Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1914. A QUESTION OF COLOR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13393, 29 May 1914, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1914. A QUESTION OF COLOR.

In the placid waters' of Puget Sound there if) being fought out a.n issue of great Imperial moment. It is the issue of Brown v. White, of East v. West. There arrived off Wiilianishead a week or two ago a steamer from Singapore, bringing a cargo of some. three hundred Hindu immigrants, under the guidance and control of ** one Gurdit . Singh, .a wealthy Hindu, who . was taking this means of knocking . loudly ■at the- front door bf British Columbia to demand admission* for his compatriots. British

C olunibia had previously, declared its objections to Asiatics and its firm determination to keep them out. Gurdit Singh- and his shipload are the direct challenge to this determination of the Provincial Legislature, which is supported by the Dominion Parliament. The question opened up is an exceedingly delicate and difficult one, and not without its interest and direct bearing on the problems that confront Australia •and New Zealand. The Canadian immigration law is expressly designed to exclude the Asiatic. '[ And Canada has good reason for preferring their room to their company. It sees m the State of California , to the south' how they aremopping up whole agricultural districts, and it knows by : its own experience of the Asiatic quarters of Vancouver what an undesirable feature they are m urban life. The Indians are attacking the validity of the exclusion law, and pro-; pose to appeal to the rrivy Council on the ground that as subjects of the King they are .entitled to come and go the same as other British subjects m any part of his dominions. It is only fair to assume that if they succeeded m enforcing that right m Canada they will equally desire to assert it m New Zealand. Meantime to * strengthen its position, the Canadian. Government has by Order-in-Cbuhfil prohibited the admission of artisans, Asiatic x>r otherwise, into the Dominion for the next six months. - This, if strictly ' enforced, would prevent the landing of many third-class, passengers who ; go up regularly, to Vancouver from Australia and New Zealand m the mailboatsy and it would stop the tide of immigrants from, the Old Country,' which set m strongly last month and is now , at full flood for another year, and. it is difficult to see how the Order-in- Council is . going to* operate- without seriously affecting the great demand that comes from all parts of Gainada at ."this season for competent white labor. Still, the Government, to put on a boldf'front, may find it necessary to enforce it until ; the Komtaga Maru lifts anchor and shapes a course back, to the Orient, y Once she does so perhaps the embargo will then be lifted. The drastic step m excluding everybody of the artisan class shows ' that the Dominion Government recognises the seriousness bf the point raised by the Indians," namely " whether the ; self-govern-ing dominions have sovereign rights, and can/ under- laws enacted by their own . Parliaments, ■ treat subjects of the Empire the sairie as 'aliens. Can such laws, even . though ; assented, to by "the Crown, take .. away the inherent rights of British! subjects? f That Surely can ■only be done vby /legislation m the British P-yrliamenty Canada, by making, its embargo,- of artisans general, instead of expressly : aiming at the Asiatics, avoids for the iriomentythe awkward question of the validity of its laws as affecting British. Indian Dubjects, but itcan scarcely hope to stave off the issue for long. As a Sydney paper points out, if the Indians , fake their case tc the Privy Council and succeed, the position m all parts *of the Empire would become one of vital crisis. For if thQ Commonwealth had to open its doors to all the colored subjects of the EmjHre. then it would ( be good-oye to all dreams of White Australia. Tliat is a danger which we may. be sure the Mother Co unti'y .would go any length to avert,; but m- doing so she would involve herself >m serioua difficulties with her Indian .subjects. "The British Empire is hot ' white," says the Daily i Telegarph. "The. majority of its subjects are colored. And white zealots are going , about, amongst the colored people preaching, a socialism^ to them under which the political frights of all* should be equalised. If that was done the colored' element would • govern 'the white element. But as long' tvs East is East and West is West it scan -never be done. - What we may expect, however, if. it is ruled once andfor all tliat the, black feilbj^ct of ;. the King lias not the same freedom to come and [go within, his dominions as a . white subject, is a violent recrudescence of Indian discontent. 'If we niay not^go: to the wide' territories .within, .the • Era--pire reseryed for the^ white man, why,' asks the billetless Babu, who sees most •■ -.»■■■- of the public offices m his own country filled by- Europeans, 'fihould white men come to India.' . No doubt, the well-informed-Indian realises that the British Raj brings Jiim many advantages to set off the restrictions, to which his. countrymen bave to .submit; but all Indians . are not well-informed; aiid. when the quick of racial sentiment is touched reason does not, always prevail, even with the most intelligent of dur own race. Hence no, matter . how the question raised by this test case m Canada is decided, the result threatena to be . seriously embarrassing. And wherever a white and a colored race have 'to live under the same flag that embarrassment will exist, m proportion to the nearness with which the two sections approach to equality m numbers or m power." y