INDIANS AND BRITISH

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 22, 26 July 1920, Page 8

INDIANS AND BRITISH

CITIZENSHIP

SELF-GOVERNMENT WITHIN THE v EMPIRE NEW ZEALAND TROOPS IN FIJI. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 6th May. Commenting in The Time& upon the debate on the Colonial Estimates in the House of Commons, Mr. T. J. Bennett, M.P., points out that the position of Indian subjects of the Crown in certain colonies and protectorates is a matter not of local, but of Imperial, impoitance. He says :—

"We have lately admitted the people of India into a. new and broader citizenship, which opens to them the way to 'full self-government within the Empire.' I lay stress upon the limiting phrase, because it is an explicit condition of iui ultimate self-governing India that it shall be an integral part of the great commonwealth of peoples which constitutes the British Empire, The policy and the administration of the Crown colonies will have a more important bearing upon the future of this policy, determining its success or failure, than is generally realised. "In East Africa wo have- a, community of Indians of various castes and avocations, the . inheritors of a tradition of three centuries' standing. They carry with them their . Irdian citizenship. They are subject to localiaed Indian codes. They look for liberties not inferior to those which are enjoyed in India-, and when, these liberties 'are refused or endangered they instinctively look to the Government of India to help them. They fear lest the exclusive way of disposing of the land of the colony which commends itself to the British settlers should become the policy of the Administration, and that they should become the victims of a movement which aims at the narrowest restriction of their rights, not their ultimate expulsion from East Africa

_ "The recent intention of the authorities at Nairobi to put up to auction a large block of Government plots, subject to the condition that no Indian should be permitted to bid for them, has, I understand, been postponed, though reports havo readied England that a corresponding restriction has now for the first time been imposed: upon an auction of public land in Uganda. "This is precisely one of the racial distinctions which irritate the Indian capitalist, who has had a large part in the development of the country, and urge him to ask whether his citizenship in the Empire is anything like a real guarantee against invidious and partial treatment. We are not here so much concerned with the actual injustice that may be done to Indians in East Africa who may desire to make legitimate investments in the country, still less with the financial loss that the Administration may incur by limiting the category of possible purchasers. Much more important is the effect that measures of this nature may have upon the minds- of Indians on both sides of the Indian Ocean, who are already vexed and alarmed by a too patent revelation of the determination of an influential body of European settlers to narrow the field of Indian enterprise, and ultimately to expel Indian labour and capital from the country. The antiAsiatic spirit which has long been working with dire'consequences in the Transvaal is already at work in East Africa „ In another part of the Empire Indians have had occasion for misgiving. We may well await the arrival of the uiji ■ Government's report upon recent occurrences there. There may or may not be justification for recent deportations, though the order prohibiting an Indian barrister and four other Indians from residing in certain parts of the colony durmg_ the next two years will need explanation. For the presence of New Zealand troops in Fiji, and their intervention in Labour disputes, no other explanation has been given by the Colonial Office than that their assistance is doubtless considered desirable by the Fiji authorities. This, it may be hoped, is not the last word on the subject. Before that last word is spoken, some consideration should be given to the question whether a Crown colony should not be made capable of keeping its own peace by its own forces. We are not going to develop an Imperial spirit amongst the people of India by exhibiting the unity of the Empire in the unattractive guise of Imperial bayonets brought in aid for the suppression of civil disturbances in Crown colonies. Obviously, we have not yet got upon the right line if that is the best we can do to convince the Indian of the comfortable place that is assured to him as a citizen of the Empire. The problem is one of real importance, not only as it affects the immediate interests of Indians, but in its Hearing upon the future of the Commonwealth, and it is obvious that before an attempt at its solution is made the fullest investigation into ways and methods must be set on foot." "SELF-DETERMINATION." In reply to Mr. Bennett, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, M.P., says:—"lf India is to .have 'self-government' she must at least permit it to the other members of tha Empire. She will in the near future be at liberty to make rules in Tegard to the influx, say, of negroes from the Zambesi to, Bengal or Bombay, but she can have no claim to dictate conversely the policy of Africa. British East Africa has decided in favour of being a white land in the same way as have Australia and New Zealand.' The white settlers in East Africa and also in South Africa will not have the place overrun by Indians. Why should they? We did not conquer and colonise Africa for the'benefit of the Indians. She wants homo rule. Very well, but she can't «at hey cake and have it. She can't have the luxuries of home rule and refuse them to the other part 3of the Empire." >