QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4585, 11 July 1923, Page 4

QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

DAIRYING IN FIJI. (By Septimus.) Some months ago I wrote an article under this heading which was the “ truth and nothing but the truth.” Unfortunately, however, the truth is seldom welcomed as it should be, and some would-be sellers of small sections, or large ones, in Fiji are wrathful and indignant. Of course, as men like Copernicus and others were never believed it could hardly be expected that one, Septimus, would would be. Moreover, it is alleged that the information which had been most, carefully gathered was false, and a small paper, which made a somewhat recent appearance in Suva, and has a mania for making personal attacks on all and sundry, has asked that the people of Fiji should take the matter up. Nothing has so far been taken up, nor is it likely to be, because a proper inquiry —iiot an official stereotyped affair — would reveal the fact that Septimus, who returned to Fiji because he liked the place,, had* written only facts. THE PITY OF IT. The pity of it is that European settlement propaganda, pumped into visitors from New Zealand who happened to visit Fiji ip the winter, has had its effect, and T am told by one of the big men who complains of mf article that 22 dairy farmers from New Zealand are shortly coming over to go in for dairy farming here in preference to New Zealand. Now, if those men were capitalists, with several thousand to invest, I would say, by all means encourage them. But the thought of the small farmer who come,s here to dairy farm on the strength of what he has been told by boosters almost makes me weep. Please don’t imagine, as some of the narrower-minded ones, do here, that because I say there never will be any great dairying industry here, that I am running Fiji down. On the contrary, Fiji is all right, and a good country for the investment of capital, provided it is handled by competent men. But dairying for .export will never pay. For home consumption, and provided the Government here is willing continually to tax butter from other countries, it will, of course, survive, though the price will never be low. LOOKING AHEAD. Does the small dairyman who is looking towards Fiji know what he will have .to face ? Is he judging on what he has been told, or on absolute facts that he has gathered him-, self? If he isn’t sure I would recommend him to hesitate before leaving New Zealand, which is a dairying, country. The whole fact of the matter is that all manual work here should be done by the Indians. The small map will never be able tc pay for the Indian labour. Will he, then, grub his land and work in the field from daylight, till dark as the Indians dp ? The small man in New Zealand often does his own work, but he does not have to toil ride by side with Indians. Will he be willing to do that ? There is another thing. Wnen he fails—some fail everywhere —will he have his passage back to New Zealand and enough to enable him to start , again ? If he hasn't what could he do here ? There is nothing here to do, and many are now seeking jobs—seeking in vain. In Now Zealand a man who fails at one thing can usually find something else to keep him going. That. Is not so here—and the European Settlement League will not guarantee passages back. So I again say to the small New Zealand dairy farmer, "Stay where you are.” INDISCREET. 1 One of the biggest men in Suva came to me to-day, and at first declared that I had made an unfair attack on the dairying of Fiji. His actual words at the finish of our conversation were : "I’ll admit you tohl the truth, but it was indiscreet.” In other words, he acknowledged that it was not right to encourage small dairy farmers to come to Fiji, but that it, should pot have been published. Truly, we live in a strange age. Children at school must be (taught to tell the truth—until they have grown up. After that it is indiscreet. A REPORT. I am advised that a report supported by goodness knows who is being sent to New Zealand for publication to rebut statements made by Septimus. The report is, of course, very discreet, and may be believed. As, however, it is being sent only at the instigation of the opposition paper, which is annoyed because Septimus attacked it for deliberately misrepresenting that the Indians in Fiji were "distressed and harassed,” too much notice need not be taken of it. The farmer, however,, who has been thinking of dairying in Fiji in a small way —without, say, several thousand pounds capital—will do well to weigh the articles of a New Zealander who was; absolutely unbiassed when writing, and who wished,, as well,as safeguarding small farmers ip his own country, to protect Fiji against itself. There is here a

TAILEVU DAIRY SCHEME which has cost a vast amount pi money—money that cannot possibly ever be repaid. And the report referred to above is in connection with that. It i,s vague. The capital expenditure is not given, and the whole tenor of it is “ there would seem to be no reason, etc.” J*nst a few facts from that report: • "A number of men gave up fairly lucrative positions and have since been working for nothing.” (2) “Newcomers having no knowledge of local conditions or languages would probably have made no better showing than the present tenants.” (3) “Fields have been shown me which cost £l5 per acre before they were in grass.” (4) " Compared with New Zealand, where in most districts the bush can oe felled, burned, and the land sown in grass and got ready for cattle without being stumped within twelve, conditions in Fiji in bush country in the wet zone are much more difficult and expensive.” (5) "The dairy cow deteriorates in this climate, and

will not produce stock as good as herself.” In short; the report says: Should so-and-so t|urn out so-and-so so-and-so may be ,so-and-so. Personally, and from my own observations, I think Fiji has made a mistake in taking up dairying at all, bielieying that, the price for butter will always be higher than if it was injpprted from New Zealand. THE REAL WANTS. Fiji is an ideal country, lor tropical products, and in the production of those, and secondary industries, khere is room for capital profitably {to be invested. But the planters here* have seldom known their own minds.. First they had cotton, and because, of a slump it was scrapped. Then sugar, and then a lull in that. Copra, and a lull in that. Now they are ‘gedting back to cotton, just because P£b.e price goes up for what is about equivalent to five minutes in "the sjcheme of things.” Wluat Fiji wants,/instead of small dairy farmers, is khe white man’s capital and Indian ’tabour. And they don’t know it, and never will know it because they an® unwilling to acknowledge that theiir old ideas are a failure.