INDIANS IN NATAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 276, 19 November 1913, Page 4

INDIANS IN NATAL.

The strike of the Indian coolies in Natal is a matter of very grave importance not only to the local authorities, but to England and the Empire. There are a great many thousands of these coolies in South Africa, where they have been imported to work in the cane-fields and sugar mills. But many more have come in to follow their ordinary avocations as hawkers and small shopkeepers and gradually the growth of this Oriental element has become a matter of apprehension to the whole community. In the reaction against the importation of Chinese labour to work the Rand mines, the Transvaal Government desired to exclude the Indians altogether; and the present difficulty has arisen through the determination of the local authorities to compel the Indians to register as undesirable aliens, and practically to ensure their ultimate deportation from the country. The coolies resent strongly the treatment to which they have been subjected, claiming that as natives of India they have a right to stand on the same footing as all other subjects of the British F.mpire. They are not all labourers; many of them are men of education and intelligence, and Mr. Gokhale, who is their leader and organiser, is not only a barrister with a high reputation, but is now one of the representatives of Bombay in the A iceroy of India's Council. Moreover, in the Britii-.il HoUi-"- of Commons there are many men who fail to appreciate the objection-! of the people of Somh Africa to cheap alien labour nnd to an Oriental admixture in their population And this is where the Imperialist significance of this question manifests, itself. How. ask Ihe Indians, ran Kngland permit one of her dependencies, to penalise and discriminate against loyal subjects of the Brit-ah Crown'/ This is a question that many Englishmen find it impossible to answer. Yet. in our opinion, thi' right claimed by the people oi Nat.il and thr Tr-aiH-vual to choose ■for themselves how their country is to be populated and how their industrial system is to be developed is absolutely undeniable. We need hardly add that this problem involves the .still wider qucs-lkm of the right cra'tmed by the people of New Zealand and Australia and Canada to exclude all Orientals if they choose from their countries. We do not believe that the Dominions will ever surrender this right, and they will endeavour to enforce it by every meanin their power. Hut this problem of the colour line is not only an Imperial one; it wnceriis fh-e whole of Western civilisation. The struggle of the Pacific States to keep Chinese and Japanese beyond their border-" indicates tlutt the "Yellow Peril"' is a matter of grave importance to other nations beside oui own. And so we may conclude that the claim of the Indian coolies to live in South Africa cannot be settled before England decides what her Imperial policy is to be in regard to' Oriental cheap labour: and England cannot come to a final conclusion on litis point until the civilised world as a whole decides what is to he the permanent attitude oi the West toward th-e East.