Why Don’t We Fuss About Fiji?

Hokitika Guardian, 12 October 1922, Page 4

Why Don’t We Fuss About Fiji?

(By Sir AA'illiaiii Beach Thomas). I FIJI. One of the gems of Greater Britain. ' that few people know for what it is, lies behind tho coral reef of Suva harbour. Fiji is to the South Pacific what Honolulu—that great American holiday place and novel centre—is to the North. Its few earnest votaries call it the Charing Cross of the South Pacific; and schemes are afoot to proeidc it with yet more lines of communication. In a climate that seemin'; to me during tho day that J spent there quite delicious .it grows everything good to eat that the tropics possess; bananas—which ripiai all the yealr round—sugaii, coconuts, pineapples—a greatly neglected crop—and a score of peculiar fruits such as papain ,which resembles a melon but grows on. a tree, and breadfruit. The culture is peculiarly interesting to anyone who has studied farming, in different parts of the world. It is compact of surprises. If you wish to grow seed for your stocks you do not trouble about seed; but simply chaff tho green stalks, scatter them over tho active soil; and each” fragment, well watered by tho warm rains, starts growing at once and is soon a heavy hay crop. AA’hat could be more surprising than to find that the most delicious fodder is the sensitive plant. Jt grows like a weed and is full of feeding, value. The land will support a bullock to the acre ; and if the Fijian beef that we eat on board ship is aln average example of the quality of the island's beef, there is none better in the world.

Why, I wonder, do we not make more fuss about Fiji and the other 250 odd isands about it? People in Fiji have’ just begun to ask themselves the same question. AA'hy do they not themselves make more fuss about their home? Is not Fiji as good a spot for 11 to British emigrant to settle in as any other part of Greater Britain? The Emigration Bill and the news of the money to he spent by England on emigrants have set Fijians thinking.

Oil the eve of my arrival there the council had formed a committee to deal with immigration ami to formulate a scheme. The Mayor of Suva begged me to let the British public knuiw what Fiji was doing in this respect. Did the name of Fiji ever enter the head ci’ any intending emigrant from Great Britain as a likely home? I doubt it; but why not? Of

the astonishing riches °f the Island thpre can he no question, and its sod ; and sun scorn L:> lend peculiar savour to its product;. ! never tasted banana; so rich and delicate ir. flavour as a hunch that were suspended from a lemon tree in ihc charming garden of m.v hosts. As good pineapples as were over grown in Honolulu flourish and cost a third loss.

It is a good cattle country. Neither * piii nts nor animals suffer from tropi-: cal maladies. Malaria is unknown, and in spite of wide mango marshes mosquitoes are not numerous. The islands, of course, have their troubles. Indian labour has been one. Occasional gales are another. The almost prohibitive tariff wa ll of A ostia lia i, another. The lain- are heavy. -But the climate is singidarlv free trom the objections usually associated with the word tropics. The truth is that the I’aeiiie tropics are wholly free from lhe worst excesses of the tropics in South America, in parts of Africa, even on Indian seas. White men and women enjoy the warmth, tempered almost with soft winds from the sen. Fiji is not New Zealand—our next stopping place—which has probably the most perfect climate in the-world. But it is a gem; and a little more shipping, a little cheaper freightage, a little more exploitation would reveal its exceptional natural wealth. As for its beauty that leaves one dumb. It 'is j»ss spectacular sthan Honolulu, hut the red roofs behind the coral-rimmed' harbour offer a peculiar welcome. They suggest Holland rather than the alien tropics; and, to come nearer home still, the huge playingfields in the middle (puta'in four Rugby football goal-posts!