PUNJABI MONEY LENDERS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 May 1923, Page 4

PUNJABI MONEY LENDERS

THREE HUXTIREJ) I’M! (. EXT. SI : VA, April I". Fiji has in the past suite it'd rather severely from 11 it* incubus of keen tra tiers whoso idea id' returns was', to put it mildly, very liberal. The Punjabi is a very keen money getter, who puts the wily Chinese quite in the shade as a usurer. Investigations show that they lend money to Indians, usually either Hindoos or Aladrassis, at the rate of As in the £ for one month. A great deal of money-lending business is carried on among the Indian community. and usury is a (omnmn practice. Yet it is very seldom that any complain.

The reason for this can he under ■stood when one realises the use tf

which the money is put. Probably nowhere else is such shrewd financial dealing carried on. Here is a sample, and when one reads one feels a sort of admiration for the borrowers. The men who thus make money bv borrowing at such exorbitant rates of interest are for the most part Indians who came to the colony as coolies. They are generally quite uneducated, and have liothing to rely on but a native shrewdness which is a factor which must be taken into consideration when judging the whole political situation concerning the gradual but, significant growing power of the Asiatic in the Pacific. An Indian borrows sufficient money to put up a deposit on a house which he wishes to buy in, say, Suva. It is generally honeycombed ■ with “rooms,” which find tenants readily at IDs per month. Tenants at present are very numerous since the fire which practically blotted out Gumming or All Nations street. As a

case in point, an Indian bought a tenroomed house (iron) and paid only £l5O for it, as it was on long leasehold. He borrowed £SO to pay a deposit, at Is in the £ per month to start with. He rented the rooms at 10s per month, bringing in £5 per month and £2 Is off the principal. As a result ho soon had the house free of loan and interest and started out as a capitalist, and is now doing well, after having started with nothing but a little bit of native shrewdness. Per-

haps these remarks will make the whites in the Pacific sit up and in some small measure realise that the Indian coolie in Fiji is a power which must some day be reckoned with."