iurther entry of Asiatics into the Union. This was done not 40 nomine but by ministerial certificate. Wives and young children of domiciled residents were allowed to enter, and also registered Indians who might be temporarily absent from S. Africa. The Act further restricted Asiatics to the province in which they were resident. This restriction of movement, and the poll tax of 3 levied on all ex-indentured Indians in Natal a tax unequal and uncertain in its incidence caused great dis- .satisfaction among the Indian community. Under Mr. Gandhi's leadership (Mr. Gokhale had returned to India) they adopted an attitude of passive resistance, but this was succeeded by strikes .at Durban and at the collieries and plantations. Then, to assert the right of Indians to move from one province to another, Mr. Gandhi put himself at the head of some 2,700 Indians who started to march past Majuba to Johannesburg. About 500 were stopped at the Natal border, the rest got some distance into the Transvaal before they were turned back. Mr. Gandhi was arrested and convicted on several charges, e.g. he was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for abetting a strike of coal miners. But the situation could not be met simply by repressive measures. An Indian Inquiry Commission was ap- pointed and, on its recommendation, the Natal poll tax was .abandoned and certain concessions made as affecting the recogni- tion of Indian marriages. These changes were made operative ,by the Indian Relief Act, 1914. More important was the so- called Smuts-Gandhi agreement of the same year. General Smuts as Minister of the Interior was in charge of the legislation .affecting Indians, and, seeking a statesmanlike solution of the dif- ficulty, he approached Mr. Gandhi. The negotiations succeeded .and the arrangement reached was set forth in letters exchanged between Mr. Gorges (then secretary to the Ministry of the In- terior) on behalf of Gen. Smuts, and Mr. Gandhi and dated June 30 1914. The essence of the agreement was the assurance by Gen. Smuts that existing laws would be administered " in .a just manner and with due regard to vested rights." This was at the time interpreted by the Indians, by the Government of India and by many of the whites in S.A. to mean that the rights which Indians were entitled to exercise under the laws as existing in 1914 could not be restricted by fresh legislation. Mr. Gandhi, conceiving his mission in Africa ended, returned shortly after- wards to India.
It is convenient here to summarize later developments of the Indian question before turning to the main stream of S.A. history. Mr. Gandhi in a farewell letter, published in the Rand Daily Mail of July 20 1914, had assured the Indians that the settlement then reached did not preclude them from fresh agita- tion for the removal of other disabilities: for their part a large section of the whites agitated for further restrictions upon In- dian activity. Friction inevitably arose, but during the World War untoward incidents were avoided. A definite settlement of the immigration question was reached at the Imperial Conference of 1918 when a reciprocity resolution was accepted which de- clared it to be " an inherent function of the governments of the several communities of the British Commonwealth, including India, that each should enjoy complete control of the composition of its own population by means of restriction on immigration from any of the other communities." In accepting this resolution on behalf of the Union Mr. Burton declared, justly, that S. Africans had found the Indians " good, law-abiding, quiet citizens " and that it was the duty of the Government to see that they were treated " as human beings, with feelings like our own, and in a proper manner."
What was the " proper manner " was still a point of conten- tion. After the Smuts-Gandhi agreement Indians applied for and obtained new licences to trade, and in the Transvaal formed private companies with limited liability for the purpose of ac- quiring land and fixed property the Transvaal law of 1885 which prohibited individual Indians from acquiring land not applying to corporate bodies. This action by the Indians was denounced by the white community in the Transvaal as a fla- grant violation of the Smuts-Gandhi compact, to which the Indians replied that it was one of their vested rights and that
such companies had been formed before the agreement was made. There were in fact three such companies in 1913; by March 1919 the number registered had grown to 370, with a total capital of 479,000. Early in 1919 the Krugersdorp municipal council brought the matter to an issue, nominally on the trading question, by obtaining an interdict from the Supreme Court at Pretoria, prohibiting Indians from occupying a certain trading " stand " in the town. This led to the appointment of a parliamentary select committee. As the result of its investigations an Act (No. 37 of 1919) was passed by the Union Parliament which, while confirming the right of Indians to the occupation of land for trading purposes which they then held, prevented the further acquisition of land by Indians through private companies.
The Act of 1919 pleased neither party. It was noteworthy that in the Transvaal, where numerically the Indians were few, feeling against them was much stronger than in Natal, with its large Indian population. The explanation was to be found in the fact that whereas in the Transvaal nearly all the Indians were traders many of them merchants owning large businesses and formidable competitors with white traders in Natal the great bulk of the Indians were Madrassi of the agricultural and labouring classes, and save in fruit and vegetables did not enter largely into trade. Moreover, large numbers of the Indians in Natal were S.A. born and could hardly speak any Indian lan- guage. The agitation in the Transvaal against the " Asiatic menace " led in Feb. 1920 to the appointment of the Asiatic Inquiry Commission specifically charged to consider the question of trading rights and land ownership by Indians. The sittings of the Commission were held in public, the Government of India being represented throughout by Sir Benjamin Robertson, a man with unrivalled knowledge of the history and facts relating to Indians in S. Africa. The Commission issued an interim report in May 1920 recommending that steps be taken to aid the repatriation of as many Indians as desired to leave the country, and some few thousands did return to India. The final report of the Commission was issued in March 1921. The chair- man was Sir J. H. Lange, a judge of the Supreme Court, and all the commissioners were men of experience, animated with the wish to do justice. Their inquiry had the merit of bringing out the facts and dispelling the belief that the Transvaal was men- aced, numerically, by an Asiatic invasion. They also made clear the fatuity of the proposals put before them for the compulsory expropriation of the whole Indian population, or of " squeezing them out " by multiplying restrictions on their activities. Their recommendations were however significant of the strength of white feeling on the subject. They proposed alterations in the law which would secure Indians from being refused trading licences arbitrarily or on the ground of race; they opposed com- pulsory segregation, but advocated a system of voluntary separa- tion by " attraction " to desirable residential and trading areas. They opposed the repeal of the Act of 1919 and went further by proposing that in Natal the right of Asiatics " to own land for farming or agricultural purposes should be confined to the coast belt, say 20 to 30 m. inland." On this last point Mr. Duncan Baxter, one of the four commissioners, dissented, describing it as retrograde and a breach of the conditions of recruitment. The Government of India also at once lodged a protest against this recommendation, holding that it was not only a breach of the conditions under which Indians were recruited but also a breach of the Smuts-Gandhi agreement. The Union Govern- ment took no action on the Commission's report in the 1921 session of Parliament, but Mr. Patrick Duncan, who had become Minister of the Interior, indicated his sympathy with a proposal to allocate separate and distinct areas for occupation by the Indians of Natal.
The Government of India, while still seeking the removal of particular grievances, adhered to its wider view that only by the grant of equal rights could Indians in the Dominions be fully protected. At the Imperial Conference held in June-Aug. 1921 the Indian delegates pressed for the recognition of this principle and it was accepted by the representatives of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But the S.A. delegates, of whom the chief
