CITIZEN AND EMPIRE.

Observer, Volume XXXIV, Issue 23, 14 February 1914, Page 2

CITIZEN AND EMPIRE.

Can Khan Come ?

ONE is always reminded, when one dares mention the undesirability of fraternising with the Hindoo, that he is a citizen of the Empire. And so he is ! A Javanese coolie is a Dutch citizen, but he is not folded to the broad bosom of the burgher of Amsterdam. The New Hebridean gentleman with the poisoned arrows may be a citize* of France, but if he were to invade the boulevards and inflict .his presence 01 the diners in the cafe, Jean would protest. The absurdity of suggesting that Butter Khan should be free of New Zealand because white men " run " India and the Indian Empire is under the British Crown is obvious to anyone except a Freedom Leaguer.

Natal is aware of this. Its Hindoo population is in excess of its white population. It knows all about it.

British rule in India is responsible for the efflux of Hindoos to other British countries. It is the distant clink of the English sovereign and the far away rustle of the British bank note that lures Mr Khan to British outposts. He has already eaten out the Fijian, only a remnant of etiolated and tuberculous lotus eaters remaining. He has made the lot of the Natal native very hard. His introduction to New Zealand in large numbers would create a problem not solvable by any of the dear people who are shouting for " brotherhood." Auckland City Council lately issued hawkers' licenses to our brothers from India (by way of Fiji) and presumably is now sorry. The Mayor gave instructions afterwards that no more licenses were to be issued, but as you see our brother with the persistence and fatalism of thousands of years of persistent ancestors has his "foot in." This is a comfortable little country for Khan. His standard of living is not high. _ He has his own special pleasures, his oriental luxuries and even his own little crimes. In New Zealand there is no " British Raj " as he understands it. In Auckland, for instance, he at once becomes familiar and on terms of some equality-with his white brethren. It is bad for Khan, bad for Bull and bad for Auckland.

Mr R. T. Michaels mentioned that the Chinese had captured the fruit of Wellington. So they hay* —but he is quite wrong in suggesting that an Asiatic " lives principally on curried rice " for long. Asiatics have a strong penchant for the best and most, expensive foods available and an Asiatic in a motor car is not an unknown spectacle. The chief reason for particular care in the admission of Indian coolies to New Zealand is that they are peculiarly susceptible to the influence of their partially westernised relatives. A few thousand Indians run by a half a dozen " babus " would be a problem that would keep even the Minister of the Interior awake o' nights. The Mayor said he did not object to Hindoos on the score of their colour or nationality but because they were undesirable as citizens. Mr Parr as a logician will agree that it is because of their colour and nationality that they are objectionable as citizens. Hindoos cannot be citizens of New Zealand. It is impossible. They may use New Zealand advantages to make a living but m sympathy, in feeling, and in morals they remain the sons of their forefathrv?. The influx of any number of Hindoos without women is socially, racially and sexually wrong and dangerous. It would instantly create a sex problem—the one problem, by the way, the good kind "brotherhood of man" idealists will not face. New Zealand will depend for its success and its existence on the purity of its blood. It has, up to now, no very serious admixture, but unless it is staunch about this colour question while it is in its infancy, it simply invites a debasing state of affairs that cannot be freely discussed. Extreme care must be exprcised for any rigorous or unjust action will inevitably stir up the animosity of which a large sample has been displayed in Natal.