puAP. Iv] IMMIGRATION OF COLOURED RACES 1081 
one from the other, but there is no one of them, except 
perhaps the Bill which comes to us from Natal, to which 
we can look with satisfaction. I wish to say that Her 
Majesty's Government thoroughly appreciate the object and 
the needs of the Colonies in dealing with this matter. We 
quite sympathize with the determination of the white 
inhabitants of these Colonies which are in comparatively 
close proximity to millions and hundreds of millions of 
Asiatics, that there shall not be an influx of people alien in 
civilization, alien in religion, alien in customs, whose influx, 
moreover, would most seriously interfere with the legitimate 
rights of the existing labour population. An immigration 
of that kind must, I quite understand, in the interests of the 
Colonies, be prevented at all hazards, and we shall not offer 
any opposition to the proposals intended with that object, 
but we ask you also to bear in mind the traditions of the 
Empire, which makes no distinction in favour of, or against, 
race or colour ; and to exclude, by reason of their colour, 
or by reason of their race, all Her Majesty’s Indian subjects, 
or even all Asiatics, would be an act so offensive to those 
peoples that it would be most painful, I am quite certain, 
to Her Majesty to have to sanction it. Consider what has 
been brought to your notice during your visit to this country. 
The United Kingdom owns, as its brightest and greatest 
dependency, that enormous Empire of India, with 300,000,000 
of subjects, who are as loyal to the Crown as you are your- 
selves, and among them there are hundreds and thousands 
of men who are every whit as civilized as we are ourselves, 
who are, if that is anything, better born in the sense that 
they have older traditions and older families, who are men 
of wealth, men of cultivation, men of distinguished valour, 
men who have brought whole armies and placed them at the 
service of the Queen, and have in times of great difficulty 
and trouble, such for instance as on the occasion of the 
Indian Mutiny, saved the Empire by their loyalty. 1 say, 
you, who have seen all this, cannot be willing to put upon 
those men a slight, which 1 think is absolutely unnecessary 
for your purpose, and which would be calculated to provoke 
ill-feeling, discontent, irritation, and would be most un- 
palatable to the feelings not only of Her Majesty the Queen 
but of all her people. 
What I venture to think you have to deal with is the 
character of the immigration. It is not because a man is 
of a different colour from ourselves that he is necessarily an 
andesirable immigrant, but it is because he is dirty or