The great council of chiefs
IN 1874, thirteen Fijian chiefs headed by the Vunivalu, Ratu Seru Cakobau, ceded Fiji to Great Britain. Queen Victoria, Empress of India, was on the throne.
Her Prime Minister at the time was the Conservative statesman, Benjamin Disraeli.
Under the Deed of Cession, the chiefs on behalf of the Fijian people, totally and unreservedly surrendered sovereignty over all their lands and territories.
The Deed has come to be regarded by many Fijians as their Magna Carter (Premdas & Steeves).
In return, the Crown gave the chiefs two assurances.
First, Fijian possession of their tribal lands would be retained by them according to their custom and usage in accordance with the English common law principle of native or aboriginal title.
Second, the position and authority of the high chiefs was also assured.
Sir Arthur Gordon (later Lord Stanmore), was appointed the first Governor of Fiji (1875 to 1880).
He established the Council of Chiefs (earlier known as the Native Council), in 1876.
The Governor’s priority was to devise an institutional structure and the enabling regulations for native administration and the welfare of the Fijians.
He needed to be able to persuade the chiefs to agree on a common and standardised system of customary tenure for all native land.
As it developed, the Council was to play an important advisory role to the Governor on all matters related to Fijian land, culture and identity.
All members of the Council are and have remained indigenous Fijians.
The Council of Chiefs morphed into a “Great” council (GCC) in the colonial broadcasting era in the 1950s (Field).
In pre-colonial Fiji, there was no formal organisation of chiefs.
While it can be said the Council was essentially a colonial construct, it has its roots in Fijian tradition (Norton).
Historically, Fijians have embraced it as part of their socio-political structure, and in some respects, their identity.
The Bose Levu Vakaturaga (BLV) represented some sense of themselves as a repository of knowledge on matters Taukei.
“Bose Levu Vakaturaga” or “Vakaturaga” means in a chiefly or courtly manner, envisioning that BLV proceedings would be in that vein.
In this connection, it implies an important meeting conducted with appropriate decorum and dignity protocol, rather than on its status.
In December 1879, under the leadership of Governor Gordon, the Council of Chiefs met in Bua to discuss matters related to land.
There was agreement on a number of broad principles including that all native lands would vest in the “mataqali”, and that there would be one custom for all native land in the colony.
The Bua meeting of the chiefs also resolved that mataqali land could not be alienated.
Around this time, the population of indigenous Fijians was just over 100,000 or roughly 90 per cent of Fiji’s total population.
In 1875, a measles epidemic swept through the young colony, killing almost one third of the Fijian population.
Between 1879 and 1916 around 60,000 “girmitiyas”, were brought to Fiji from India by the colonial administration, to look after the sugar plantations.
It was British policy to cocoon the Fijians within their own enclave, to avoid disrupting their social system and way of life.
The well-being of the colony was to be underwritten by the cultivation of sugar cane, and the production of sugar.
When Indenture ended, some Indians returned to the sub-continent, but many remained.
By 1966, Indians accounted for just over 51 per cent of the population of Fiji.
Today that figure hovers around 35 per cent, with Fijians forming more than half the country’s inhabitants.
In the 1960s, indigenous Fijians comprised just 42 per cent, with the remainder consisting of Rotumans, Europeans, Chinese and other Pacific Islanders.
The fear of Indian domination was a theme that ran through the political discourse leading to Fiji’s independence in 1970.
As the young colony grew, demand for land also grew with it.
Sir Arthur Gordon who was a visionary, proposed the idea of setting up a body to hold native land in trust which would then lease it to interested farmers.
The expectation of a growing Indian population meant that the demand for land would inevitably increase.
In 1933, Ratu Sukuna (later Sir) a Fijian of noble birth (and uncle of Fiji’s first Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) who was to occupy senior administrative positions in the colonial civil service, addressed the Council of Chiefs, saying,
“We regard the Indian desire for more permanent tenancy as a natural and legitimate consequence an agricultural community settling in any country. But how was this desire to be reconciled with the need to protect the interests of present and future Fijian landowners?”
Initially, Ratu Sukuna was met with a large degree of skepticism and apprehension in his endeavour to open up native land for leasing to other races.
There was fear by many Fijians of being dispossessed of their land which would be surrendered forever to a trust, a concept that was foreign to them.
It took many months for Ratu Sukuna to patiently explain to the Fijian people, the implications of surrendering the management and control of their land to a statutory body.
It is said that he walked the length and breadth of Fiji to achieve this.
In 1936, Ratu Sukuna advised the Council of Chiefs: “But if we obstruct other people without reason from using our lands, following the laggards, there will be no prosperity.”
Eventually, following an extended and robust debate, the Council of Chiefs approved the trust scheme that led to the establishment of the Native Land Trust Board (NLTB), in what Sir Philip Mitchell, then the Governor, described as “one of the greatest acts of faith and trust in colonial history.”
Drafted in 1937, the proposed Native Lands Trust Bill, captured Sukuna’s vision of what he considered would be the best arrangement for his people and the overall well-being and interest of Fiji.
The Native Land Trust Ordinance (NLTO) or law was passed by the Legislative Council (the forerunner to today’s Parliament) in February 1940, with the endorsement of the Council of Chiefs, acting on behalf of all Fijian customary land and resource owners.
NLTO prescribed transparent guidelines and rules for an integrated management and administrative for native land. It created the Native Land Trust Board.
NLTB’s history shows that leasing is an instrument that can render the freedom of doing business on customary owned land (Boydell & Baya)
In the 1960s, the GCC agreed to what was legislated to become the Agricultural and Landlord Tenancy Ordinance (ALTO).
It required the minimum tenure of a lease to be 10 years.
In 1976, ALTO was amended by Parliament and became known as the Agricultural Landlord and Tenants Act (ALTA).
This amendment provided 20-year renewals for the existing leases under ALTO, and all new leases were to have a minimum of 30 years.
Security of land tenure under ALTA delivered economic gains until the expiry of