INDIANS IN NATAL.

Wairarapa Age, 19 December 1924, Page 3

INDIANS IN NATAL.

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED. During an interview with the “Hawke’s Bay • Herald,’’ Dr. J. E. Drummond, of Durban, Natal, explained how Indians were taken out to South Africa and indentured to work in the mines. When their indentures expired they could either return home to India or remain in Africa. Most of them elected to stay, and they became market gardeners and small tradesmen. Some of them beemome very wealthy, and there are one or two coolie millionaires, because they can live on practically nothing. They began to cast their eyes on houses in the better residential sections. They had a method of getting good houses at practically their own price. They would buy the house on either side and put friends into them. The mote fact of having coolies on either side depreciated the value of the -house in the middle, and whek the price was low 'enough the wealthy coolie would buy it. Now, however, there was a clause in most deeds of transfer which said that the house must not be sold to Indians. The sons of these coolies were taking positions in commercial firms, and it was probable that they will prove a problem in time to come, because they are British subjects, and have their vote like anyone else. What should have been done in the first place, he said, would be to have enforced their return to India on expiration of their indentures. The Chinese were deported some time ago;