THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [January i, 1889. 
PLANTING IN FIJI: 
A FORMER CEYLON PLANTER (" A. J. S.") 
ON FIJI : 
8UGA.lt — COFFEE-— FRUIT — TEA — CARDAMOMS — LABOUR I 
A CONSOLIDATED ORDINANCE WANTED IN FIJI — 
SIR J. B. THURSTON, A GOOD GOVERNOR — 
THE " T. A." 
Fiji, 21st Nov. 1888. 
Dear Sir, -It 's now some time since I last 
addressed you, and many changes have taken place 
in the Government here, but I cannot say that the 
planters have much benefited during the time. 
The planting interest is at as low an ebb now as 
it was some years ago ; in fact, I may say it is 
worse, as many men have left the group and hardly 
any new plantations have started, if I leave out 
one or two exceptional cases where wealthy Com- 
panies have started sugar. I will first of all start 
off with the Sugar industry which takes prominence, 
not only on account of the large sums of money 
which have been embarked in the industry, but 
also on account of the cultivated acreage. Well, 
sugar most certainly has not turned out the Eldo- 
rado expected. .When the Sugar Conference was 
sitting in England great things were talked of : 
prices will go up, the bounties will be knocked on 
the head, &a. Instead of this, prices are still low, 
and I very much doubt whether any sugar estate 
has as yet paid. Oue Company long ago entirely 
suspended operations on the Navua, after having 
spent a great deal of capital. Three others, in 
different parts, have been in liquidation, and 
have been taken over. Two or three small 
Companies and private planters have shut up 
altogether. The great Company, of course, is the 
well-known C. S. R. Co. of Sydney, who not only 
have large extents under cane, but have most of 
the planters growing cane for them. Whether their 
operations have paid, or would pay, if they had 
not a refinery to send their coarse sugar to, I don't 
know. Sometime ago they got out new machinery 
to add on to their already immense mill on the 
Rewa. This was not erected and was re-shipped 
to the Colonies after having lain idle a considerable 
time. 
Three months ago I took a trip and visited 
the Bau district where the Company have started a 
large mill and have a lot of cane which they 
intend irrigating, as the climate is a dry one. For 
this purpose a practical man has been engaged, 
who formerly did similar work at Honolulu. During 
my visit the works were in active progress. I 
saw the dams which had been made and the 
drains and canals being cut to bring the 
water from different creeks some distance off. 
Water was also pumped up from the river to treat 
the cane along the banks. The works will naturally 
cost a deal of money, but will not be nearly so 
expensive as I thought they would be, before I 
paid the place a visit. Should the irrigation scheme 
turn out a success, I am inolined to think that the 
dry parts of Fiji will give better and more paying 
crops than the wet Rewa and Navua where sugar 
has, up to the present, been mostly tried. The 
planters on the Rewa, who are planting for the 
mill, are getting more per ton this, than they did 
la i, year. It is to be hoped they will be able to 
make it pay as they have, for a long time past, 
most of them, had hard and anxious work with 
very little or no returns. 
©dffee] as I predicted a long time ago,- has turned 
out a lailure. Fiji cannot now boast of a single 
coffee plantation. All have gone to the wall. 
Tin: Flint industry has gradually assumed large 
proportions. Many thousands of bananas are 
shipped monthly, wad most of them go to the 
Sydnoy market, where, if they arrive in good order, 
they meet with a ready sale. The Melbourne 
market has lately been tried properly and shippers 
are in hopes, although the voyage takes longer, of 
being able to get their bananas there in good order. 
If they succeed, and the Melbourne people take to 
the bananas as well as the Sydney folks, it will 
give the fruit industry an immense fillip. 
Pineapples are also shipped, and a good many go 
to New Zealand where they sometimes fetch good 
paying prices. Coconuts also go forward in large 
numbers. Fast steamers, properly fitted up, are 
required if the fruit industry is to be a thorough 
success. When in Sewa, I was watching bananas 
being shipped and stowed away. They are packed 
away in the hold one on the top of another, in a 
very haphazard way, and not at all gently handled, 
and how any of the bunches can arrive in decent 
order in Sydney or elsewhere is a puzzle to me. 
Tea, by all accounts, is doing well in Vanua Levu, 
as well as in Taviuni. Another estate is being 
started in Taviuni by the same Company who own 
the Alpha estate. The tea is much appreciated 
in the colony and hardly any other kind is 
sold. The importation of Indian and China 
teas this season will be very small. New Zealand 
takes large quantities and the Fiji teas fetch at 
auction, in the Colonies, as good prices as Indian 
and Ceylon, in fact in some cases, better 
Cardamoms at Alpha this year had a very large 
crop on them; but most unfortunately nearly all 
was lost in the hurricane which occurred in Feb- 
ruary last. This has happened now twice. In 
March 1886 a good crop was utterly destroyed. 
Labour — This all-burning question is still in a 
most unsatisfactory state. Men, Polynesians, are 
not so hard to obtain, but they cost too much 
altogether. Why the Government do not tackle 
this labour question before anything else, and put 
it on a satisfactory footing, I can't imagine. The 
yearly cost of the men wants to be considerably 
reduced before the country can go ahead and 
compete with others. The principal point is the 
introduction of the men. Tbey generally cost now 
about £15 a head.* This is absurd and step3 ought 
to be taken to reduce it to about half. There was 
a great talk a few months ago of getting the 
steamer to bring them over from a depot which 
was to be formed on one of the Hebrides islands, 
but up to the present, with no practical results. 
A good many of the useless allowances made to 
the men might easily be done away with, and 
this would materially help to reduce the yearly 
cost, and what is badly required is that all the 
innumerable old ordinances should be at once 
done away with, and one suitable for the present 
condition of the colony introduced. One great 
injustice we suffer under I consider, and i. e. that 
Polynesians when imprisoned, are not made to 
make up their time at the end of their indentures 
the same as coolies have to do. The planter, 
therefore, if one of his Polynesians has served, 
we will say, twelve months in jail out of the 
thirty-six he is indentured for, not only loses all 
the work the man might have done, but is also 
out of pocket whatever the proportionate sum the 
man may have cost to introduce and return to his 
island. This is most unjust, and wants altering at 
once. If a labourer, for some fault or crime, is im- 
prisoned, he ought to make up his time. 
Sir J. B. Thurston who has been a great many 
years in Fiji and who was formerly our Colonial 
* Let the Fijian colonists be thankful that their 
insane desire for annexation to Victoria did not 
succeed. The artizans who rule that Colony would 
hnv" prohibited the use of native labour, at rates 
which would pay planters. — Ed. 
