The British in the Coral Sea: Fiji
Fiji lies just outside the Coral Sea but was totally incorporated into the imperial developments there. Its people share physical and social traits with both Melanesian and Polynesian neighbours, creating a society more obviously chiefly than those elsewhere around the Coral Sea.
Its pre-annexation developments are similar to those of New Caledonia; the Fiji Islands were drawn into the beche-de-mer and sandalwood industries and then received European settlers, mainly out of Australia. Wesleyan missionaries arrived in 1835. By the mid-nineteenth century Fiji entered a period of political convulsions as rival kingdoms arose. The competing indigenous powers interacted with the missionaries and Australian settlers who began to demand permanent access to land and resources and a stable government. Fijian leaders’ attempts to form united indigenous governments to stave off foreign takeover proved unsuccessful, which led the leading chiefs to cede Fiji to Britain.The shaping of modern Fiji was begun by the first governor, Sir Arthur Gordon. His vision led to the safeguarding of Fijian interests, forbidding the sale of land. His incorporation of Fijian leaders into an indirect system of administration was advanced for the time; a chiefly council was revived to advise the government. While progressive, this had the effect of establishing the leading Fijian chiefly families as a permanent elite. Gordon also made Fiji a financially robust colony by fostering a similar plantation system to that which he had observed during earlier gubernatorial postings in Trinidad and Mauritius. He invited the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), Australia’s major sugar plantation and refining company, to extend operations to Fiji in 1882; it became the largest economic concern in Fiji. Another of Gordon’s initiatives was not to exploit Fijian labour; rather he introduced Pacific Islander and Indian indentured labour.
The more significant was the 60,965 Indian labourers brought in from 1879 to 1916; many remained in Fiji and by the early twentieth century rivalled Fijians in numbers.5During the twentieth century the three main ethnic groups—Fijians, Indians and Europeans—remained largely separate, with the colonial government playing a mediator role. Partly due to the existing Fijian chiefly system, and Indo-Fijian links to India, the colonial culture of Fiji was more sophisticated than in any of the other British Pacific colonies. The indigenous Fijians ensured that some leaders of their elite were educated overseas. The doyen was Ratu Lala Sukuna from the same family as Cakabau (the chief who ceded Fiji). He was sent to New Zealand to finish his schooling, served in the French Foreign Legion during the First World War (because the British refused to enlist him), then completed degrees at Oxford University. Sukuna returned to work in the Native Land Commission. Already a member of the Legislative Council and the highest-ranking Fijian chief, Sukuna became Secretary for Fijian Affairs. Indo-Fijians also had important leaders, such as Manilal Doctor, an Indian-born, London-educated lawyer who lived in Fiji from 1912 to 1920 as an activist both for Indian nationalism and Indo-Fijian rights. Another was A.D. Patel, also born in India, a lawyer who founded the National Federation Party and was committed to an independent Fiji with full racial integration.6 The political system that developed in the 1960s as independence approached was racially based, with each ethnic group electing members to a legislative council. Fiji was swept along in wider decolonisation moves worldwide, and through complex negotiations emerged as the second independent Pacific nation in 1970. Britain’s century-old promise to maintain native Fijian hegemony remained in place, leaving Indo-Fijians as second-class citizens.
Fiji served as hub of the British Pacific with its governors holding the position of Western Pacific High Commissioner and British Consul-General.
Fiji’s Chief Justice served as the chief judicial commissioner in the British Pacific. The primary initial responsibility in combined and extended administration was policing the labour trade. Indigenous inhabitants were to be guided towards law and order, which effectively meant being punished for attacks on British subjects.The High Commission’s authority increased after the 1890s as international competition for control of the Pacific islands meant a spate of declarations of protectorates by France, Britain and Germany, and a more interventionist policy. The protectorates and the New Hebrides condominium de facto became colonies ‘on the cheap’. At the same time, Australia-based companies sought to establish monopolies in trade, shipping and finally plantations in the British islands. Coupled with CSR’s monopoly in Fiji, this developed Australian commercial interests around the Coral Sea, though the French islands remained outside that orbit.7