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
Catalogue details

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.

    430/442 (page 8)
    ■8 Native Lands—Debate in Legii 17 different blocks, and 5,900 acres of the best land have been sub- divided into 1,444 allotments of which 1,044 have been taken up. They are generally in the vicinity of other Indian settlements, but we have been confronted by the difficulty of obtaining suitable lands, in districts now settled with Indians. If the honourable member could show us a suitable area of even 400 acres in the province of Nadroga or Ba, I should be very glad indeed. In Lautoka the Indians are spread over the whole place, and within a radius of 8 miles there is scarcely a patch of five acres of suitable land which the Indians have not taken up. The Govern- ment was compelled therefore to go beyond the zone of Indian settlements to obtain land. An experiment was tried in the province of Macuata and very suitable blocks of land were acquired four years ago and thrown open for settlement, but not a single lot has been taken up, Sir. The Indian does not like to go far from other Indian settlements. His mar- ket is on the large estate where tliere are a large number of Indians under indenture to buy the rice, dhall, vegetables and fruit grown by him. This experiment was tried 40 miles from Labasa and 15 miles from the nearest large estate, and although it has a water frontage, ttie Indian does not take to transport by canoes, and that has been a failure. I do not think, Sir, that the Indian is the one who suffers, through the diffi- culties incidental to the present system of land tenure. He seems to be one who is a master in the art of intrigue, and negotiations between him and the Fijians always result in his having the pick of the land and he becomes the lessee with great simplicity Not less than six hundred appli- cations pass through the Lands De- partment annually mostly by Indians for small areas of land, and that means that Indian settlement is going on at the rate of from 3,000 to 5,000 acres per year. The Indians seem to be getting the best of the land and I think that were the land controlled by the Government such free selection would not be allowed and they would not fare so well. I do not wish to touch upon the general policy of the the land question, of whether the right of the natives to refuse appli- cations should be questioned. I only wish to make these few remarks to indicate that there are other means of obtaining land for settlement. MR. MARKS.—Your Excellency, I have listened with very great interest to the remarks of the honourable the Commissioner of Lands, but I am afraid he hardly touches the subject matter of this motion. In dealing with the report o' the Commissioners from India he has explained very 'ive Council, Jiilv 6-7, -/Mb. clearly that^ Indian has been very well catered for, and tiiat the colonisa- tion scheme as suggc-ted is not far from being carried at, but he is not satisfied that it i- in the best in- terest of the natives md the Colony generally that the pr^^sent system of obtaining land from the native is a good one. We ha\ ' been told that we have 120,000 acre- jf land open for settlement, but we lu; e not been told where this land is, ;ind what it is adapted for. Now, T am perfectly satisfied in my own nund that a very large percentage of those 120,000 acres is valueless land A little good land out of that m:v be devoted to agriculture, but 1 am right in saying that a very large ]^^ n entage of that land is quite far a\\^;i\ from means of communication. That the Indium is able to get his five or -n acres of land is very easy to unvh - jand. I know and I think that I'ractically the majority of the genth i'ien here know, that even the Indian > obtain a suit- able block of land ; ■ .uires to resort to what may be ti-rmed analogi- cally bribery, and xii'^ expense that the Indian undergoi - to obtain his small piece of land i~. far more than people realise or imagine. Now, the honourable Mr. Scoti referred to the Wainibokasi lease <>• ome 6,000 odd acres, that was ai'i.; 'd for in 1907, and the Commissi'>i:.. i of Lands has also referred to thai i'lock. He has also stated that i\v: honourable Mr. Scott represents a v ri v large freehold area of land lying idie because he can- not get the rent ht requires. 1 am interested in man} th .usands of acres of freehold land in tin- Colony which, with very slight ■ ;Aeptions, is all under lease. Now, 'r^ad this land at Wainibokasi been ph. ed in the hands of the Government as trustees, and the native owners and the proposed tenant had not been able to agree, 1 have not the slightest doubt that the Commis- sioner of Lands and the proposed tenant would have been able to come to some arrangements by which that land would to-day have been occupied. The rental offered for the block of land in question was somewhere about £2,000 per annum. That was refused. This, and is still lying waste. That was eight years ago, and very few acres of that block have been leased. Had it been leased the natives would have received £1.5,000 or £16,000 in rents, and the Colony would have benefited very materially. I think that a strong case has been made out to show that that is a very good in- stance for appointing the Government as their trustees, and to show that the natives are not able to look after thair own interests. As regards the leasing of land, the Commissioner of Lands has referred to the fact that he has a very large area of land open for selection, and that it is a ver}^ timple matter for a man to go to his office to take up a