FIJIAN DEVELOPMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19834, 3 January 1928, Page 11

FIJIAN DEVELOPMENT.

BEEF-RAISING AND DAIRYING. EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT BOLNTY Beef-raising and dairying are growing industries in Fiji, according to the Hon. Henry Marks, M.L.C., Mayct of Suva, who arrived by the Niagara yesterday to spend a holiday in New Zeidaaih Mr. Marks said that in late jx Hereford beef cattle and Jersey an;' ! iiesian dairy herds had grown gruatly ir.. ,mber in Fiji, presenting a problem in f' io question of how bast to develop ami v :< f 'oit the primary products of the coul In making mention of the fact that hit.' ji ' o Fiji had largely imported, her dairy :;. duce from New Zealand, Mr. Marks v; f • phasined th* friendliness which the trop, cal island displayed toward the Dominion, in contrast with the antagonism fdt toward Australia, the protective tariffs of which militated against the successful marketing of some of the Fijian fruit crops, notably pineapple*!. Fiji was experiencing a splendid fru it season and hoped to develop considerably the fruit trade with New Zealand., Mr. Marks is interested, as the principal of a meat-canning industry, iin the Island beef trade. It was proposed not to export but merely to supply local requirements through the agency of the factory, for which he will engage a staff while in New Zealand. "We have a rainfall of I3oin. to 200 in. a year and no winter," Mr. Marksi said, with reference to dairying possibilities in Fiji. There was land there equal to New Zealand's best, and the virgin soils, bearing para and pasjDolum grasses, afforded succulent fcuder for the island herds. A stimulus to efficient dairying was being given oy the, Government through the provision of a bounty, Operative from January 1, 1928, of £7 i;'or every head of pedigree stock imported. It was a tribute to New Zealand that the importations were almost wholly from New Zealand. Naturally they might, lie expected to be much more numerous in the immediate future.