in the East passed
resolutions for the admission? Why did the former Minister of Labor in
Canada say that "a minimum of publicity is desired upon this subject"?
What did he mean when he declared "that the native of India is not a
person suited to this country"? If the native Hindu is "not a person
suited to Canada"--climate, soil, moisture, what not?--why isn't that
fact sufficient to exclude the Oriental without any legislation?
Italians never go to live at the North Pole. Nor do Eskimos come to live
in the tropics.

You may ask questions about Hindu immigration till you are black in the
face. Unless you go out on the spot to the Pacific Coast, the most you
will get for an answer is a "hush." And it would not be such an
impossible situation if the other side were also going around with a
finger to the lip and a "hush"; but the Oriental isn't. The Hindu and
his advocates go from one end of Canada to the other clamoring at the
tops of their voices, not for the privilege, but for the right, of
admission to Canada, the right to vote, the right to colonize. At the
time the first five or six thousand were dumped on the Pacific Coast,
twenty thousand more were waiting to take passage; and one hundred
thousand more were waiting to take passage after them, clamoring for the
right of admission, the right to vote, the right to colonize. Canada
welcomes all other colonists. Why not these? The minute you ask, you
are told to "hush."

South Africa and Australia "hushed" so very hard and were so very careful
that after a very extensive experience--150,000 Hindus settled in one
colony--both colonies legislated to shut them out altogether. At least
South Africa's educational test amounted to that, and South Africa and
Australia are quite as imperial as Canada. Why did they do it? The
labor unions were no more behind the exclusion in those countries than in
British Columbia. The labor unions chuckled with glee over the
embarrassment of the whole question.

II

Each side of the question must be stated plainly, not as my personal
opinions or the opinions of any one, but as the arguments of those
advocating the free admission of the Hindu, and of those furiously
opposing the free admission.

A few years ago British Columbia was at her wit's ends for laborers--men
for the mills, the mines, the railroads. India was at her wit's ends
because of surplus of labor--labor for which her people were glad to
receive three, t