QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4548, 9 April 1923, Page 4

QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

CONTRASTS. (By “Septimus.”) It is an unalterable law in the Kchenie of things that the degrees of happiness or misery in which people find themselves shall be due to contrast of one form or another. The sun shines, and we pine for shade. The sky is dliH and overcast, and we long for the sun. The wise man recognises the value of contrast,, and secs in every change a happy relief from monotony. After all, what is worse than a humdrum life—sleep, breakfast, the daily task, never-end-inr. And then home—the same home. The gateway does not move ; the wife (if you have one) smiles the same smile,, or frowns the same frown ; the tea waiting (one can guess what it will be). And "have you put the jug oul for the milk, John ?” No contrast in that. Not a bit. If you want contrast have a quarrel with the wife. It may break up the home—but you might go “dippy” if you didn't. That’s just the home side of it. Where is the contrast outside ? Is it in the billiard room, or the club? If no:, where ? I’ve hunted contrast in Nev/ Zealand—hunted in vain. Of course, we can’t all have the wanderlust, or roam where we will. Some of us must. So, I have wandered to Fiji. My pack is hung up in Suva —Suva, that is rapidly becoming a semiAsiatic town. It is filled with the odour of sun-warmed, oiled Fijians, Hindus and Chinamen, with a sprinkling of all nations thrown in. Tonight I wandered down All Nations Street—aptly named —and sauntered carelessly among the throng there, unheeded. I watched the Chinamen in their stores, always eager to sell; and the Hindu tailors, whose sewing machines never stop, not even oh Sunday. There were others, too, who never • work, yet live. As the hour grew late I heard good-byes in many languages,, samoce (pronounced sar•moorthy) being the only one that really seemed to convey any meaning. I stopped on. As the hours passed the street lost its population, but tlr'ough the windows I spied oil lamps that were still burning when “down the long and silent street the dawn, with sil ver-sandalled feet, crept like a frightened girl.” And voices within still penetrated the silence of the tropical night. At midnight, somewhere in the back of a .house, a phonograph churned out an Indian love song—a nasal, unlovely melody. I passed down towards the quay. There all was quiet, weirdly quiet and still, as only tropical nights can be. Cocoanut. palms made strange figures against the sky—and the Navua, which a few hours before was surrounded by banana boats, lav alongside the wharf. From her inside came the faint hum of an electr;? motor. Contrast—just all contrast. Five or six hundred yards away Fijians, really little altered since the arrival of the first, white man, slept as they slept centuries ago. The Fijian has not made haste % to adopt the white man’s clothing or habits. He is the savage of old restrained by modern laws. Take them away- and dress him in a palm sulu instead of the present cotton ones and he would be what he always was—a savage, possibly a somewhat loveable one, albeit, be once regarded white man a tip-top diet. This is contrast—contrast that makes one think. Four thousand whites control Fiji, but the Hindus are daily “digging it.’’ Sometime bombs won’t shift ’em—but the Home Government will tell you that is all rot. The Hindu toils for seven days and seven nights in every week —those who toil for themselves. They, too. are a contrast to the whites, who mainly toil only because they have to. So, you see, there are other lands than New Zealand—lands

full of contrasts. But we do not all love contrasts. The Hindu doesn't. He is satisfied to beat the same tattoo every night in the year., and to wear the clothes that his ancestors wore. For he is digging in. Fiji, he says to himself, will make us a nice land. By and bye wc will eliminate the contrast. In the meantime we will toil that, the land whereon we live may become ours. And because of this, penniless, indentured Indians have grown fat in the shaddow of Europeans They have been kind to the European and lent him money at large interest —digging in with the almighty dollar as well as the spade. Nursed by the Home Government, which never seems to realise what is happening uni.il it is too late to avoid trouble,

the coolie of yesterday to-day blocks the footpaths to Europeans. Yes, all things are matters of contrast. Todav Fiji is seemingly peaceful. Tomorrow—who knows.