We need room for colonization—says the Hindu. Let England lose India, and she loses five-sixths of the British Empire. By refusing admission to the Hindu, Canada is endangering British dominion in India. Moral conditions there are appalling, of course; but say the missionaries—give these people a chance, and they will become as good as any of us. Are we not sprung from the same Aryan stock?
British Columbia has immense tracts of arable land. Why not give India's millions a chance on it as colonizers?
There is not so much sedition among the Hindus of British Columbia as among Canadian-born Socialists, who rant of the flag as "the bloody rag."
The vices of the Hindu are no worse than the vices of the low whites.
They are British subjects and have a right to admission. Admission is not a privilege but a right.
How can we expect good morals among three to five thousand men who are forcibly separated from wives and children? Admit their wives to prevent deterioration. This argument was used by a Hindu addressing audiences in Toronto.
What right have Canadians to point the finger of scorn at the reproach of the child wife when the age of marriage in one province is twelve years?
In the days of the mutiny the Sikh proved his loyalty. To-day the Indian troops are proving their loyalty by fighting for the empire in Europe.
Many of the Canadians now denouncing the Hindu made money selling them real estate in Vancouver, and expropriation is behind the idea of exclusion.
The admission of the Hindu would relieve British Columbia's great need for manual laborers.