Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population, with appendices.
- Fiji. Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population.
- Date:
- 1896
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population, with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
426/442 (page 4)
![land. I do not for one moment say, Sir, that the Secretary of State is not giving this matter his careful con- sideration, but what I do say is this, that with all due respect to his opin- ion the opinion of the man on the spot which has been acquired by local experience is worth more than the experience that it is possible to obtain in the Colonial Office without local knowledge. I hope, Sir, that you will be good enough to transmit to the Secretary of State the whole of the debate on this question for his consideration. Now, Sir, there is one other point which I want to deal with, and that is in connection with the report of the Committee appointed recently by the Indian Government to inquire into the conditions con- trolhng Indian immigration. The very valuable report by the hon- ourable Mr. McNeill and Mr. Chim- man Lai, dealing with the con- ditions of Indian immigrants in British colonies has, as you know, Sir, just come to hand ; and I propose to refer the House to a few, of its para- graphs. I think I can safely say that the outstanding feature of that report can be summed up in one word, and that is colonisation. It says : Colonise your Indian immigrants and your troubles are over as far as immigration is concerned. That is how I read it, Sir. We are all aware, Sir, tl?>at unless we have an ample and full supply of what I may term cheap labour for this Colony, the Colony will run headlong into bankruptcy, because it is vital to the interests of this Colony that there should be an abundance of labour. It has been said,.Sir, that our labour supply is the most important question that we have to deal with. It is, however, so interwoven Vv'ith the land question that you cannot separate it. What do the Indian Commissioners say on the subject ? In Part II of their Report, at page 261, they say as follows : The settlement of free Indians on land in Fiji has been retarded by the fact that most of the land is owned by the Fijians, who practise a very inferior form of cultivation in an insignificant por- tion of the cultivatable land. The greater part of the land has been waste from time immemorial. To obtain a lease for even a short period much bargaining and the adoption of a circuitous pro- cedure have hitherto been necessary. The Acting Commissioner of Lands was good enough to sum- marise the facts regarding land settlement in the following note. And then the Commissioner of Lands has indicated all the facts as to the procedure when a man wants to lease ■even a small piece of land. The Report continues as follows on page 262 : Recently, however, the needless difficulty and expense of the present procedure was recognised and at the time of our visit [in September, 1913, I believe] revised regulations dealing with the grant of lands awaited only the sanction and approval of the Secretary of State. The needs of Indian settlers were considered, but existing customs regarding leases seem to have been given undue weight. The most important change is that negotiations for leases will be made solely through Government officials, and no land will be leased unless the native owners first hand it over to Government. This is a very great improvement as negotiations were often tedious and costly, tenures were insecure, and in some cases rents were unreasonably high. The presence of Indians,has raised the rental value of land in Fiji very greatly.' If only Fijian labour were available rents would necessarily be nominal. It is essential that the Indian, whose labour creates the Value of land, should have facilities for obtain- ing holdings from the very great area of waste land available at rents which reflect the pre=;ent economic Value and are not merely the effect of a State-aided monopoly. If I may pause for one moment. Sir, on thi; part of the report I should like to say that the regulations that are shortly to be brought into force will, it appears to me, still further militate against the leasing of .land. If by regulation the Government is going to say to the person who is recognised as the owner of the land. We will not allow you to lease any land except that which you have handed over to us, then the land is as far off from settlem3nt as ever. The only land the native will offer volm- tarily is the land of very little use. All lands already handed over by the resolutions of two Great Councils of Chiefs have been found to be of very little value. Later the same report at page 263 says :— In the first place the land is unsurveyed and the applicant after he gets a lease must employ and pay a licensed surveyor. He must in his appli- cation describe the unsurveyed land and have it valued b\- the local magistrate, who will communi- cate with the Lands Commissioner who will fix the rent and u]:)set price or premium from which the cost of issue of the lease and of the registration are to be deducted. These leases of native lands are apparently put up for sale wliether one or more persons apply for the land, and the sale purchaser employs the surveyor. (Here comes the point I wish to em- phasise) : It would obviously be much quicker and cheaper to have the whole blocks officially surveyed, sub- divided and assessed, apart from the much greater accuracy of both surveying and mapping. As I indicated earlier in my address, before this land question can be settled it is necessary that the land be surveyed and sub-divided. We find now that is in accordance with the views of the Indian Commissioners. The Commissioners say in effect the easy acquisition of land by the Indian is a sine qua non to the con- tinuance of Indian immigration. The final conclusion is definite and clear when the Commissioners say :— However, wdiat we wish definitely to recommend is that emigration to Fiji should be conditional on the creation of facilities for the occupation of land by Indian settlers on conditions such as we ]5ropose. We also think that lessees under existing leases should be protected from the risk of having to pay extortionate premia for the renewal of their leases on general conditions identical with those under which new settlers receive grants. There you are, Sir ; that is their final recommendation so far as Indian immigration goes. Unless you can colonise your immigrants, unless you can give them every](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24399401_0426.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
