1090 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART Vv
§ 4. THE ASIATIC QUESTION IN SOUTH AFRICA
In 1902 the Cape at last followed the model of Natal in
1897 and passed an Act (No. 47) imposing a dictation test in
a European language, to which Yiddish was added in Act
No. 30 of 1906, an addition which was the cause of some
sarcasms at the expense of the magnates.! Natal renewed
and altered in detail the Immigration Restriction Act of
1897 in 1903 (No. 30) and 1906 (No. 3), but of late her
chief achievement has been a series of disputes regarding
the legislation affecting British Indians. An Act, No. 18 of
1897, regarding licences, required that the licences should
be possessed only by merchants who could keep accounts in
English, and latterly this was extended by interpretation to
mean that they must be able to keep their accounts personally
in that language. In 1909, however, this Act was amended
(No. 22) to allow of an appeal to the Supreme Court from the
refusal of a town body to renew a licence, as it was justly
urged that the town authorities were hardly impartial judges
of their rivals in business. A Municipal Corporations Bill of
1905 excluded from the municipal franchise all persons who
were excluded by an Act No. 8 of 1896 from the Parlia-
mentary franchise, and this included Indians ; moreover, its
language as regards Indians was deemed discourteous as
classing them with barbarous races, and it was refused assent
unless amended. In 1908 proposals were also mooted for the
cessation of the grant of dealers’ licences to Indians, and
the prevention of the holding of existing licences after a given
date by Indians, and it was also proposed to prohibit further
coloured immigration; but none of these Bills became law,
the two regarding dealers’ licences being refused the royal
assent after reservation, and a commission of 1909 reported
against the second project.?
In the Transvaal the irony of fate has produced a strange
result; in 1885 the old republic passed a harsh law (No. 3) which
refused Indians the citizenship, refused them landed property,
' There has been some contravention of the Act by corrupt practices ;
see the report of a Select Committee on the Immigration Department
C. 1, 1909.
! Bee Assembly Debates, xliv. 326-72, 455-62, 498-500; xlv. 1-5, 61-76,
131-43, 317; Council Debates. 1908, pp. 70-6, 84-96, 101-3.
