ROUND THE EMPIRE

Grey River Argus, 5 December 1940, Page 10

ROUND THE EMPIRE

By the Imperial Affairs Correspondent

GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

THE COLONIAL EMPIRE, as reflected in the local Press, is taking on more and more of a fairy tale quality. There is the same coating of sugar and tinsel, with the same glimpses of macabre horror underneath.. which distinguish the folk-lore story. And this is natural, for most of the Colonial peoples live, in this twentieth century of grace and this greatest of Empires, under conditions which scarcely differ from the dark feudal and pre-fudal times in which our fairy-tales sprang up.

" And one would be wise to believe the pictures drawn by the Press and other semi-official sources, to just the extent that one credits Little Red Riding-hood.

Nevertheless, with care and practice the student can separate the grain of substance from the chaff. When one reads in the Jamaica “Daily Gleaner” that J'amaican carpenters in the Panama Canal Zone (most of the labour there is imported from neighbouring territories) have won wide improvements in their working-conditions by presenting the authorities with a united front and the option of giving way or repatriating 1 lie whole carpenters’ corps, it is easy to see that new and epochmaking forces arc at work among the Colonial populations.

Again, when a planter writes to the “Daily Clarion” in British Honduras complaining, that local labourers cannot possibly be paid 3/2d a day because of the competition of ricegrowers in the East Indies, where coolies are paid only 5d per day—and then adds “I understand that the ordinary wages for a farm hand in Barbadoes are around 3d to 5d per day” as an added inducement for lowering his local standard—one draws the inescapable conclusion that labour in this part of the Empire is lower-paid than the rice-eat-ing coolie of the East.

Turning from the economic to the political field, further surprises are in store for the inexperienced. '±he non-European community in South Africa is being subjected to cumulative disabilities and penalties reminiscent of the Nuremburg laws against the Jews in Hitler’s Germany. A doc,tor, who happens to be the leader of 1 the Transvaal Indian Congress, is on trial in Johannesburg for

"wrongfully and unlawfully” publishing “a statement calculated to incite a section of the public, to wit, the non-European people, to resist or oppose the Government in connection with the measure relating to the state of emergency as a result of the war.”

This grave crime turns out to consist of the publication of a leaflet reading as follows: “An appeal to the non-Europeans of S. Africa. You are being asked to support a war for freedom, justice and democracy. Do you enjoy the fruits of freedom, justice and democracy? What you do

enjoy is Pass and Poll Tax laws, Segregation. White Labour Policy, Unemployment, and vicious Colour Bar laws. European recruits receive 3/6 per day. White internees receive 1/per day. You are expected to give your life for 1/- per day.

“We answered the call in 1914-18. What was our reward? Misery, starvation and unemployment. This time we must demand: the right to live as human beings; the right to work in skilled trades; recognition of African trade unions; the abolition of the White Labour Policy; the abolition of anti-colour legislation; full rights of citizenship.”

This frgihtful crime will certainly, in South. Africa not go unpunished. It ip needful that one man should die for the people. Crucify him . . .

—GENERAL NEWS' SERVICE LONDON.