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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I
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.
ADAMSOH, H (2021). The Iidiab Quistiob Ib South Arrioa. 1900 1914.. Afribary. Retrieved from https://afribary.com/works/the-iidiab-quistiob-ib-south-arrioa-1900-1914
ADAMSOH, H. "The Iidiab Quistiob Ib South Arrioa. 1900 1914." Afribary. Afribary, 15 May. 2021, https://afribary.com/works/the-iidiab-quistiob-ib-south-arrioa-1900-1914. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.
ADAMSOH, H. . "The Iidiab Quistiob Ib South Arrioa. 1900 1914.". Afribary, Afribary, 15 May. 2021. Web. 21 Nov. 2024. < https://afribary.com/works/the-iidiab-quistiob-ib-south-arrioa-1900-1914 >.
ADAMSOH, H. . "The Iidiab Quistiob Ib South Arrioa. 1900 1914." Afribary (2021). Accessed November 21, 2024. https://afribary.com/works/the-iidiab-quistiob-ib-south-arrioa-1900-1914