A VEXED PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 20, 24 July 1922, Page 7

A VEXED PROBLEM

INDIANS AND THE FRANCHISE.

(II ULEO-APH.—PRESS ■ ASSOCIATION.)

AUCKLAND, 23rd July. A civic reception was accorded Mr. Saßtri last evening, and ■in replying to two arguments against the granting of equal citizenship to Indians domiciled in the Dominions, he said that undue advantage was taken of the fact that India's franchise was not yet as wide as that in the self-governing Dominions. An immigrant from a foreign country was not asked what was the political conditionoofff his country, and he (Mr. Sastri) asked why Indians, although British subjects, were alone told they could not get a greater measure of enfranchisement than they possessed in their own country.

Mr. Sastrifs second objection was based on an apprehension as' to whether the granting of full equality in New Zealand—where it could have no effect, because the Indians in the population numbered only three hundred to four hundred —would not upset' political institutions in other parts of the Empire. This demurrer had particular reference to South Africa, where, in Natal, for instance, the Indian population far exceeded that of the whites. Equality could not be granted there, and, therefore, it was inadvisable to create a precedent. He recogniß9d that South Africa was on a different footing, but there was no need for the other Dominions to vex themselves with that problem. With South Africa expressly excluded by a decision of the Premiers' Conference, it was not proper for the' other Dominions to delay a solution of the vexed problem; it could bo m^de safely and easily.