§ LORD AMPTHILL rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present position in regard to the question of the treatment of British Indians in South Africa, and whether it is intended to present any further Papers to Parliament in the near future.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am not going to take up your Lordships' time with a speech, but I must say a few words of explanation with regard to the Question which stands in my name. I am obliged to put this Question because there was no opportunity in another place for those interested in this supremely important question of the treatment of British Indians in South Africa to elicit information from the Secretary of State. Your Lordships will remember that the Secretary of State took the members of the House of Commons for a tour round the Crown Colonies, which was so interesting and protracted that there was not opportunity to go further. Those of us who have for some years past been interested in this question are feeling very grave anxiety at the present time. Our anxiety is due to two causes—in the first place, that the settlement which was promised so long ago, promised so definitely and so hopefully by the late Secretary of State for the Colonies, has again been postponed; and, in the second place, that the management of that settlement is now in other hands. General Smuts, who was Minister for the Interior, was personally pledged to carry out a settlement which, as we believe, had been agreed upon as satisfactory, not only by the Indian community in South Africa, but also by His Majesty's Government and by the Government of India. But now, unfortunately, the Bill has been postponed, and the office of Minister of the Interior is in other hands—in the hands, I believe, of Mr. Fischer, who unfortunately we know to be, I will only put it this way, less amicably disposed towards the British Indian community than was General Smuts. We should like to know most particularly whether the fact that there is a new Minister of the Interior will make any difference as regards the settlement, and also, of course, why exactly it has been found necessary to postpone this settlement.
§ Your Lordships will remember that more than a year ago we were assured most 566 confidently and hopefully by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House, who was then Secretary of State, that the settlement was close at hand, that he was really confident it would be brought about. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships what that settlement was. The essence of the settlement was the repeal of the Transvaal Act No. 2 of 1907, which was so hurtful to the feelings of our Indian fellow citizens in South Africa. That Act, which served no useful purpose and only acted as a humiliation and a soreness to the Indians in South Africa, was to be repealed, while the rights of minors were to be safeguarded and the principle of the restriction of Asiatic immigration—to which the Indians themselves assented and which they recognised as inevitable and reasonable even—was to be that there should be no racial bar on the Statutes of the Colony. That was the one thing they had been contending for—that Indians should not be excluded on account of their colour. "If you must exclude us," they said, "let it be by administrative differentiation. Do it because it is a matter of economic convenience, but do not do it on the ostensible ground that you think we belong to an inferior race." We had hoped that the settlement might have been brought about long ago. It has been twice postponed. Therefore the first thing I want to know is what are the exact causes of the postponement, and then I should like to know whether His Majesty's Government are satisfied that the Bill which has recently been before the Union Parliament does actually fulfil those conditions of settlement to which I have referred. I know that there are competent lawyers in South Africa who say that it does not fulfil those simple and plain conditions, but that the racial bar is maintained in another form. What is the opinion of His Majesty's Government on that point? And supposing they are not satisfied, what steps have they taken, are they taking, or are they going to take to set that right?
§ Then it is also alleged—I speak subject-to correction, but it is one of the points on which I am asking the noble Lord for information—that this Bill does deprive-Indians in the Coast Provinces of rights which they have hitherto held undisputed. Is that the case or not? His Majesty's Government, in the Despatch of October, 1910, I think it was, said that no settlement of the Transvaal Indian trouble would be acceptable if it diminished the rights of 567 Indians in other provinces. All along it was the profession of the South African Government, long before the Union, that they did not wish to diminish the rights of Indians who were already lawfully resident in that country. Lord Selborne, when he was High Commissioner, made that the keynote of his statements on the subject. He said he did not wish in any way to treat Indians who were lawfully resident in the country one whit less well than they had been treated before. The only thing he stuck out for was that no more were to be admitted, with the reasonable exception, which has been agreed to now by all parties, that the few educated men who are required for the natural life of the community, as ministers of religion, as doctors, and as lawyers, should be admitted. The number of six per annum was given as a probably reasonable limit, to the requirements of the community. I hope it is not the case that after competent examination it has been found that this new Bill does actually diminish the existing rights of Indians in the country, because if that were so it would be a very grave and unpardonable breach of faith. I trust, therefore, that we shall hear that His Majesty's Government have examined very carefully into that point and have been in friendly communications with the Union Government about it.
§ But there is one more word which I must say in order to explain the object of my Question, and that is, that the spirit of this settlement, which we were told was so near at hand, seems to have been violated during this period of delay. It was because we were allowed to expect that there would be an immediate settlement that the Indian community themselves agreed to drop their passive resistance movement. It was because we were told that a settlement was at hand that friends of the Indian community in this country stayed their hand and have since shown considerable reticence and self-restraint. We have waited most patiently, we have not bothered the Government with Questions and Motions in Parliament, we have treated them with very considerable trust and confidence and have waited patiently for a long time before asking them again what they were doing in regard to this question. I say that advantage has been taken of this delay to violate the spirit of the settlement. The spirit of the settlement was to treat 568 Indians who were lawfully resident in the country as well as possible. I must show what I mean by quoting some instances. In the first place, the Transvaal Supreme Court have taken a very serious course in deciding against the introduction of plural wives married according to the law of Islam, and there has been a notorious case in which it has been decided that the second wife of a Mahomedan cannot be admitted into the Transvaal. It is going further than that. It seems to me to be part of a very deliberate movement, for there is now an attempt to secure a decision against the admission of Mahomedan wives at all into the country on the ground that polygamous marriages are not recognised by the Transvaal law. From there it would only be a step to declare that the offspring of these marriages are. illegitimate. I need not enlarge upon that point. I need only appeal to your Lordships' imagination. Your Lordships have only to think for a moment what the consequences would he in India, in Egypt, in every part of the Empire where there are thousands of His Majesty's loyal Mahomedan subjects, if an affront, an insult, of this kind were levelled at the Mahomedan religion. Surely the whole spirit of rule under the British flag wherever it was flown has been religious toleration. There seems to me absolutely no ground for departure from that principle, and surely whatever the risk may be it is the duty of His Majesty's Government to uphold that principle wherever there are British citizens under the British flag. That is a very serious matter. Apart from everything else, a necessary question, if the movement is allowed to continue, is the breaking up of homes, the wives not being allowed to come in or being turned out of the country, the separation of families, the ruin of business, the expulsion of men whose right to be in the country has never been questioned, and consequences which I leave to the imagination of any one of your Lordships who will take the trouble to give the matter a thought. I want to know what His Majesty's Government have done in regard to this decision of the Supreme Court of the Transvaal. Have they pointed out how fatal would be the consequences of carrying this movement any further? Have they protested? What has been the nature of their protest, and what answer have they received?
§ There is another matter, and that is the growing tendency on the part of the 569 immigration officers to exercise arbitrary power. On one case I had occasion to correspond with the Colonial Office, but I got very little satisfaction. That case showed this, that even if an Indian can prove his right to be in the country to the satisfaction of the Supreme Court, it is within the power of the immigration officer to keep him out. That was proved by the decision in that particular case. It is said—I want to know whether it is the case or not—that the present Bill increases the arbitrary powers of the immigration officers. General Smuts, in introducing the Bill, did make some sort of apology for what he regarded as the occasional excesses on the part of the immigration officers. On a par with this action of the immigration officers is the exclusion of children of lawful residents in the country by the Portuguese officials at Mozambique at the instance of the Immigration Department of the Union. What has been the consequence of this? It is a very serious consequence, and I cannot understand for the life of me why more notice has not been taken of it. The result is that the Germans are imitating our example. In German East Africa they are proposing anti-Indian legislation on the ground that we are pursuing the same course. What will be our position as a nation before the people of India if we are obliged to confess that we cannot protest against this exclusion by a foreign country because it is merely what we are doing ourselves? There are other matters which are serious enough, though they are smaller. For instance, the growing tendency to exercise the trade licensing laws in Natal with the apparent object of making it impossible for Indians to have a right to be in Natal, whose right has never been questioned, with the object of compelling them to leave the country. The same is being done, during this period of delay of which I have spoken, with the Townships Act in the Transvaal and the Gold Law. The tendency of the regulations, which seem to be unlawful regulations, under that Act is to force Indians into locations. I should have thought that His Majesty's Government, of all people, would instantly object to and resent any attempt to force Indians into locations. That was the test of Chinese slavery. The one test was that Chinese labourers were obliged to live in locations. What, then, is the Government's answer to and their justification of this deliberate tendency to force Indians into locations?
570§ I could give scores of instances of the I way in which advantage has been taken of this Bill to oppress—there is no other word—the lawful Indian residents in the Transvaal. What I want to know is whether. His Majesty's Government have been taking note of these oppressive acts, whether they have done anything to protect His Majesty's subjects, our Indian fellow subjects, who are in South Africa and have every right to be there, whose right has never been questioned. I emphasise that because it is not a case of immigrants who have forced their way in without permission. I do hope the noble Lord who is going to answer me will not give that answer which I have often heard before, and which I dare say the occupants of the Front Bench opposite think good enough for me. It is not good enough for those on whose behalf I speak. It is not good enough for anybody who regards this question from the point of view of common sense and the interests of the Empire as apart from the ordinary devices of political Parties in Parliament. That answer is that you cannot interfere with a self-governing Colony. That seems to be satisfying to many people, but it is a rotten answer, a stupid answer. In the first place, there is no question of interference. Let me remind you of the Malecka case. If you can interfere with the Government of a foreign country, over which you cannot possibly exercise any compulsion, in order to secure the reversal of the acts of a Court of Justice on behalf of one single person who was only half a British citizen if she was a British citizen at all, then surely you have a right to do something, to say something, to make a bargain, to come to an understanding, about thousands of persons who are wholly British citizens, and to make that understanding with people who are your own national kinsmen, who are under the British flag, who are under the authority of our Sovereign, and with whom—and that is the point—we have absolutely vital interests in common. If you cannot come to an agreement with our kinsmen in our Dominions oversea about matters which concern the whole welfare of the Empire, then I say that the Empire itself cannot have any existence in fact.
§ I wish to Heaven that I had the power or the knowledge which would enable me to create public opinion and propitiate those wizards of the Press who, for good or for evil, influence our destinies in the same 571 way as opinion was created and the Press were propitiated in regard to the Malecka case. Ten thousand times more justification has there been during the last five years in the case of our Indian fellow-subjects in the Transvaal; and if the pressure which I refer to in the Malecka case was potent to move the Government in this country to action, to oblige them to interfere with a foreign country over whom we have no power of control, how much more, had I known the trick, would it have been possible to move them into action in regard to our Indian fellow-subjects in the Transvaal? I hope I have made it clear to the noble Lord what are the exact points on which I wish to have an answer.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (LORD EMMOTT)My Lords, I am quite sure that those of your Lordships who have taken an interest in South Africa can feel no surprise that the noble Lord opposite has put this Question to me before the House adjourns, as I hope it will do, early in August. Whatever might be said in another place it would be quite natural that a Question should also be put here, particularly by the noble Lord who has for so long taken an interest in this subject. The noble Lord has covered an enormous amount of ground, and if I were to go through the whole of it in detail I am afraid that our sitting would be very prolonged. I will, however, answer a great many of the points he has raised, but I am sure in the circumstances he will allow me to do so as briefly as possible.
The noble Lord referred at the end of his speech to the stereotyped answer, of which he says he has become rather tired, that we cannot interfere with a self-governing Colony, and he raised the Malecka case as an instance of our interfering, as he called it, with a powerful foreign Government. I really do not see the analogy between that case and many of these individual cases with which we have to deal. The noble Lord says that this answer that we cannot interfere with a self-governing Colony is a "rotten and stupid" answer, and that we have a right to interfere as regards thousands of cases as we had a right to interfere in the case of Miss Malecka. I carefully stated, on the last occasion on which we were discussing this question, what the policy of His Majesty's Government is. I stated that we always considered every case that 572 came before us, and that where we thought we had a right to intervene and that intervention would be useful we exercised our right, but I added that we were not going to be urged into a policy of constant nagging which would defeat its own end and only cause irritation without giving us any right really to remedy matters ourselves. If the noble Lord desires that all these individual cases—and in some of them I do think there has been reason for complaint—in regard to which the complaint arises are to be made the subject of representations, then I say, if that is to be the policy, we must wait until the noble Lord's friends come into power, and let him press his policy on them.
§ LORD AMPTHILLNothing was further from my thoughts than to suggest that we should interfere in every case. I thought my language was perfectly clear. It was simply to the effect that we should make representations on the general tendency of the treatment of the whole Indian community.
§ LORD EMMOTTThe noble Lord knows enough of official life to be aware that we cannot collect a number of cases and deal with them under general terms. We must deal with each case on its merits. We do deal with every complaint that is made to us, and wherever we think that intervention would be useful and that we have a right to intervene we exercise that right. The principal question of interest during recent months in South Africa has been the question of the Immigration Bill. In December last, on a day which I remember very well because it was the first day on which I had the honour of addressing your Lordships' House, I stated that correspondence in regard to the Immigration Bill was proceeding, and although the time had not yet come we would consider whether Papers could be laid in regard to it at some future date. The noble Lord is well aware that the Union Government introduced an Immigration Bill again this year. That Bill closely resembled the Bill of last year. It would have removed the differential bar about which he spoke, and which is the principal cause of complaint on the part of British Indians. Unfortunately the Government has not been able to carry that Bill during the session which has just closed. The noble Lord asked me why they had not passed it. I am afraid that is a rather difficult question for me to answer. 573 We are not without instances in this country of a rather overcrowded program me which prevents the Government from carrying all the Bills that it foreshadows in the King's Speech. There has been a great mass of legislation before the South African Parliament, and no doubt one of the reasons must be the great pressure on their time during the very prolonged session that has recently come to a close. The noble Lord asked me also about another matter connected with the change of posts in the Union Government. I really cannot answer that question. It is not my place to express an opinion as to whether one man is more favourable to the views of the noble Lord and another less favourable. It would be highly improper, I think, for me to do so.
§ LORD AMPTHILLThat is not the point. Has the Colonial Office had any information to the effect that Mr. Fischer is pledged in the same way personally as was General Smuts?
§ LORD EMMOTTNo information occurs to me that has reached the Colonial Office as regards any pledge given on this particular question by Mr. Fischer as opposed to General Smuts. They have both been members of the same Government for some time, and I presume their policy in this matter is the same. I can assure the noble Lord that we have positive proof that Ministers were most anxious to secure the passage of this Bill. I need not say how keenly His Majesty's Government regret the failure to carry this Bill this year. We have made known our regret to the Governor-General, and Union Ministers have, in reply, promised to introduce a Bill to deal with the question at the earliest possible date next session. In these circumstances I think it would be useful if I promise to lay Papers dealing with this question of the Immigration Bill and bringing up to date the correspondence of which your Lordships have already had an earlier edition in Command Paper No. 5579.
It remains for me to deal with one or two of the particular questions of complaint which were raised by the noble Lord opposite. He asked me about the terms of the Immigration Bill of this session which has failed to pass. All I can say is that we considered the terms of that measure generally satisfactory. He made some reference to one or two matters which I rather failed to grasp. I suspect that one of them had reference to the question of the 574 Orange River State. If that was not the object of the noble Lord's question I do not quite know what he meant. At any rate, there is no legislation proposed in the Immigration Bill which would be worse for British Indians in the Orange River State than the law at present in force there.
§ LORD AMPTHILLWhat about other provinces?
§ LORD EMMOTTIf the noble Lord will state a little more specifically what information he wants I will endeavour to reply. The noble Lord complained of what he calls the conditions of the bargain which led up to the stoppage of passive resistance being violated in spirit, and he cited a number of matters on which he thinks there is cause for complaint. He cited the decision of the Supreme Court on the question of a second wife coming into the country. That is not a question of administration at all, but a question of legal decision. I am sure, the noble Lord will agree with me that many of the legal decisions given by the Supreme and other Courts in South Africa have been very much in favour of British Indians, and I do not think the decision of the Supreme Court in this particular case ought to be made the ground of a general charge of a departure from the spirit of the compromise entered into at the time when passive resistance was stopped. I may say that in this matter of polygamous marriages there is no change whatever in South Africa. South African law has never recognised any other system than monogamy, and therefore, although the amount of religious toleration there may differ somewhat in quality or quantity from what we have here, there is nothing new at all in the law with regard to monogamy and polygamy. Therefore, my Lords, I think you will understand that His Majesty's Government do not consider that there is any ground for protest in regard to this particular decision of what the law is at the present time in South Africa.
With regard to the Nathalia case, to which he referred and on which he made representations to the Colonial Office, the noble Lord rightly and naturally attaches great importance to the question of an appeal on domicile. That is a matter that we have been trying to obtain for a long time whenever any opportunity has offered. All I can say is that an amendment was promised to the Immigration Bill by 575 Ministers which would have given an appeal on questions of domicile, and that amendment would really have been of very great value, and one which His Majesty's Government would have welcomed. With regard to the other points, the noble Lord mentioned the question of detention in Mozambique, a matter which he raised last February. It is the fact that from the day when the noble Lord raised that question to the present moment we have received no protest in regard to the matter, and I presume and hope from that fact that matters are now proceeding satisfactorily in regard to this particular question in the Mozambique province. On that point, therefore, I have no information, and I am inclined to hope, from the fact that we have no information, that the complaint of administration which was made by the noble Lord is at any rate no longer justified.
§ LORD AMPTHILLI did not bring forward those various points as complaints. I simply gave them as instances in the past of the way in which the spirit of the settlement had been violated. I quoted them merely as instances.
§ LORD EMMOTTIf so, I hope I may suggest to the noble Lord that the absence of complaint in regard to these or similar matters shows that the spirit of the law is not being departed from in regard to them at the present time, unless incidents are going on of which we know nothing. The noble Lord mentioned the trade licensing laws in Natal. That is a matter about which His Majesty's Government corresponded with South Africa, and the result of that correspondence was that a law was passed giving existing holders of licences an appeal to the Court in regard to any question of deprivation of licences. I need not repeat that we regret very much that the Immigration Bill has not been passed into law. I will lay Papers with regard to the matter, and those Papers will, I think, include a promise that a Bill on this question will be introduced as early as possible in the next session of Parliament.