The Iidiab Quistiob Ib South Arrioa. 1900 1914.

Abstract

It is necessary to make some explanatory remarks as to

the treatment that follows hereafter of'the South African

Indian·question.

Firstly I have not considered it incumbent on me to

deliver any moral judgments. and have accordingly aimedt-·at a.

-bare presentation of the position of the South African Indian in

law from 1900 to 1914. and. as far as possible, his position in

the eyes of the European. without expressing any opinion on the

ethical aspect of the case.

Secondly,with regard to material, lack of time has

prevented the use of newspapers over so long a period and so

extended an area; consequently I have relied on the various

legislatures as representative of public opinion, as such legislatures

profess to be. The Imperial Hansard.. I ha~e not used,as

it was not opinion in England that affected the position in South

Africa so much as the expression of that opinion through the

Imperial Government. which is clearly set forth 1n the.correspondence

in the Imperial Bluebooks. With regard to the position

in Natal at the beginning of my period. the speeches of Escombe

· in introducing the principal bills dealing with Asiatics have

been taken as sufficient indication of the motives of the

government of the day.

Thirdly what may seem an undue attention has been paid

to the position before 1900; this has been necessitated by the

fact that History is only divided into periods such as this for

purposes of convenience. These servants of History must not be

allowed to become its masters; the Indian question did not

spring suddenly into being in 1900. and cannot be treated as

·. such, especially in view of the fact that the legal position

remained for some years after to a great extent what it was before.:

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Fourthly, as regards the method of presentation of the

subject, the chronological method has necessarily been adopted,

history being primarily the telling of a story; at the same time

I have thought it advisable for the sake of clearness to treat

of the development of the several aspects of the question separately

and in each Province, these aspects being immigration and

trading, political and municipal franchise. social position,

e

and other fa~ts of the internal situation.

According to this scheme I have first dealt with the

position in Natal circa 1900, then the position in the Transvaal

at that time and its development up to the Union of the Provinces

in 1910. and then, after bringing the situation up to date in

Natal and discussing the Orange Free State and the Cape Province

at this time as shortly as possible to round off the South African

situation, have treated the South African question as a whole up

to the settlement in 1914.

The choice of Natal as a startin~point is not purely

arbitrary; it has the following advantage~ In the treatment of

the position of any particular class of person a factor that must

often be considered is its size. Certainly it was so with the

Indian question in South Africa, causing the question of

_ immigration to loom so large. Now it was Natal that made the

most important contribution to this factor; it follows that in

order to give it its due meed of attention it is advisable to

first examine the situation in Natal round about 1900 before

dealing with the storm-centre, the Transvaal, where the dramatic

character of the struggle of a comparatively small number of

people tends to grip the imagination to the exclusion of more

permanent factors. The danger otherwise is that the passive

resistance struggle might be regarded as synonomous with the

Indian question instead of as a striking presentation of it.

Another danger is that it may be thought _that each Colony after

the Anglo-Boer War treated the Indian situation entirely according

/to its •..

to its looal conditions and local opinion. If the Colonies are

treated separately here for purposes of convenience~ it must not

be attributed to lack of appreciation of this point, that though

the Colonies were governed separately mere contiguity served to

direct the attention of each to the situation elsewhere, and

that such a tendency was reenforced by the_growing realisation

that their destinies were bound up togethe~and the setting up

of the ideal of a great united white South African nation.