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THE
raised against them will be simply accumulating the rising waters behind frail dykes, and as these tidal waves are in their full onward march no human dyke will avail against them; and all those who are in any way contributing to the raising of these arti- ficial barriers are only preparing for a deafening rush of the gathered waters and cause a great hu- man deluge.
It is from the above standpoint that we are ex- tremely sad about the short-sighted and merely temporizing attitude of the Dominion Government. Besides this, to us it is the direct breach of a pledge, when our delegation went on the 15th December, 1911, to see the Government for the last time we were given a direct official assurance that the min- isters in council had settled to admit the wives of the Sikhs and Hindustanese already domiciled in Canada. We cannot understand how the present changed attitude has been brought about, as we had complete confidence in the good faith of the gentle- men who spoke to us for the last time.
Even now we are of opinion that better councils would prevail, and too much not based upon the report of the Commissioner sent here as that gentle- man made it his point not to invite information from those Englishmen or Canadians who were friendly towards the British Indians. The official set seemed to have supplied him all the information.
Besides this the gentleman was in a hurry, and did not take the trouble of comparing the physical, moral, economic and hygienic condition of our peo- ple with the Italians, Greeks and Doukhobors who form their chief rivals.
As a laboring class the imposing of middle class standards upon Hindus is a great act of injustice, and calling them undesirables from the standpoint of social and political assimilation is another short- sighted error.
Politically the Sikhs and the Hindustanese are already assimilated, as fair treatment would make them shed every drop of their blood for the land of their adoption.
Socially and religiously, too, the Sikh is willing to maintain the highest ideals of civilized life with his liberty of conscience, the birthright of every human being in the twentieth century. The economic argu- ments against him are also fallacious, as a commu- nity which strives for economy without degenerat- ing into parsimony is the very example which the white laborng classes of this country require, who eat and drink all they earn and very seldom save anything for the rainy day.
ARYAN
The purity of race and following the Buddhistic religion, bogus arguments, too, are as shallow and misleading as the others,
The mixture of races is going on under the pre- sent condition in a way which is debasing and criminal; and the admission of Hindustani wives and children woud have very largely prevented it. The ignorant talk about the spread of Buddhistic ideals through the Sikh church is a baseless delu- sion, as the Sikh religion is purely monotheistic and bases all its strength on the personal link between God and man. But why strive and answer these cries against the Hindu, which have for the time being deprived him of the elementary right of having his wife and chidren with him? Ile is (he- cause of his colour), in spite of his Aryan descent, thought to be an inferior person, and so he is kicked and spat upon. Let him pin his faith in the perennial justice of the divine law, and know once for all that the right shall ultimately prevail. The contest is severe and the struggle between the forces of selfishness and the powers of light is very acute, but if he every moment of his life strives to be a better man and a more unassuming social servant, he will pave the way for the world-wide manifesta- tion of the divine law-that no material or racial arrogance can be suffered to pass with impunity— and that all men or nations who give up their struggle after absolute righteousness are sooner or later doomed to a severe reckoning."
PRACTISING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
The smoke-colored Hindu, exotic, unmixable, picturesque, a languid worker and a refuge for fleas, we will always have with us, but we don't want any more of him. We dont' want any Hindu women. We don't want any Hindu children. It's nonsense to talk about Hindu assimilation. The Sikh may be of Aryan stock; I always thought he was of Jewish extraction. He may be near-white, though he doesn't look it. But we know him, and don't want any more of him,... British Columbia cannot allow any more of the dark meat of the world to come to this province. To deport these British subjects from India would be the wisest thing. . . . These Sikhs are far too obtrusive. They are of no use to the country. British Columbia would be a hundred times better off without them. Certainly no more of them must be allowed to come.-Vancouver Sunset,
THE
LET HINDUS IN THE DOMINIONS UNITE.
In British Columbia in general and in Vancouver, in particular, we are at the present time facing a serious and knotty problem-the incursion of the Hindu. To thoroughly understand the dread sig- nificance of the threatened invasion it is necessary and imperative that we make an exhaustive study of the subject. The deeper we penetrate the firmer we are forced to the conclusion that it is a problem raught with great and obvious difficulties in the way of solution.
Not content with gaining admittance himself un- der a bounty of $200, conditional upon a continuous sojourn from the land of his birth the Hindu now wishes to have his wife and family with him in British Columbia in place of being left at home in far-off India. A very natural and praiseworthy de- sire, you are at first tempted to remark. Yes, no doubt it is so; but it is not with this side of the question we are concerned. We must look at the mitater from a European standpoint-the standpoint of what we woud have to face ultimately were such a privilege granted by the Dominion Government. Were no great principles at stake, we might be ac- quiescent; but when one calmly considers the far- reaching consequences that would inevitably follow such a step it must be obvious to even the most in- <lifferent of us that it would be in effect almost a
criminal act to allow such Asiatics to settle and multiply in this fair Western land of ours. Te Hindu lives not as we live; his life is entirely dif ferent, his habits filthy and almost invariably un- clean, his marriage vows seen from a vastly dif ferent viewpoint. It would be ultra vires for one at the present stage to enumerate the numerous pit- falls which such an invasion would open up amid
our vaunted civilization.
In December last a delegation of the leading Hin- dus in British Columbia waited upon the Domi- nion Government at Ottawa with a request that they would be allowed to bring in their wives and children also that the present restrictions be re- moved, The result apparently is that the Hindus presently in the Dominion are to be allowed to bring in their wives and families, under strict regu-
ARYAN
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lations, but there is to be no lowering of the bars, This, mark you, in spite of the firm stand taken by the Provincial Government of British Columbia against the precedent, despite Premier McBride's plea for a "white Canada."
At present the Hindu is engaged mainly in saw- mills and lumber camps, doing the rough laboring work. Consequent on his anxiety to work even at near-starvation pay, he is proving a formidable rival of the European in the unskilled labor market. His mode of living is such that a mere pittance a sum certainly inadequate to keep a white man in de- cent food and clothing-serves to keep the Hindu in a fairly prosperous condition. His diet consists of rice, vegetables and various unsavory messes which he purchases from a merchant of his own nation- ality. How long he will be content to do only the rough work remains to be seen. Gradually he will work himself into carpentery and other kindred oc- cupations. The present race may not succeed in improving their position, but the generations of the future will no doubt seek to be educated on a much more modern scale than their progenitors of today. In this respect another aspect of the case now confronts us. I refer to the education of the young Hindu, which would of necessity have to be under- taken by the Government through the medium of the public school. Being British subjects, free edu- cation with all its attached benefits would have to be extended to our Asiatic friends. Reflect for a few moments, then see how you British-born parents would regard the idea of your cherished chidren being brought into daily, aye, hourly contact with the offspring of a nation so low in the social scale; so swarthy and universally unclean. I need not linger to portray the evils that would of necessity
follow such
a commingling. The results must stand out in prominence sufficient to appal the most matter-of-fact and easy-going parent.
As a point of comparison in respect to physical qualities, the average Hindu, although big and powerful-looking, has hardly half the strength or nervous force of a European, perhaps not more than a third. His work must thus suffer in the same proportion, not to mention the admitted fact that
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