ASIATICS IN THE TRANSVAAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9030, 17 January 1908, Page 5

ASIATICS IN THE TRANSVAAL.

CABLE NEWS.

United Press Association ~Bv Electric Telegraph copyright.

CHINESE AND INDIAN PICKETS.

A BRAHMIN'S PLEA

Received January 16, 7.30 a.m. . PRETORIA, January 15. Indians at Pretoria, for failing to quit the Transvaal liy the 12lh inst., were sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Ten Indians and eight Chinese ! shop assistants and storekeepers were ordered to quit, 26 for picketing. The chairman of the Chinese 'Association at Johannesburg and an Indian were sentenced to two months' imprisonment for failing to quit Thirty-two Indians at Johannesburg have been ordered to quit within a fortnight. The majo-ity pleaded that they had resided in the Transvaal for from twelve to sixteen years, and have businesses there valued at thousands of pounds. A Brahmin pleaded that he belonged to the highest class, and had ' representatives in the House of Commons and the Council of India, and that compulsion was contrary to fheir principles.

EX-SOLDIERS PETITION THE KING. ASK FOR LIBERTY OR DEATH. Received January 17, 1.1 a.m. PRETORIA, January 16. One hundred and sixteen ex-sol-diers at Johannesburg have petitioned Lord Elgin, Colonial Secretary, stating that they are holders of a military order entitling them to residence in the colony, and that the method of identification is contrary to their religious tenets. If they cannot be protected from the degradation of imprisonment and the deprivation of- civil rights, they ask His Majesty King Edward to command that they be shot on a South African "battlefield, where they had been under fire.