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ND LEADER, SATURDAY. JUNE 13. 19

A SHIP OF HINDUS.
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THE ASIATIC & THE WHITE MAN'S WORLD.
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By A. G. G.

[left column]

A shipload of Hindus is not, super-
ficially, a matter of much importance. And
the events of our time through the eyes
of the historian of 2014 we should find
that quite the most significant thing to
be seen in the world today is the Koma-
gata Marn, with its 350 Hindus aboard,
that lies at Victoria, British Columbia.
It is a challenge thrown down, not only
to the British Empire, but to the claim
of the white man to possess the earth.
It differs, by its direct and explicit de-
mand, from all other attempts of the
coloured man to go where he is not wanted.
The Hindus do not come as suppliants,
but as claimants. They knock at the gate
of Canada and ask for admission as
right—the right of the British citizen
to accees to any part of the British Em-
pire. And British Columbia has shut the
gate in their face and has declared that,
British Empire or no British Empire, it
will not allow the coloured man to make
his home within its borders.

The Hosts of Asia

It does this on the most frankly material
ground. If the coloured man comes, the
white man goes. "We have a considerable
number of them with us now, "says the
Victoria (B.C.) Times." They have en-
tered into competition with white labour,
and in every instance where competition
has occurred that white labourer has been
obliged to succumb." That is the experi-
ence always, in California where the
white competitor fades away before the
Japanese invader in the fruit fields, in
South Africa where the Indian trader
bankrupts his English rival, in the mer-
cantile marine where the Asiatic sailor
undercuts the British sailor—wherever
the coloured man comes with his few
wants, his long hours, his incessant
labour and his low standard of life he
triumphs. Nor is he only an economic
menace. He is a social menace too. We
have but to imagine Canada, for example,
over-run by Indians, Chinese, and
Japanese to understand something of the
alarm with which the invasion of the
Asiatic fills the white man. He feels that
it would mean scrapping of his ideals
and the end of his civilisation.

And so, wherever we look around the
Pacific and Indian Ocean—New Zea-
land, Australia, California, Canada,
South Africa—we see the English speak-
ing filled with disquiet, raising their
defensive walls higher and higher,
sharpening their weapons and preparing
for what they believe to be the inevitable
struggle with Asia—a struggle as inevit-
able, says the "New Zealand Herald," as
the rising of the sun. The Komagata
Maru is only a single spy. Behind it they
see all the hosts of Asia waiting to de-
scend upon their shores.

A White Man's World.

This dread ot the Asiatic is the dominat-
ing fact in the world to-day and it will
largely govern the politics of the twentieth
century. It is, of course, a relatively new
fact. Until less than a generation ago
the right of the white man to inherit the
earth belonged to the catagory of indisput-
able axioms. His adventurous spirit had
carried him far and wide and he had
raised his flag. [?]
brushing the little people aside [?]
path in his masterful stride. The
red man melted before him in
America, the black man before him in
Australasia. He laid Indian under tribute
and cut up Africa as if he were cutting up
a cake, alotting this section to the Ger-
man, that to the French, another to the
Portuguese, a fourth to the Belgian, the
largest share to the Englishman.

There was no question in all of this of ask-
ing leave of the natives. The white man
would have as little thought of asking the
natives whether they wanted him to take
possession of ther land as of asking the
kangaroos or the buffaloes. He had the

[right column]

tration that has to be met, and time will
show whether it is possible for the white
lands of the Pacific to keep out the tide
of colour. Australia and New Zealand
have barred and bolted their doors against
Asia. Neither Japanese, nor Chinese, nor
Hindu can gain a footheld there
It is an heroic policy. If they can
people their soil, that policy may prevail,
but they know that they are in peril so
long as they hold a continent with a popu-
lation hardly bigger than that of Wales.

In the same way South Africa has
closed its door against the Hindu; but
it has closed it too late to get rid of the
problem. For half a century it brought
in the indentured Indian for the needs
of the white planters and now, having
discovered how keen a competitor he is
in the field of commerce, it has tried to
repudiate its bond and to tax him
out of the country. The attempt
has failed as it deserved to fail,
and this week we have seen the South
African Government bringing in a
measure of relief which establishes the
Indians in their right to live free and
unmolested in the country. And if we
want to see how Imperial considerations
vanish before private interests we have
only to look at the opposition which came
to this measure from the great Imperial-
ist mineowners, as well as from the Natal
planters. The mineowners objected to re-
moving the £3 tax per head from the
Indians. Why? Because, they said, it
would be followed by a similar demand
in regard to the natives. And if the
natives were not taxed they would not
go into the mines! In other words, the
Indian is to be taxed out of the country
in order that the native may be taxed
into the mines. That is Imperialism with-
out disguise.

Measures that Fail

But this is by the way. The immediate
point is the difficulty of coping with the
invasion. How impossible it is to keep
out the tide by half-measures is shown
by the experience of Canada and Cali-
fornia. The latter State has passed
Chinese Exclusion laws and has more than
once brought the United States to the
brink of a grave crisis with Japan be-
cause of its fierce antipathy to the Japa-
nese; but they are there. And the
case of Canada is not less remarkable.
British Columbia has tried the Natal Act
and other defences. It has put a head tax
of £100 on every Chinese immigrant and
of £40 on every Asiatic; it has limited
the number of Japanese who may come
into the country in a year to 600, and it
has further checkmated the Hindu by
refusing to allow him to come except
direct from his own country. Indeed the
Hindu is more rigorously excluded than
anyone. But still through mysterious
chinks the Asiatics Pow in. Despite the
necessity of proving the possession of £100,
no fewer than 6,817 Chinese entered
British Columbia in 1911, 7,146 in 1912 and
6,000 in 1913. The Japanese immigra-
tion is always somehow higher than the
maximum allowed. They are smuggled in
by all sorts of ingenious tricks. Not long
ago a Japanese steamer was seized at Port
Simpson. When she left Japan she had
100 Japanese on board. When she was
seized only the crew were there. The [?]
[?]
[?]
[?]
The effect is visible in many industries.
The sawmills of British Columbia, which
used to be worked by white labour, are
now almost wholly worked by Chincee,
Japanese, and Hindus. A score of years
ago the Pacific Coast fisheries used to em-
ploy thousands of white men. Now they
are controlled by the Japanese. For, while
the Chinese are content to do the drudgery
of life, the Japanese in America, like the
Indian in South Africa, is a man, who
not only lives cheaply but has that com-
mercial genius which makes him a rival
of the employer as much as of the em-
ploved. Restrictions, in short, no matter