Take control of sugar industry, government told
The following were reported in The Fiji Times on Wednesday March 15, 1961 on the sugar industry.
“It was high time the Government took control of the sugar industry of Fiji”, Mr R.B Mathur said at the Sugar Inquiry Commission. Mr Mathur was a sugar technologist from India and was giving his views on the organisation and operation of the sugar industry in Fiji.
He said the industry was controlled, managed and worked by the CSR Company. They controlled everything, including the harvesting and transport of cane and of course relieved farmers of much anxiety, but at the same time, it was a business concern looking first to its own interests.
The CSR did not cultivate its own land because through the long experience it had come to the conclusion that it could not grow cane on economic grounds.
Had they been able to do so most of the plantation would still be in their own hands.
All over the world where the sugar industry was established, except Fiji, the cane was grown by independent planters, who supplied their produce to the mills for crushing, but control was exercised by the governments of those lands, and Fiji, having no government control, was unique.
The company was a business concern and could not be expected to maintain a large interest in the affairs of everybody.
In Fiji, where 75 per cent of the population lived off the agricultural and sugar industries with sugar constituting 90 per cent of the exports, it was high time the Government took control into its own hands.
Indians were the real builders of the sugar industry in Fiji and the CSR had to rely on them almost entirely. They should be rewarded for their labours by being given land they worked.
There was a big difference between working land which belonged to someone else and working one’s own land.
“When the land belongs to another he will not work as hard, and therefore it can be seen the tenant system is not a good one,” Mr Mathur said.
“Land should be given to the Fijian and Indian who are the nationals of this island. At present, he has to pay high rent and he cannot grow more than his allocation.”
Yet the Indian with his large family, of which the normal complement was four children and a wife, was expected to make a living out of six or seven acres of cane.
They had to go to the money lenders who charged exorbitant rates and then the farmer became bankrupt. What was the remedy?
Mr Mathur asked.
As suggested by the company the farmer should cultivate more land or spend less on marriages, but the only way was to create a cooperative movement as it existed all over the world.