TRANSVAAL INDIANS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1909, Page 5

TRANSVAAL INDIANS.

DEPUTATION TO IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. THREE MEMBERS IMPRISONED. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. (Received June 19, 8.20 a.m.) PRETORIA, 18th June. Three members of deputation? appointed to lay the grievances of Indians in the Transvaal before the Imperial Government and the people of India have been sentenced to three months' imprisonment for infringing the Transvaal registration law. Tho deputations had intended to sail on the 23id inst. An Asiatic Law Amendment Act was passed by the Transvaal Legislature two years ago rendering all Indians not conforming to the provisions of the Registration Act liable to deportation. This measure was strongly objected to by the educated Indians, on account of the taking of finger prints, etc., for education purposes. Finally a compromise was agreed upon, finger-prints not being insisted upon in the case of edu,cated persons and owners of property. Trouble subsequently arose over the Immigration Restriction Act, which they claimed should not apply, to Indians who were able to pass an education test. The Transvaal Government declares its intention to keep the country "white," and Asiatics already form a fifteenth of the population ; tho Indians, on the other hand, claim their right of free entry as British subjects, and their full privileges as citizens after settling in tho country and acquiring property.