INDIANS IN AFRICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20793, 9 February 1931, Page 16

INDIANS IN AFRICA.

RESTRICTIVE PROPOSALS PASSIVE RESISTANCE THREAT. GOVERNMENT BILL DENOUNCED. [from our own correspondent.] CAPETOWN. Dec. 31. Passive resistance in Africa was thieg.tened by speaker after speaker at the conference of tho South African Indian Congress in the Capetown City Hall, if tho Government were to pass the Iransvaal Asiatic Land Tenure Bill. This bill is the latest effort to stop tho spread of the Indian in the Transvaal and to control his monopoly of the small-class supply store business. For years Governments and Europeans have enacted measures and regulated affairs with a view to debarring Indians from holding property. Always the law has been made to look "an ass." The most notorious case that may be quoted was the provision which forbade individual Indians from holding property. They circumvented the difficulty by forming themselves into limited liability companies. Now another effort is being made by the Europeans of the Band, who see disastrous financial consequences to this commercial spread of the Indian. Capo and Natal delegates to tho conference promised their utmost support, even to the extent of going to prison, for the Iransvaal Indians in their fight against the bill. . . The bill was denounced as a violation of the famous "Capetown agreement" and as a segregation enactment. The speakers declared that its passage into law would spell the extinction of the Indian in the Transvaal. After the Iransvaal Indians had suffered, they declared, the Natal and then the Cape Indiana would suffer in turn. It was stated that if the Government of India agreed to any compromise on the bill it would be agreeing for itself only, and not for- the South African Indian community. Withdrawal of Bill Requested.

The Government of India Agency in Capetown was attacked for "leaving the Indians in the dark" and not disclosing what negotiations, if any, were in progress. The criticism was directed more at the system than at Sir Kurrna Eeddi, Agent-General, who succeeded Mr. Srinavassa Sastri in South Africa, A motion introduced urged the Government of the Union to withdraw the Bill. Should it refuse, the Government of India is asked to press for a rciund_ table conference to discuss the position in the Transvaal. In the event of the Government of India failing to secure this conference, it is asked now to sever diplomatic relations with the Union and to withdraw its agency. Much is likely to be heard oi this Land Tenure Bill in the months to come, for though introduced into Parliament last session it was not proceeded with. _ . . Most people agree that if the Asiatics now in . Africa cannot be put on the same economic footing as the Europeans—and apparently public opinion in the Transvaal cannot face so simple a solution—further legislation .is required to regularise the position. Parliaments Select Committee on the question has done its best to meet both sides. -Where Indians have encroached on residential townships, in which the title deeds contain a restricting covenant, the committee declined to interfere on the grounds that a remedy may be sought in the Courts. Moreover, the committee goes a long way to protect vested interests, even where these may be founded on illegality. But they could not escape the main problem. Remarkable Situation.

Of the total number of licences issued to Asiatics in the Transvaal since 1919 a large proportion lias been issued to persons in illegal possession of land forbidden to them under the Gold Laws of 1908 and the original restrictive laws of 45 years ago. How this position arose is a whole comedy in itself. , Obviouslv great hardship would follow were the law immediately enforced, ihe committee recommended that a register of all such businesses should be compiled, that within five years they should all be disposed of, and that the local authorities should be compelled to assign suitable areas •in which the own?r could start business again. From the Indian point of view this suggestion, which is embodied in the bill, is the crux of the On logical grounds they can hardly resist it, because the illegal occupants have known throughout that they were contravening the Gold Laws.