INDIANS IN DOMINIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 9

INDIANS IN DOMINIONS.

MB- SASTRI'S MISSION.

REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. Australian and N.Z- Cable Association. (Reed. 5.5 p.m.) DELHI Dec 14. Mr Srinivasa Sastri in the first public statement regarding his tour, described the conditions and difficulties under which Indians lived and worked. There wore 2000 in Australia, 600 in New Zealand, and 11,000 in Canada. They were labourer, petty tradesmen, and small farmers, and were better off than men of the same class in India. There was a great deal of prejudice against them as belonging to an inferior race. Much misconception prevailed regarding India's backwardness and unfitness for modem political institutions.. The fear of lowering wages and the standard of living was largely responsible for the Dominion's policy of exclusion and suspicion. They felt that behind his mission was a desire to break through the White Australia policy and to create an opening for the entry of more Indians. Other objections were that acceding to the demands would give the Indians a position they did not enjoy in their own country, that it would be extremely risky to enfranchise Indians while denying Japanese and Chinese the franchise, atid that giving Indians political equality in other Dominions would seriously embarrass the whit* population in South Africa. His answer was that resident Indians having left their country were entitled to the benefit of the Dominions* standards. Mr. Sastri emphasised that the franchise wa3 the crucial question, and its refusal was embittering intelligent India, and was regarded as the supreme test in the (Imperial declaration that 'Indians had equal partnership in the British Commonwealth. Ha believed his labours had not been in vain. He had succeeded in enlisting much sympathy and in somewhat dispelling the low opinion of Indians herd by the Dominions.