A DIFFICULT COLOUR LINE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1928, Page 7

A DIFFICULT COLOUR LINE

(Auckland Star.) Everyone who is seriously concerned lor the future of the Empire must deplore the disgraceful exhibition i,if racial prejudice which has just marked the visit of a. distinguished Indian official to South Arfica. As to Mr Sastri, h:s services to his own country and to Britain have deserved public recognition of a character very different from this ; and even those of us who, dissented from the views that he expressed here on Oriental migration during his stay in New Zealand six years ago appreciated fully his remarkable intellectual gifts and sincere patriotism and public spirit. It is a disgrace to South Africa and its people that so distinguished a servant, appearng in his official capacity, should be thus subjected to personal insult because he is on the wrong side of “ the colour line,” At the same time, we must admit that the racial problems which South Alfrica has to solve are of quite exceptional complexity and urgency. As to the Indian question, there are over 160,000 Indian settlers in the Union, and two years ago the Hertzog Government attempted to include them in the scope of a measure which was intended to limit the number of coloured immigrants coming into the country and confine them and the other coloured races to special areas. The Indian Government protested against this policy, and General Hertzog finally agreed to a compromise which protected the status of the Indians already in the Union and substituted a temporary and limited scheme of settlement for total exclusion. Mr Sastri has come to South Africa as Agent-General on behalf of the Indian Government to look after the interests of his countrymen and to ensure the effective working of the scheme of settlement now in operation ; and this vindictive outburst of racial hostility shows how bitter public feeling is on this question in South Africa.

Indeed, after we have expressed sympathy for Mr Sastri, and have duly condemned his assailants, we are forced to grant that the people of South Africa have good reason for the grave apprehension with which they regard the colour problem. A comparatively small white population, outnumbered by the native races in the proportion of four or five to one, the South Africans naturally look with anxiety upon the influx of Orientals who, whatever their otner racial or personal merits may be. introduce into the country lower standards of comifort and wages and tend to initiate very serious social and political problems which nobody can yet pretend to solve. The question of admitting Orientals into European communities is not one that can be answered offhand, and our resentment at the treatment which Mr Sastri has received should not blind us to the real difficulties involved.