of her own dignity. She is not content any longer to be the child in the nurse's arms. Indians are showing themselves as
men in Europe, and they want to be given the freedom of men in India.''
There is a Canada Building in Bombay. Canadian insurance and other companies are doing increasing business in India. There are many Canadians in the civil, military and other services in India. The Presbyterian, Baptist and Anglican churches have missions in that country.
They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. They own land, school and college buildings, hospitals and printing establishments, etc., and they are one and all treated with respect and toleration. But in Canada it is otherwise. Ministerial Associa- tions, Boards of Trade, Women's Councils, even City Councils (who by the way are kept up by the Sikhs' taxes as of the other citizens), not to speak of political and other organizations too numerous to mention, have passed anti-Hindu resolutions. In the be- ginning of 1908 the B. C. Legislature passed the Natal Act to exclude the Sikhs, but it was vetoed by the Dominion.
When anti-Hindu agitation was first set going, a correspondent of the London Times, after observation on the spot, wrote from Vancouver to that paper on 26th Oct., 1907, "These people, the Hindus, are being treated with an injustice which is simply shocking. It would appear that a mot d'ordre has been passed that every possible means should be adopted to keep them out and in consequence the immigration officials have been excluding them on the flimsiest excuses. The result has been that the steamship companies refuse to carry any more Hindu emigrants to British Columbia and that the anti-Asiatic element here believes that so far as the Hindus are concerned the battle has been won and the problem solved." That was over seven years ago and the problem is still as far from solution as ever.
Some friends put forward the argument that Hindus will not assimilate. But what is the case with Jews, Italians, Bulgarians, Ruthenians, Doukhobors and others? Do they assimilate with Canadians readily? Surely assimilation does not mean dull uniformity. Differentiation and variety underlying unity is the law of nature. The mixture of races going on under the present condition is de- basing and criminal; and the admission of the Sikh's wife and children would have very largely prevented it.
Col. Falkland Warren, C. M. G., who had experience of the Sikhs in India and who lived in British Columbia when they first came, spoke of them as being personally
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clean, but baselessly slandered. They bathe with religious sacredness. Coming from the north of India and from warlike races, the Sikhs are splendid looking, muscular, tall and broad-shouldered men.
In intelligence they compare well with other immigrants. Further on he says: "When I hear the Sikhs who are here now in Vancouver and who have been indiscriminately vilified, I naturally ask who is maliciously at the bottom of this agitation. They have served in regiments bearing on their colors the names of battles as testimony of their loyalty in the darkest days of the mutiny, while the historic names of the great soldiers who commanded them, the King and members of the Royal family as their colonels-when I say that I hear them speak of the treatment they have received here, the vile abuse of them, the falsehoods as to their character, I can say nothing, but hang my head in shame. It is a great public scandal.''
Allusion may be made here also to the in- human utterance which a leading city father was reported to have blustered forth-that he would rather see a Hindu immigrant die of hunger and cold before his very eyes than suc- cor him, a statement of which any living being having any pretension to humanity ought to be ashamed. But that is nothing compared to the action of a Vancouver Mayor who some years ago arbitrarily detained very nearly 200 East Indian immigrants on board S. S. Empress of Japan for two days. At a mob meeting held in Vancouver in connection with Hindus abuse was hurled at them and Col. Warren, the gallant officer above referred to, was howled down and not allowed to speak. But who is at the bottom of all this shame- fully conducted and deplorable agitation against the Sikhs and where will it end?
From the above short summary of the Sikh case we beg to point out the following con- clusions:
1. That the Sikhs are desirable immigrants to Canada chiefly as farmers. Canada has untold acres to be tilled. The Sikhs being
expert farmers supply that need. They are of the same Aryan stock as the Canadians and being British subjects are used to the British laws and institutions. They do the roughest work, such as stumping and clearing land and thus do not come in competition with white labor." They have not been able to settle on land as its price is pro- hibitive and when we consider the cost of
clearing it, it seems we are very far off. What Canada and B. C. especially needs is more producers. Having no government of their own the Sikhs have been used as a football by the politicians, who in their
unscrupulous ambition for power have as the above cases show abused the Sikhs in various ways. They dare not do that sort of thing with Chinese, Japanese and others. But surely the parochial interests of these worthy friends is not going to override the world- wide Imperial importance of this question. Considering this question from national, inter- national and humanitarian points of view it needs a thorough investigation,
2. The law has not been lived up to, as to its letter as well as in regard to the spirit of justice associated with the British name. All the Sikhs who are now in Canada came by a direct, continuous journey. How they came and why they came has been explained above. It is no use to go on multiplying their grievances by rough house methods. The thing is they are here and being here they ask for a 'square deal. Various orders- in council have been passed from time to time and at the spur of the moment, but on their being tested in the courts they do not stand the light of day. The Sikhs do not know where they stand. The Canadian Government has arrangements with China and Japan under which their nationals enter this country. Even the present unskilled labor order is specially aimed at the Sikhs, for no European immi- grants are going to B. C. by way of Van- couver. We believe the influence of the Sikhs in Canada will be for the good of the Dominion. They will form additional bonds of union between India and Canada and thus help in Imperial co-operation and unity.
3. That the treatment of the Sikhs in Canada has worked injury to Imperial inter- ests; not only as to the attitude of thirty- five hundred British subjects in Canada but in its influence on India. Is not the Sikh in British Columbia as good as his brother fighting in the trenches in Europe? And how could Canada refuse entrance to a Sikh soldier who had won the Victoria Cross at the hands of His Majesty King George VI Taken even from a military point of view, the Sikhs are a good asset for defense in this This factor is well recognized by country. the proper authorities.
4. That a course of action is open by which these harmful effects can be counter- acted, constructive Imperialism evolved out of a sordid chapter of the real meaning and effects of which the Canadians are ignorant. This can come about only by the broad- minded on both sides coming together and first fully investigating the case and then arriving at a just solution. As things are they have already gone far enough.
Fortunately the war has helped Britain to
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"find" India. Before Hindustan was "an unknown quantity."
the conflict began,
She
was treated as a dependant, but India by her blood-sacrifice has proved her partnership and equality of citizenship in the Imperial concern. We hope this sacrifice will not be in vain and that Little India" in Canada will be properly treated. The brothers of the Sikhs in Canada are not only fighting shoulder to shoul- der with the Canadians but they are linked together under the same commander in France. Men do not pass through these experiences without being affected by them. The Indians and Canadians sharing the same privations, undergoing the same sacrifices, will not come out as they went in. Surely after this GREAT CHANGE petty racial prejudice and ignorance will give way and the Empire tragedy of last summer will not happen again. In this connection let me quote from a letter which appeared recently in the Toronto Globe:-
"If disaffection is spread in India through the impressions that Hindus have carried from Canada, surely it is time the Canadian people examined the facts closely and impartially; not so much in the interests of the Sikhs whose valor all over the world is proving that they are well able to take care of them- selves; but because Canada's reputation in the Empire is at hazard, and her fame in the world in danger, so long as fair play is made to wait upon the presumed interests of poli- ticians who have never studied the real place of India in the Empire, or her relations to the future of such a cosmopolitan country as Canada.
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**Our men and yours are fighting in the same trenches for the same cause. If our men were fighting for the defence of Canada against the Germans in France before your own sons could reach the fighting line, the only notice we want taken of that is that it is at least a sign of our devotion to the great ideals for which the Empire fights, and which we, like you, want to translate into our future co- operative relationships.
"We are also men; we also are British sub- jects. But it would be idle to pretend that a bright future under that name is irrevoc- ably assured so long as a stigma is put upon us in Canada such as is not put upon the Japanese, or the Chinese, or even upon the negro. Canada, in claiming, through her Prime Minister and High Commissioner, that after the war she shall not only share in determining the peace but shall also take part in all Imperial policies, herself raises in the most direct form the question of our relationship to the Canadian people. That is a challenge to men like me to throw what ideas and information they may have into the com-