Evening star., 1924-01-24
FIJI ISLANDS ACT
/ LIKE :ThERMOSTAT
Climate Regulates Self at Ideal
j Temperature Due to Pc
culiar Geography.
WANT TO JOIN CANADA
Trade With Maple Leaf Dominion
Grows Rapidly.

Fill wants Canada; Will Canada
have Fiji? That will be the question
before the foreign Office at Ottawa II
the movement on the famous cannibal
islands to Join Canada, as Hawaii
Joined the United States, develops to
its logical end.
''Terrors of Fijrs fierce savages, a
name to chasten children, have given
way before the nameless dreamy
charm which now wraps the islands
OF the South Pacific" a bulletin from
the Washington, headquarters of the
National Geographic Society says, and
continues:
Canntbalixm Only q Memory.
Though old men still live who con-
Tess knowledge of the taste of cooked
human flesh. they, like their sons
and daughters, have become good,
abiding Christians. Today their tenn
pers are as equable as the climate of
this twentieth century Eden.
. The Fiji group is 600 miles from
Samoa 1t proudly claims the world $
unique self-regulating climate. A
thermostat on modern heating plant
could do no more. When it is hot the
corrective comes automatically. Heat
brings GOODNESS from the mountains.
Ii.
the breeze, a Fiji enthusiast AYERS.
protecting nature has even gone so
1ar as to build coral dikes against
angry waves almost completely
around the main island. Viii Levu.
Extremes of temperature are SO de-
Srees and "a degrees.
Good in Hurrfcanes
But every Eden has it's SERPENT.
which. in Fiji's existence, takes the
FORM OF a hurricane. These disturb
ances are affectionately known as
Hurricanes cannot jar the mental
serenity Of Fiji residents, one of
whom claims blows are not an un-
mixed evil, maintaining that: They
stir things up. They prune the trees
or Iruit and leaves and give their
ascundlty a rest so they bear better
around the roots. They dig about
Them, as 1t were, and even blow moths
ana other insect pests out into the
Disciples of Sleep.
Or the three main racial groups of
the population, numbering 1926.
me natlve FlJlans are still dominant,
totaling s4.415: but their predomi-
nance Is fading fast. In 1921 there
We're 6O,634 East Indians and 1878
europeans. Natives of India were i'm
ported 1or labor because the Fijians
OlSClDieS
Aip van " lnhle, and tne Indians have
multiplied rapidly. With hanpy resie-
nation. the Fiji natives believe that
sne t world is made for leisure, and not
LOT Work and worry. The story told
oy birth and death statistics. how
ever. is very similar to our American
INDIANS position for many years
Fl3i birth rate, 31.96; death rate, 27.61:
ldhaiahs dnath IRON India) birth rate, $500 !;
although Fijians less than forty
years ago killed, cooked and ate two
men to celebrate the establishment
o. new school, this South sea
Eoen Is tanned now. So easily is law
seen sobbing in the doorway of
SuVa's Jail because they are shut out.
AS the hour of 6 approaches men
VIII come running from all points
or the town to gain the jail. with
us food and bed, before the doors
are closed for the night, leaving
them, figurativeIy, out in the cold
Helped by Canal.
Together the islands make up an
area almost equal in size to the state
or Massachusetts,. Viii Levu, the
rising to 1000 feet. Levu, capital
and one of two towns in the group,
IS on the south side of VIII Levu.
To this small town have lately come
the reverberations Of world event
man cnrmeraia,,, aH pn1 Thir ri', on the the
opening of the Panama canal. Be-
1ore this event Fiji was as far off the
world trade routes as Robinson Cru
soe's isle. But now it is on the trav-
eled path between England and her
important possessions, Australia and
New Zealand.
ships having given Fiji a reason
for commercial existence, the islands
have striven gallantly to produce
COffap. h.
ber and cattle. The odds are against
Fiji in two Representative philoso-
ply insists that life is made for fun
and frolic and the warm tropics con-
spire to produce pests as generously
IS plants. In the tropics. 1t is said.
there is no ointment without its fly;
sugar cane had it's labor shortage,
the banana it's borer. coffee it's leaf
disease, cotton the capricious Amer
ican market and cocoanuts the hurri-
cane. In spite of these obstacles
Fijis exports rose from $6000.0O0 in
1919 to nearly s12,o00.000 in 1921.
Friendly to Strangers.
Every manmade world develop
Ethiopian in the woodpile. Back of
Fiji's inclination for Canada is the
fact that these South Sea islands are
developing profitable trade with the
things it would seem that Fiji might
be better attached to New Zealand or
Australia, it's neighbors. but laws
passed by these respective govern
ments designed to monopolize Fiji
trade have alienated the natural af-
fections of the islands residents.
Native Fijians are a blending of
the Polynesians, typically represented
by the stalwart Hawaiians, and the
kinky- haired Malay voyagers. They
are a tall, magnificently built people
of color between coffee and bronze.
with stiff, brushlike hair, trained