INDIANS AND FRUIT STALLS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 9, 12 January 1932, Page 8

INDIANS AND FRUIT STALLS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Will you kindly allow me to call the attention o£ your readers to the exploitation of the Indian fruit stall owners. Through the threat o£ the City Council to cut out the stands, the stall holders were driven to tender higher than ever. Tho astounding sums of £93 10s and £95 10a have been paid for 13 weeks. Yet nobody seems to protest. But the best stand is reserved for a European at the fixed price of £13 17s 6d. This means, if that is recognised as a fair price, the others ara extortionate. The exploitation o£ Indians is not peculiar to the Wellington City; Council; it goes on in their own country,' where the highly overpaid positions in the Indian Civil Service are almost entirely reserved for Europeans. J us t recently in the Assembly the right of a member to discuss the sterling rates of the rupee i was vetoed by the Governor. Is it at all likely that such an action would ba taken if the matter was of benefit to 1n4 1?,' . On the °tner hand, the artificial stabilisation of the rupee at Is 6d has greatly impoverished the Indian traders, though it has resulted in a further increase in the emoluments of the British section of the Civil. Service through the exebanga rate The maintaining of the rupee at is 6d has already cost India millions oe pounds. These and nkany other such actions have increased the bitterness of Indians against Britain and intensified the efforts to bnng T about the boycott of British goods. • Indians as citizens of the Empire have repeatedly appealed for fair play through the.lndian National Congress for over 40 years. Now, alas, they have is to Dlame:—l am, etc.,

JOHN GRIFFITHS, ... „ , Hon. Secretary, ,2*ew Zealand and India League. [It is quite incorrect to state that th« ITZ ,c-T ploitß *> c ladians- THe XI are sold by auction, so that the bidders. Dri™f Cr if 3tlC °r Eul '°Pean. fix their owu St^^^^^^betw^