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The Politics of the Fiji Sugar Industry, 1943-1969

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The Politics of the Fiji Sugar Industry, 1943-1969 Part II. Bitter Sweet: The Politics of the Fiji Sugar Industry, 1943-1969 The 1943 Strike: Contemporary Documents1 The dispute between the cane farmers and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited has entered the seventh month. There is a statute in force in this Colony, namely, The Industrial Disputes (Conciliation and Arbitration Ordinance, 1941), under which the Governor could have, as soon as the dispute came to his notice, appointed a Conciliation Board to bring about conciliation between the parties or compel the parties to go before the Court of Arbitration. The Governor has persistently refused to follow the Ordinance and has even tried to make out that there is no dispute between the Company and the growers and has even gone to the extent of asserting that the Company is only an agent of the Food Ministry. To give necessary information on the subject we are enclosing relevant documents and papers, which are arranged in chronological order. The growers never asked for the appointment of a Commission. In fact Mr. BD Lakshman2 and a few others secretly sent a memorandum in the name of the Kisan Sangh, the contents of which was unknown not only to the members of the Kisan Sangh but also to some of the signatories whose signatures were obtained by fraud. When the Government announced the appointment of a Commission, the growers informed the Government that they wanted a Court of Arbitration as the Company was definitely against paying a higher price and was not prepared to negotiate about the price. The Growers’ Counsel repeated the same request for the appointment of a Court of Arbitration before the Commission at Ba. Instead of appointing a Court of Arbitration, the Governor embarked on a course of repression prohibiting meetings of the growers in Ba and Ra districts, unlawfully arresting and sentencing growers and their leaders. The defendants appealed and their sentences had to be suspended under the then existing law. The Governor and his legal advisors were so anxious to put people into prison rightly or wrongly that they hastily put through an amendment to the Appeals Ordinance so that whatever the result of the appeal the person would have to undergo punishment pending the decision of the appeal. When the Supreme 1 These documents come from a file on the strike kept by the late Swami Rudrananda who intended it for publication. I was given the file some time in the 1980s. These introductory remarks are from the file. 2 BD Lakshman (1900-1981) was elected to the Legislative Council in 1940, replacing Chattur Singh, with the support of the Kisan Sangh, and represented the Sang in negotiations with the CSR. He was later active in the trade union movement and served in the Legislative Council for a term in the early 1960s. 121 A Vision for Change: Speeches and Writings of AD Patel, 1929-1969 Court of Fiji decided against the Government and squashed the convictions, the Governor again hastily promulgated new regulations to suit his policy of repression. The growers were prepared to sell their crop to the Government and leave the price to the conscience of the Government. But the Governor announced his intention of taking the cane by compulsion and refused to accept this voluntary offer. The Governor could have accepted the offer and compelled the Company to process the cane for the Government and paid the Company reasonable processing charges. A careful study of these papers will make it quite clear that if the Governor had followed the law which was specially enacted and passed through the Legislature of the Colony for the special purpose of bringing about settlement of disputes such as this, the present dispute would have been settled long ago. When the growers are asking for a Court of Arbitration on their dispute with a powerful monopoly, such as the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited, they are not asking too much from the Government. It is the barest minimum which not only the Government of Fiji can afford to give but is also their duty to do so. It is hoped that reason will prevail and the Governor of Fiji will be persuaded to do at this late stage what could have been done easily at the beginning. 42: An Open Letter to Governor,12 August 1943 Your Excellency, The present measures adopted by your Excellency’s Government as regards the Industrial Dispute existing between the cane growers and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company compel us to address the following to you in the form of an open letter. When Your Excellency met the growers’ representatives at Lautoka on the 19th July, you were good enough to inform the growers that as the owners of their crops they had every right to do what they like with it. You also promised them that you would set up a Board to bring about conciliation between the growers and the Company. You informed the growers that you were not sure what such a Board is called under the Trade Disputes Ordinance. Even if Your Excellency were not quite sure as to what such conciliation machinery is termed under the Ordinance, it showed clearly that you were at least aware that there is an Ordinance already in existence providing for settlement of Industrial Disputes such as this one during these times of war. In ordinary times there was neither 122 Part II. Bitter Sweet: The Politics of the Fiji Sugar Industry, 1943-1969 obligation nor duty on the Government to intervene in the dispute and bring about an amicable settlement. Because of the war, there has been a duty placed upon you under the Trade Disputes Ordinance passed in 1941. That duty is not discharged or satisfied by merely appointing a Commission, and because the Commission was not acceptable to the growers, not taking any further steps for conciliation as provided for under the said Ordinance [was an error of judgment]. The law provides that if a Commission fails, you may still appoint either a Board or a Court of Arbitration whose decision will be final and binding on the parties to the dispute. The growers had made their representations to the Company and to Your Excellency’s Government that in view of the high cost of production and exorbitant cost of living, the present price was hopelessly inadequate to meet the present situation and that it should be raised to 30s a ton. Your Excellency’s Government since April last has time and again informed the growers that you are in communication with the Secretary of State and through him the Ministry of Food. Although several months have elapsed the growers have not been yet informed of the reply. Instead of following up the provisions of the law or taking any further steps to bring about conciliation Your Excellency’s Government has embarked on a course of repressing the growers, and shown utter disregard to the merits of their claim. The growers have been, right throughout, peaceful and law abiding citizens and have not allowed as much as even a tone of bitterness to creep into this dispute. In comparison to what happens in such disputes in other countries, the behaviour and conduct of the growers have been a credit to them and to the Indian civilization and culture. Against such groups of poor but peaceful people, Your Excellency has seen fit to post and employ units of Fiji Defense Force in certain districts to frighten and terrorise them into harvesting and selling their crops to a profit making concern at a price that it dictates, even though such price is hopelessly inadequate to meet the present high cost of cultivation and harvesting, and the exorbitantly high cost of living. The Deputy Commissioner of Police in Ba has in his possession many facts as regards the incidents of provocation given by the members of the Defense Force to the growers. Your Excellency has also seen fit to intern us and make a humiliating order against us to go every day and report ourselves in person at the Nadi Police Station as if we were ordinary criminals and suspects. The very fact that Your Excellency had to use your Emergency powers in an arbitrary manner and specially amend a Regulation in order to deprive us of our freedom and subject us to such humiliation, vindicates our honour as law abiding and respectable citizens of this Colony. When the head of a Government makes a Regulation in haste and punishes people even before anyone has an opportunity of knowing what new 123 A Vision for Change: Speeches and Writings of AD Patel, 1929-1969 Regulation he has made [is], such an act in our humble opinion loses all the respect and dignity that law is entitled to exact from the citizens and it merely becomes the will of a despot. We who believe in the highest and noblest ideals of democracy and who sincerely put our faith and trust in the four freedoms promised by President Roosevelt to the world, find it extremely difficult to bow to such auto-drastic edicts. And yet we politely informed the Superintendent of Police and through him your Government that though we cannot see our way to humiliate ourselves and report in person everyday at the Police Station, we are prepared to give your Government our word of honour that if we ever decided to break your order and go out of the prescribed radius of five miles from our respective residences, we would first inform the Government before taking such a step. The only reply that we have so far received to our request is a prosecution for disobeying such a humiliating and unreasonable order.
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