This collection of slides and photographs was taken by Robert Norton on his first research trip to Fiji, which took place during the 1966 Legislative Council elections campaigning.

The general Legislative Council elections were held in late 1966, just over a year after the first constitutional conference in London, and five years after the British government announced its plan to prepare Fiji for self-government.

The indigenous Fijian leaders were initially very anxious about this objective, viewing it as a threat to the protection they believed the Fijians had enjoyed under the colonial government’s policies, based in part, on the government’s interpretation of the Deed of Cession by which nearly 100 years before the leading chiefs had entrusted the islands to the British crown.

The Fiji Indians who in the 1960s were 51% of the population, and generally more advanced economically than the Fijians (43% of the population), looked favourably on the prospect of an end to colonial rule and their principal leaders called for a common franchise to replace communal (ethnic) political representation. The very influential but tiny European minority, concerned to preserve their longstanding privileged political representation, stood with the Fijians against radical constitutional change.

The 1966 elections were the first in which broadly-based political parties competed for a substantial power in the colonial parliament. The 1965 constitutional conference had changed the parliament (legislative council) from a council dominated by colonial officials appointed by the governor, to one dominated by elected representatives: 14 Indigenous Fijians, (2 elected by the Great Council of Chiefs), 12 Indians, 10 General electors (Europeans, Part-Europeans, Pacific islanders other than Fijians, and Chinese). The new constitution completed the expansion of the vote to a universal franchise, begun in 1963. Only four seats were reserved for colonial officials.

Most of the electorates remained ethnically defined, and all the seats remained ethnically reserved.

But overlaying the many communal electorates, were now three very large Cross Voting electorates covering the entire colony. They were multi-ethnic, made up from the communal electorates, and each had three reserved seats: Fijian, Indian, and General. The electors were entitled to four votes - one in their communal electorate, and three in their cross-voting electorate. Voting was not compulsory, and to cast a valid vote an elector need tick only the communal seat ballot paper if they wished. Communal seats numbered 9 Fijian, 9 Indian, and 7 General; there were 3 Fijian, 3 Indian, and 3 General cross-voting seats. Indigenous Fijians enjoyed additional representation by the two Council of Chiefs members of the parliament.

The intention of introducing the cross-voting electorates was to give people experience in supporting candidates of different ethnic identities from their own - a step, the British said, toward an eventual common franchise without reserved seats. It was hoped that political parties would each field candidates of different ethnicity, and that these would campaign together - the communal candidates assisting the campaigning of their cross-voting partners.

Some of the slides and photos illustrate this joint campaigning in western Viti Levu, by Fijian, Indian, and General candidates of the Alliance Party. All the pictures were taken on Viti Levu, Fiji’s major island.

The Alliance Party, whose main component body was the indigenous Fijian Association, won 22 seats (12 Fijian, 3 Indian, 7 General). The Federation Party (later the National Federation Party) secured only the 9 communal Indian seats; the party fielded only one non-Indian candidate, Fijian cane farmer Penaia Rokovuni (photos 48-54). Three General candidates were elected as independents.

References

Robert Norton 'Race and Politics in Fiji', University of Queensland Press, 1977, revised edition 1990

Roderick Alley 'The Emergence of Party Politics'. In 'Politics in Fiji' edited by Brij Lal, Allen & Unwin, 1986. Pp28-51

These slides were taken by John Baker while he was undertaking fieldwork for a PhD at the Australian National University (ANU) on the relationship between shipping transport costs and patterns of spatial development in Fiji and Tonga. John and his wife Liz (Elizabeth) lived in Suva and Nuku’alofa and were fortunate to travel extensively by ship around Fiji, as well as visiting the Vava’u Group in Tonga. The collection mostly includes ships and other vessels (including Japanese fishing boats, punts and whaleboats), as well as shipping infrastructure. It also includes landscapes, street scenes and personalities encountered.

In Fiji, shipping infrastructure includes Queen’s Wharf, Suva Wharf and the CSR (Colonial Sugar Refinery) wharf/jetty in Lautoka. Cargo is loaded and unloaded, including sugar, cars, timber and copra. Businesses include Pacific Fishing Co. and Morris Hedstrom. People photographed are Barry Shaw, Bill Erich, Dorothy Toussaint, Ian Fairbairn and Heidi Fairbairn and their son John Fairbairn, Liz Baker and John Baker, as well as the ANU House caretakers Manuele and Asenat. Places photographed are Sigatoka, Walu Bay, Deuba, Mualevu village and Lomoloma at Vanua Balavu / Mbalavu Island, Munia Island, Cikobia Island, Korotoga, Levuka, Yacata Island, Kanacea Island, Nayau Island, Naivaka Village, Bua coast of Vanua Levu Island, Nadura, Macuata coast, Undu Point, Somosomo, Taveuni, Taveuni coastline at Naikelemusu, Rewa Delta and Laucala Bay, Suva. There are general views of sugar cane / sugarcane fields and other agriculture (including rice, copra and use of bullocks), coral reefs, Suva housing, including new and informal housing, as well as the ANU house at 30 Beach Road.

In Tonga, photographs include shipping and other vessels (including steel barges, cutters, landing craft, sailing boats and others), as well as shipping infrastructure at Faua Harbour, Touliki Harbour, Neiafu wharf and Queen Salote Wharf at Nuku’alofa. Ships carrying passengers and cargo. Places photographed are Makaha'a Island, Pangaimotu Island, Tokulu Island in Ha'apai Island Group, Ha'afeva Island, Pangai village on Ha'apai Island, Vava’u Island (including abandoned airstrip), Onetale Bay and Neiafu town. People photographed are Liz Baker, Bill Toussaint and Elizabeth Toussaint. Scenes include coral blocks for Langi tombs, lakes, horses, vanilla gardens, Wesleyan church and Burns Philp store, amongst others.

Selection of slides for digitisation was made by John Baker.

'A Paradise of the Gods. Writings and Drawings of Handley Bathurst Sterndale’ (2020) is an unpublished digital edition edited by J.J. Overell. In 1870, Handley Bathurst Sterndale worked as a surveyor on the island of Upolu, Samoa, for the German trading company Goddefroy & Sohn. In this capacity, he made an expedition across Upolu, making notes and sketches about the journey as he went. In 1871, on Motu Kotawa on the islet of Pukapuka atoll in the Cook Islands, he worked these notes into the manuscript ‘Upolu; or, A Paradise of the Gods’, and worked his sketches into finished drawings. Some accounts are not his first hand observations and others are demonstrably wrong. Sterndale sought to have the manuscript published, but was unsuccessful in finding a publisher before his death in 1878. After his death, it was listed in a catalogue among the publications of Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington of London, but the manuscript never made it to print. It is now available as PMB MS 1442.

The original notebooks have since been lost, but the surviving manuscript and drawings have been passed down to Sterndale’s descendants. This collection brings together 73 of Sterndale's drawings of Samoa, Cook Islands and other islands of the Pacific. The images were digitised by photographer Rod Howe. The images are of scenes witnessed or imagined on his journey, including plants and animals, people, nature and village life.

This collection of 54 photographs records a visit to Fiji in August 2009 by Bill Gammage. The visit was to see friends and look around. The photos were taken in Suva and around Viti Levu. PMBPhoto_101 complements these photos.
Subjects include Suva, Suva hinterland, Bau, Takalana Bay and Moon Reef, Tongan hill fort and views, Nausori Highlands and Bukuyu Village. The Sigatoka Sand Dunes and Mt Victoria (Mt Tomanivi) are also subjects.

This collection of 52 photographs records a visit to Fiji and Tonga in January/February 1975 by Bill and Jan Gammage. The visit was to see friends and look around.
Of Fiji, there are 28 photos. The subjects include: Nadi, Man Friday Hotel near Korolevu on the south coast of Viti Levu, Suva, and Levuka on the Ovalau Islands.
Of Tonga, 24 photos were taken. The subjects include in and around Kolovai, Sione and Ruth Latukefu's home, Nuku'alofa on the north coast including the Royal Palace, Orahaei Beach near caves and a boat connected to the Minerva Reefs incident, the blowholes and the Triithon.