ASTATIC CLAIMS.

Northern Advocate, 12 June 1926, Page 8

ASTATIC CLAIMS.

The Indians then, as I have shown, form a large proportion of the nonnative population and have greatly increased in wealth. As a consequence they claim that all disability should be removed. At present, e.g., they have a municipal vote, but not a Parliamentary; in Durban, though they pay rates, they are not permitted to use the public library; an Indian may not marry a white woman; and there are other restrictions. The majority of them are not Indian subjects hut South African; why then, it is asked, should they not bo treated as equals? When a European told an Indian that he should pool.” “Then why don’t you go to clear out to his own country, he replied, your own country? I was born in Durban.”

EUROPEAN REPLY. On tho other hand, tho Europeans declare that to grant equal privileges to Asiatics would bo suicidal. For the vV’ldte man it was not simply a question of privilege, but of existence. There was a lack of cleanliness and sanitation on tho part of the Asiatic; in Durban, in one row of twenty-five bouses, 674 people are living, the men greatly outnumbering tho women, thus occasioning gross immorality; the Indians resent inequality of treatment, but what of India itself, where there are nearly 50,000,000 people treated as "untouchable”? It was the white man that by long years of desperate fighting, suffering, and labour conquered South Africa. Were they now to hand it over to the control of Asiatics that they may impose their own lower standard of civilisation upon the natives? It was only the presence of the white man that made the existence of tho Indian possible; wore the white man to withdraw, or to give his permission, the 6,000,000 natives would soon put the Indian out of business. Such is the Asiatic problem as it was presented to mo. lam satisfied that it can be solved only by force majeure. It is an unfortunate position, but the country has been won by the white man, and he has the right to govern it according to his own ideas rather than the Indians? If he restricts the Indian he also protects him, and the same may be said in regard to the native. Along the lines that with sympathy and sincere goodwill I have ventured to suggest, I believe a reasonable settlement might be found.