Asiatics in South Africa.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 8, 4 October 1907, Page 5

Asiatics in South Africa.

THE ORDINANCE. REGISTRATION NEGLECTED. By Telegraph.—Association.—Copyright. , ■ (Rep. Oct. 3, 10.54 p.m.) • Pretoria, October 3. Out of 13,000 Asiatics in tho Transvaal, less than 200 are registered under the new registration ordinance. The Indians in the Transvaal have strongly protestcd'against the ordinance, considering it degrading, oiio of its provisions being that Indians shall bo registered by recording their finger impressions, by which they may be identified. Lord Elgin, Secretary of State for tho Colonies, !nt first disallowed tho ordinance, but when the Botha Government reintroduced and again passed it, Lord Elgin guvc the Imperial assent. The Indians, as British subjects, havo many sympathisers among public men at Home,.'including- Lord Ampthill. .When Lord Elgin first disallowed tho ordinance tho High Commissioner' for South Africa, Lord Solborno, in begging the. Government to consider "the feelings of those on Iho spot," said that every patriotic South African regarded Asiatic immigration as a menace to tho ideal of a,largo and vigorous European population. lie instanced tho state of Natal. The existing law was inadequate to check immigration, and he contended that fiugor impressions are necessary in the case of an illiterate population, and that to call tho ordinance degrading is gross exaggeration: