INDIANS IN THE TRANSVAAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9027, 14 January 1908, Page 4

INDIANS IN THE TRANSVAAL.

Almost daily the cables tell ns of trouble between (he Transvaal authorities and the Indian residents in the Transvaal. A message from Pretoria yesterday announced that seven Indian. 1 ; who refused to comply with the registration law or an order to quit the colony, had been sentenced to three months' imprisonment and fined £IOO each. Others were fined £SO, and others were arrested for "passive resistance." The Indians claim that they are British subjects, and are entitled to be treated as such. They were formerly under the Government of the Boers, who have now received a Parliament and Home Rule, and are also subjects of the King. Yet these Boers are their oppressors, and are inflicting hard conditions upon them. An emigrant from Poland nr Roumania may enter ttie Transvaal without let or hindrance, even if he be the most undesirable of Jews or Poles; but an In-

dian, even though he be educated and a gentleman, is subject to insult v —and this although the' South African war was largely fought to defend Indian subjects. These Indians are now commanded to re-register and to give impressions of their finger-marks, much as criminals do. They are not allowed on the sidewalks with whites or to ride in the same railway trains or cars with them. Asiatics, including British Indians, are excluded from both political and municipal privileges; they may not own fixed property. A particular ground of offence is that they are now asked to carry their certificate of registration always with them, and to show it to any policeman who demands it. As a result of these conditions of life in the Transvaal a great passive resistance is ensuing, and the Indians in England as well as those in the Transvaal are asking how is it that the Colonial Office did not make self-government for the Boers contingent on justice to I the Indians residing in the Transvaal. Lord Elgin did once refuse to sanction the law against Indians. How is it, they ask, that ha could change his mind in a few months? The Transvaal authorities are not much concerned to answer this question, but they are bent upon forcing the Indians out of the territory, and in this they are backed up by *he Impsrial Government. Whether this attitude will have a reflex action in India remains to ba seen. Some writers upon the subject in the English prass think it will, and advise th2 Colonial Office, even at this hour, to pay attention to the matter. The opposition to the Indians in the TransvaSl, it is said, i 3 purely eco- I nomic. He is an able, thrifty, business man, and the slackers in the Transvaal do not like an able rival. Hence their animosity to Indians.