LEAGUE" OF THE RAND.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9641, 16 January 1903, Page 4

LEAGUE" OF THE RAND.

...,-u i'LuiS CU-V--H-N-- lii V_-i±KL ___\ _i6l_- 1 ll _U--_\ACJK'. JOHANNESBURG:, Nov. 10. You remember that- story of Kipling's, by name "Naboth's Vineyard"? It is going to have a counterpart on the Hand, and to ond badly for Naboth, who m these days is not at all the injured pea-son his lineal ancestor is made out to be. lie goes by the general name of "Sammy" m South Africa— Lai Rammy Sammy is the full title. He came here irom India, aaid has thriven like the sugar-cane m the steamy hollows of Natal. Durban is overrun with him, for he can live on sixpence a week, and save, enough money m a year to pay his family's passage over from Bombay ; once united under a tin roof, the family grows apace, and before the eldest son has reached the dignity of a waist-cloth Sammy pere has much money m the bank, and probably wills regularly for the, rent of hi« many white tenants. INDIAN v. CHINAMAN. There was a sale the other day of choice building sites m Durban. Indians bought the lot, and paid over £40,000 m cash for the properties. Chinamen bid strongly ; but the Hindu purse was the deeper,* and the yellow men went back to laundry and fruit shop and grocery store to bide their time. And tins is going on all over Natal, which is now known as the black man's colony. The coolie was first introduced by the sugar-planter and coffee-grower, who found him cheap, hardy, and docile. He came across the ocean on a contract binding him to three years' labor m the plantations, and even on his scanty wage lie managed to save money. He looked round the land, and saw that it was good ; so at the end of his term he set up m business for himself. His pet "line" is hawking fruit. If you go into the early morning market at Durban or Maritzburg you will see hundreds of copper-skinned, lithe, turba.ned Indians bargaining for great clusters of bananas, heaps of golden oranges, luscious pauw-pauws, pears, grapes, pineapples, or whatever may be m season. Before breakfast time Sammy has trotted out to the suburbs with his baskets dangling from a bamboo rod across his shoulders, and you will hear his shrill cry m your garden. He makes about 50 per cent, on all transactions, but he saves you tho worry and heat of a journey to the market. Hence he is welcome to the freedom of the stoep. THE WILES OF " SAMMY." Still, his ambition goes beyond trotting m the dust barefooted. By-and-by Smith, who occupies the next office to yours, mentions casually that Sammy has bought the building ; and after this Sammy obtrudes his white blouse and gold-thread-embroidered skull cap on your notice. He ducks out of your way on the stair, but the sahib at the registry has his name on the book, and very Jjkely tHe rent rises a pound a month. "1 be poor man, sah !" Next week he buys another lump of property, and the bank manager is polite to his thriving client. Now, the Transvaal is not minded to take this Old Man of the Sea on its shoulders, if it can be helped. This community has s«en enough of the Asiatic plague m the sister colonies ; it is asking the Government to shut the door against Sammy and Ching-Long and Ah See and all the rest of the tribe. If the.Government will not close the gate, the European who has to live m this country means to make Sammy's sojourn here profitless and unpleasant. A SEMI-BARBARIAN INVASION. The European living m South Africa is awake to the positive danger of having these semi-barbarians thrust into the midst of a white population. The coolie's craft, his greed, his skill at worming liimself into the place of money-lender and giver of credit to thoughtless womenfolk, his unclean ways, his ignorance of sanitation, his supine fatalism, make him the worst of all possible neighbors. He ,is supremely careless of life ; he will pack his unsold fruit of to-day under a crazy bed reeking with filth, and go forth to sell it to white women and children tomorrow. Therefore the men who know best claim to be heard.' These Transwalers will not have the Asiatic and his diseases, physical and moral. It thus comes about that the traders and residents all along the reef from Boksburg to Krugersdorp have formed "The White League," the first principle of which is — No member shall let, lease, or sell any shop, house, or ground to any Asiatic. " STRAIGHT TALK." It sounds so easy to say, "Oh, give {he Indians equal rights m the new colonies. After all, they are subjects of the King." jThat fatal '"After all!" The White ! League is raising an insistent cry against the flooding of this country with the. undesirable Hindu. Should he be admitted "en masse," the league demand, that he be segregated as m the Kaffir, and forced to live m a separate location, not allowed to squat m his native squalor among selfrespecting Europeans. Any squeamishness on the part of our Government prompted by humanitarian M.P.'s at home will be bitterly resented by every white man on the Rand. We have had a sample of irresponsible legislation m the new liquor ordinance ; there will be angry protest*, perhaps more, if the obnoxiousAsiatic be let loose on the country because ignorant people m the United Kingdom prate about "equal rights." Were the Transvaal polled on the question, the Colony would be ring-fenced against the Asiatic. That is plain talk, but we are a candid people, and we shall be very outspoken when the time comes for us to manago our own business.