Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 182, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1910 — FIJIAN COMMUNISM [ARTICLE]

FIJIAN COMMUNISM

NATIVEB OF THE ISLANDS HAVE ALL THINGS IN COMMON. Dr. Basil Wilson, on the Staff of Brlfc ish Government Physicians, Talks Interestingly of the People, Their Habits and Customs. Accounts of a primitive communism in actual present working are brought by Dr. Basil Wilson, who is on a visit to Montreal. Dr. Wilson comes direct from Fiji, where he has lived for the last seven years, and reports that the natives of those islands still have all things in common. “The land is held by the comrnuhity,” he told a representative of the Family Herald, “and each man has his little patch given him to work. Then, whether his crop is big or little, he draws his share out of the common produce. The chief gets a larger share than the other members of the tribe, but each has a right to his share, which is settled by tribal cuotom. “Nor i 3 this the only form of communism at work. Not all the land is held by the natives. They are able to sell and have sold land to white men aqd to natives of India, who reside in Fiji in large numbers. In such cases the land Is sold by the tribe and the proceeds of the sale are divided among the tribe as is the produce of their lands.” Dr. Wilson stated that the native population of the islands was about 120,000, while there are 35,000 Indians and four or live thousand whites. The Indians have come over from India under indenture to work the sugar plantations. They are indentured for five years and then are free to stay in the islands or return, as they wish. After spending five years as free men in Fiji they are entitled to a free passage back to India, but comparatively few avail themselves of it. They find life so much easier in Fiji that they prefer to stay. They go into gardening and small trading chiefly. Their success in trading has given rise to some feeling, against them on the part of the small white trader, but there is no "such problem as has arisen in South Africa in this regard. Dr. Wilson is a member of the farflung line of the British government service. He is one of a staff of government physicians who are charged with the care of the natives and the indentured Indians. They are also allowed to practise privately among the white and free Indian population. There are at present only two private physicians in Fiji; they live ,in Suva, the capital, where the white population is large. The period of service of the government physicians is Beven years and Dr. Wilson is now on his way home on a year’s furlough.