is a fair price to be paid to the Indian labourer, which will enable the worker and his family to live in comfort and bring up children, they wanted to speculate what would be the lowest price for which they could buy ; Indian labour, without any reference to • whether what they offered was a living j wage or not, as understood in all civilised I countries. We cannot appeal to their I enlightened interest when they choose to I act purely on a commercial basis, without I any tinge of humanity and without reI membering how much profit, counting in | millions, was entirely due to Indian labour, and at what sacrifice they helped the company and the colony in developing the country—that is past history."