April 30, 1974

went on strike on Saturday. They said they were striking because the company had refused to allow staff members to join the Fiji Hotel and Catering Employees’ Union.

APRIL 23

FIJI’s dairy industry was so near to collapsing that regular milk supplies could stop within a few months, the Minister for Agriculture, Doug Brown, warned yesterday. Mr Brown told the House of Representatives that unless a bill aimed at reorganising the industry was passed, he would not take responsibility for the future of dairying in Fiji.

APRIL 24

FIJI farmers should get tax holidays as an incentive to increase production, a former government finance secretary told the House of Representatives yesterday. The Government should take a “rather drastic look” at agricultural incentives, Mosese Qionibaravi, Alliance member for Suva East national said.

APRIL 25

FLOODING and rain which hit some parts of the Western Division yesterday, closed Kings Rd to all traffic, at Ba and caused disruptions in other areas. The Ba bridge was under about 3ft of waste in the morning, but the level fell by about 1ft in the afternoon as the tide receded. However, the district officer at Ba –Tavua, Fred Gibson, said the water could rise again if the rain continued.

APRIL 26

ABOUT 60 primary school pupils had to wade more than one mile through raging floodwaters which washed away the approaches to a bridge near Korolevu yesterday. Continuous heavy rain over three days was beginning to cause alarm in parts of Viti Levu last night as rivers rose and road and air communications broke down.

APRIL 27

AT least two people have had narrow escapes from death in floodwaters in the Western Division. A lorry driver dived into a flooded open sewer to save a young girl from drowning at Lautoka yesterday. A villager rescued himself by desperately grabbing a tree after floods swept him about 300 yards down the swollen Nadi River.

APRIL 29

A LAUTOKA rice merchant has shelved a $200,000 mill plan because of the Government’s ban on exports of rice from Fiji. Punja and Sons Ltd, one of Fiji’s biggest importers of unrefined rice faced the loss of a large export market it had carefully built up, its director Hari Punja said yesterday. Earlier this year, the Government said it was banning rice exports because of a worldwide grain shortage.

APRIL 30

A FORMER minister for finance told the House of Representatives yesterday that he sold two of his three taxis because he could not run them profitably on present fares. Wesley Barett (Alliance, Northern and Eastern communal member) said that from personal experience and from figures taxi owners had shown him, the taxi business offered only a bare living.

WEEKENDS in Taveuni have become wild drinking sprees for young men who are spending money from record copra prices. “We are getting fights and brawls every day now,” a Government official on the island told Young villagers, flush with money and with nothing to do, often sprawl dead drunk outside Taveuni’s only public bar before it opens at 11am according to reports from the island.