HALF an hour after travelling on the meandering Sawani-Serea Road, The Sunday Times team reached an expansive flatland where lines of equally spaced out century-old rubber trees stood submissive in the field.
We visited a place locals call Veirapa, the heart of Fiji’s rubber trade in the province of Naitasiri during the colonial era.
Believe or not, aside from sugar, copra and banana, Fiji had a small rubber industry and Serea was one the few places where the commodity was planted, harvested and processed.
Veirapa proves that British administrators tried all sorts of agricultural produce to raise revenue for the colony and strengthen the empire.
While those who were involved in rubber farming in Serea have all died, residents who were interviewed said Veirapa’s expansive plantation may have belonged to a Mister Witherow, who also had interests in banana and dairy farming of the 20th century.
A November 1912 story in the New Zealand newspaper Marlborough Express, which I found on the website www.paperpast.natlib.govt.nz noted an article titled “Rubber in Fiji. An established Industry. First returns next year (1913)”.
According to the article one of the first big rubber farmers on Viti Levu in the early 20th century was a Mister F. Powell who managed several plantations on behalf of NZ owners.
Powell looked after 400 acres of rubber farms at Waidoi (possibly Wainadoi), 300 acres at Yarawa, 500 acres at Qaraniqio, 300 acres at Taunovo and 200 acres at Naloa (possibly Galoa) in the province of Serua.
- I. Studholme, of Materoa (Main Trunk Line), and Mr T. Crosse, of Hawke’s Bay, NZ, were the principal owners of the properties managed by Powell.
Commenting on the style of Fiji’s rubber farming techniques the article noted that “trees are planted 18 feet apart and the rows are 8 feet wide, and they average 155 to the acre”.
In order to pay a proportion of the working expenses until the trees were ready to tap, bananas were planted between the young trees, but in six or seven years the rubber became a forest.
History of rubber
planting in Fiji
Some history literature say Fiji got its rubber stumps from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) but the long distance between the two countries made using stumps unviable.
Later, seeds were used to propagate plants before they were transplanted in the field when 18 months old.
In Fiji, the excellent state of the plantations in the early 1900s was attributed to the “capability of management and a proof of the adaptability of the country to the growth of this valuable tree”, the Marlborough Express article said.
About 500 indentured labourers were employed on the plantation, and the conditions under which they laboured constituted a “triumphant reputation of the slanders” regarding the “enslavement of British subjects.”
Although the prospects for the rubber industry in Fiji were “particularly bright” it did not last long.
The Marlborough Express added that in 1912 the forecasted production of rubber was 419.375 cwt., which earned £8,180,262.
The article sounded too optimistic as rubber production faded away into oblivion in the late 1920s.
Professor Brij Lal in the book Broken Waves said Fiji’s “fledging rubber industry appeared between 1923 and 1926”.
The professor said the planting of rubber, like other produce, ended due to the “world-wide depression that began in the late 1920s and the devastating hurricanes and floods that ravaged many parts of the colony the same time”.
“The rubber industry sagged, the pineapple and meat canneries closed, five hundred Indo-Fijian traders went out of business, European entrepreneurs faced bankruptcy, even the sugar industry declined.”
While the industry is no more, what remains today are the almost leafless rubber trees that stand in the fields of Serea (as well as Wainadoi and possibly other parts of Fiji).
Rueli’s story
“My father told me Serea had two big planters during the colonial period. Our ancestors called them Vilive and Witherow,” said Veirapa landowner, Rueli Rawalana.
“They employed indentured labourers from India who found jobs in Serea after the closure of the Nausori Mill, parts of Melanesian and anyone from nearby villagers who wanted to saini, a word that meant signing a contract.
“Once they signed their contracts they belonged to the owners and were treated like slaves. I heard the owner of the rubber plantation would ride around on a white horse with his javuka (whip) and would lash anyone who was slow or late.”
Over 100 rubber plants still stand on Rueli’s land, a reminder of the colony’s insatiable quest to grow the empire’s wealth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
He said his rubber trees were remnants of a dead industry and were now “useless and a farming hindrance”.
“My father told me a rubber processing facility used to be located on a hill nearby.
The Sunday Times team visited Serea this week in an effort to trace any remnant of the rubber industry and find out if rubber trees still exist there.
Rueli demonstrated how a rubber tree was tapped (trunk was carved) with a special steel blade to harvest its milky sap called latex, which contains 30 per cent rubber, and can be processed into flexible and solid products like pencil erasers and tyres.
He said once latex was collected, it was taken to the facility on the hill where it was coloured, dried out and rolled ready for buyers who dealt with Dunlop tyres at the time or for trade ships.
“The rubber farm’s owner lived in a wooden house made out of Oregon timber. The house can still be seen today and is occupied by its current owner.”
“The European man also used something that looked like a mini digger to cultivate his land in preparation for planting. That piece of machinary lies idle in the paddock but we used to play with it when we were young.
“We’ve been told after the rubber industry collapsed, the plantation owner tried out banana planting and dairy, which is why we have three old dairy sheds within the rubber planting block.”
Rueli said
Fiji had its own species of rubber trees
In the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) Vol. 1898, No. 139 (Jul., 1898, pp. 164166), an article on “A Fiji India Rubber” purported that in 1877 a specimen of native caoutchouc (natural rubber) had been received from Sir Arthur Gordon, Governor of Fiji.
The rubber was favourably reported at the time and optimistically described as a “strong elastic, pure rubber of the same character as the higher grades of African rubber. If free from water admixture and impurity the value was said to be 1s 6d per pound.”
By the time the bulletin was published 21 years later (1898) the price of the same Fiji rubber was estimated at “probably 2s or 2s 6d per pound”.
“After so promising a beginning it was hoped that a successful rubber industry would be established in Fiji archipelago. So far, however, this expectation has not been realised,” the 1898 article said.
Which means that aggressive rubber planting which resulted in established plantations in Serea did not start until some time in the early 1900s.
In 1878, a John Horne, F.L.S., the director of the Botanic Gardens at Mauritius, was understood to have visited Fiji and paid his attention to the colony’s economic resources.
In Horne’s report, recorded in the publication “Year in Fiji” (London, Standford, 1881), its appendix noted this about Fiji’s rubber plants: “When wounded a thin milk-white juice exudes which yields a small quantity of caoutchouc”.
He noted this was known locally as “kau drega” or “talotalo”. Horne spoke of it as “decidedly our best rubber-yielding tree” and added that “it grows to a large size”.
“Those that I saw were up to 18 inches or so feet through at the base. It is found scattered in the forest on the hills and valleys, but is not gregarious,” Horne’s report added.
Rubber tree facts
Rubber trees can grow up to 130ft and live up to over 100 years.
In the 1900s Fiji trees were not tapped until they were eight years old.
During tapping, latex flowed from the inner bark of the rubber tree after it was gashed.
The workman usually emptied the liquid from the cup into his bucket and carried it to the collecting station.
Next, the rubber was extracted from the latex. Some manufacturers mixed the latex with an acid which caused the rubber to curdle and rise to the surface in a thick set.
The sheet was then put through rollers, which pressed out the liquid, resulting in dry rubber.
Some descendants of girmitiyas and Melanesian labourers who worked for rubber, banana and dairy farmers during the colonial period continue to live in Serea.
“These families speak the Naitasiri dialect and live peacefully with locals. When our parents were still alive, they ate together, fished together, drank grog together, sang together and spoke our dialect.”
“Those were the good old days.”
With Fiji’s once-upon-a-time “commercial” rubber trees now slowly disappearing due to old age, there would be little proof of their existence in the not too distant future.
It is possible that one of the last stories to be written on them would be this week’s Discovering Fiji story and Rueli’s account of the rubber fields of Veirapa, Serea in the highlands of Naitasiri.
History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too — Editor.
