Education -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1857-1919; India -- Social conditions
they know the power which the Labour Party wields in all our Colonies.
They are, therefore, I believe, ready, to reckon with the realities of
the situation and to agree with Lord Curzon that "the common rights of
British citizenship cannot be held to override the rights of
self-protection conceded to self-governing Colonies"--rights which,
moreover, are often exercised to the detriment of immigrants from the
Mother Country itself. They will, on the other hand, urge the
withholding of Indian labour if the Colonies are unwilling to treat it
with fairness and humanity, and they argue rightly enough, that India,
to whom the emigration of tens of thousands of her people is not an
unmixed advantage, will lose far less than Colonies whose development
will be starved by the loss of labour they cannot themselves supply. An
influential Indian Member stated in Council that they have accepted the
view that complete freedom of immigration is beyond the pale of
practical politics, and is not to be pressed as things stand. All that
they ask, he added, in the Transvaal is for the old Indian residents to
be allowed to live peaceably, as in Cape Colony for instance, without
being treated like habitual criminals, and for men of education and
position to be allowed to come in, so that they may have teachers,
ministers of religion, and doctors for themselves and their people. In
Natal they ask for the maintenance of the rights and privileges they
have had for years and years. On such lines a practical working
arrangement with the Colonies should not be beyond the bounds of
possibility. But what Indians also demand is that laws and regulations
of an exceptional character which may be accepted in regard to
immigration shall not be applicable to Indians who merely wish to travel
in the Colonies. An Indian of very high position whom every one from the
King downwards welcomes when he comes to England, wished a few years ago
to visit Australia, but before doing so he wrote to a friend there to
inquire whether he would be subjected to any unpleasant formalities. The
answer he received discouraged him. These are the sort of difficulties
which Indians claim should be removed, and one practical suggestion I
have heard put forward is that, on certain principles to be laid down by
mutual agreement between the Imperial Government, the Governments of
the Dominions, and the Government of India, the latter should have power
to issue passports to Indian subjects which would be recognized and
would exempt them from all vexatious formalities throughout the Empire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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