INDIANS IN EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18016, 15 February 1922, Page 7

INDIANS IN EMPIRE.

REMOVAL OF COLOUR BAR.

MR. MONTAGU EXPLAINS.

NO REFERENCE TO AUSTRALIA. By Tilejronh—Press Association-Copyricht A. and N.Z. LONDON, Feb. 13. Mr.- E. S. Montagn, Secretary .of State for India, informs the Australian and New Zealand Press Association that no reference to the White Australia policy was made or implied in his recent speech on the status of Indians in the Empire because the question of Indians entering the Commonwealth was regarded as settled by the reciprocity agreement of 1918. Mr. Montagu asserts that he was referring exclusively to the treatment of Indians in tho Crown Colonies, and to any suggestion that they should be excluded from such colonies, especially Kenya. Ho remembers with appreciation Mr. Hughes' action at the Imperial Conference last year, and he is in complete agreement with Mr. Hughes' observations on the matter.

With reference to Air. Montagu's statement, full reports of his speech confirm that he spoke in general terms, and later referred to the divergence of his view from that expressed by Mr. Winston Churchill at the recent Kenya Colony dinner. Mr. Montagu added that althoueh these were the derisions of the Colonial Office the subject was under the consideration of the Government. This was his only allusion to Kenya,

Mr. Churchill, at the Kenya dinner a fortnight ago, said they had tho Indian question in Kenya, but were pledged to reserve the highlands of East Africa entirely for Europeans. Ho did not intend to depart from that pledge.

In tho cabled summary of a speech delivered last week, Mr. Montagu was reported to have said: "The Government's aim is to move by easy stages until India is an equal partner within the Empire. 1 hope that there will be no colour bar against Indians in other parts of the Empire. If, while we tell the people of India that they can win full partnership in the Empire, we also tell them that they are excluded from other parts of the world, over which the British flair flies, our policy in liufo will be impossible. It is wholly inconsistent with our policy to say that there is any part of the Empire from which an Indian is to be debarrod because he is an Indian."