35. PETITION TO NATAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY'
Durban,
March 26. 1897
TO
The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Honour¬
able the Legislative Assembly of the Colony of Natal in
Parliament Assembled,
Pietermaritzburg
The Petition of the Undersigned Representing the Indian Community in This Colony
HUMBLY SHEWETH:
That your Petitioners hereby venture to lay before this
Honourable House the feeling of the Indian community with
reference to the Quarantine, Trade Licences, Immigration and
Uncovenanted Indians Protection Bills2 that are now, or soon will
be, before this Honourable House for consideration.
Your Petitioners understand that the first three Bills herein¬
above referred to are meant, directly or indirectly, to restrict
the immigration of Her Majesty’s Indian subjects into the
Colony. Strange as it may appear there is no mention of the
persons whom they are meant to affect.3 With the greatest defer¬
ence, your Petitioners venture to submit that such a mode of
procedure is un-British and, therefore, it should not receive
countenance in a Colony which is supposed to be the most British
in South Africa. If it is proved to the satisfaction of this
Honourable House that the presence of the Indian in the Colony
is an evil and there is an alarming influx of Indians into the
Colony, your Petitioners submit that it will be better in the in¬
terests of all parties concerned that a Bill directly aiming at the
evil be passed.
- The Natal Mercury. 29-3-1897, published the text of the petition with a few introductory lines and some minor verbal alterations.
- For provisions of these enactments, vide pp. 272-80.
- Indians were not specifically mentioned in three of the four measures despite the fact that they were implicitly meant to affect the Indians; only the Uncovenanted Indians Protection Bill referred to the Indians by name.
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