Table of Contents
1. The Fijians and Indians are more distinct as communities than Jews and Arabs in Palestine, Greeks and Turks in Cyprus or even Europeans and Bantu in South and Central Africa. Intermarriage, business associations, even personal friendships are rare.
2. In the past, so long as we have held the undisputed power, relations between the communities have been good if distant. In the past few months this has changed. The December riots and sugar dispute have made the Fijians fear that the Indians are out to bring the wind of change to Fiji and use it to establish Indian preponderance. Their fears have been further increased by the Burns report which they regard as an attempt to give the Indian community control of the land by breaking up traditional Fijian society. The resentment aroused by the Burns report has been to some degree extended to Government and for the first time for many years, has shaken Fijian confidence in British intentions. The point is crucial when it is remembered that the Fijians are the ‘loyal’ community providing 75 per cent of the security forces. The Islands could hardly be governed without them, let alone against them.
3. In this climate the Fijians have become increasingly communally minded. They have also become more resistant than before both to constitutional changes for the Colony as a whole and to the modification of their own traditional system. In the face of what they regard as the Indian threat, there has been an instinctive closing of the ranks around their traditional Chiefs.
4. The Indians on their side are sharply divided over the sugar issue and over the proper course to follow in their relations with the Fijians. The more moderate leaders among them realise that they have antagonized the Fijians and would like to heal the breach. At the same time they are subject to fairly strong pressures from within their own community; and the more extreme elements are thinking in terms of self-government on the basis of a common roll which would enable the Indo-Fijians to rule the roost.
5. How then should we proceed in the constitutional field and in regard to the Burns recommendations about Fijian administration?
6. To begin with, we must, I think, accept that it is impracticable to think in terms of a single Fijian nation or of a common roll at any rate for the foreseeable future. Any suggestion of this is bound to arouse Fijian suspicions that the Indians would dominate by counting heads. The moderate Indian leaders recognize this. This points to the conclusion that we will have to recognize not just the equality of individuals before the law but the equality of Indian and Fijian communities irrespective of their numbers. There is no other way of reconciling both the pledges in the Deed of Cession and those in Lord Salisbury’s dispatch, let alone the need to keep communal peace. We should, therefore, let it be known that any constitutional advance must be so designed as to preclude the domination of the two main communities by the other.
7. The European community (20,000) can hardly expect, in the long run, to maintain their position as a community equal in importance to Fijians and Indians. For the time being, however, the Fijians insist that they should be so regarded. The Indians for their part have not asked for any change in the status of the European community.
8. The Indians have asked, but not pressed, for an official majority on Leg. Co and Ex. Co. while preserving the present communal composition of both. The Fijians are flatly opposed to any reduction in the Governor’s powers.
9. After full discussion with the Governor and his advisors we came to the conclusion that the best way to proceed would be to reverse the traditional colonial pattern and introduce a quasi-ministerial system while observing the official majority in the Leg. Co. The ‘Ministers’ who would be bound by the ordinary doctrine of collective responsibility, would count as officials for the purpose of securing the official majority. They would of course be dismissed and replaced by others if they ceased to support the Governor. Leg. Co itself would be somewhat expanded, though on a communal basis, to balance the expansion of Ex. Co. resulting from the introduction of the Ministerial system. The composition of Ex. Co. would not be laid down, so that, if all members of the community refused in certain circumstances to serve, the governor could still govern with the help of the other two communities and his officials.
10. A change of this kind is likely to be criticised by A. D. Patel and those Indians who consider that their numbers entitle them to a predominant position. The Governor and his advisers, however believe that the ‘jobs’ created by the introduction of a ministerial system will be popular with leading men in both communities and that there will be little difficulty in maintaining the official majority in Leg. Co. They consider that such a system might work for a number of years.
11. If this general principle is accepted, its implementation might be carried out in two phases. In the first, the Governor would simply invite existing members of Ex. Co. to assume ministerial functions on a basis of collective responsibility. In the second, and only after the next election, the number of seats in Leg. Co. would be increased.