THE DAILY PROVINCE
JUNE 3, 1914

THE EXPERIMENT FAILS.

p.6

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According to present indications the Japanese steamship Komagata
Maru will leave Vancouver for the Orient with her excursionists on board
without them having had the opportunity of examining the country. They
appear to have at last realized they could no land unless Canada chose to
make a special dispensation in their favor and that it is an expensive business
to keep a ship waiting in port while the courts decide whether its passengers
are entitled to land here or not. The experiment was almost bound to be a
failure from the very first. Mr. Gurdit Singh may have been imbued with the
best of intentions, but he was most ill-advised to bring such a large party here.
As we have said before it could make no difference whether the test was made
with one or a thousand. It was the principle which was involved and the
principle is based on sound common sense from every point of view. We are
sure that if Mr. Gurdit Singh and his following consider the problem calmly
they will come to the same conclusion. While at first Canada may seem to
offer a wide field to the labor of the East Indians, free access to the country
would simply entail very sharp competition among the immigrants
themselves. The Chinese and Japanese were admitted only because a
precedent had been established. What Mr. Gurdit Singh and his friends do not
realize is that Canada has found the precedent led to as injurious habit and is
endeavoring gradually to cure the habit without a violent operation.
Meanwhile she has learnt from experience and does not intend to add to her
trouble by impinging another such problem on the ones already existing.
There is absolutely no desire on the part of Canada to discriminate
against the Hindus. We recognise their worth and the wonderful possibilities
for their civilization. But their civilization is not ours and it has yet to merge.
It can not(Sic) merge where contrasts are so violent. Conquests have come
down from the north and swept into India. Under British rule India has had
peace and her frontiers have been protected. The tide of conquest may yet
turn northwards and the Indians find in Asia room for development. But as
The Province has said before and may be pardoned for repeating, East Central

THE DAILY PROVINCE
JUNE 3, 1914

p.6

Africa seems to offer an absolutely ideal field for the solution of this problem
without conquest and without trouble. It is no good Mr. Gurdit Singh and his
following returning to India crying for the moon. No amount of threatening
will move the British Raj. That is not the way to solve what is admittedly a
problem. Let Gurdit Singh and his friends face the problem as men and not as
children. Lord Hardinge has the greatest sympathy for the race over which he
holds sway as the Emperor’s representative. If Mr. Gurdit Singh goes to him
with a common sense proposal for colonization by East Indians on a large
scale and properly financed in territory where such colonization will be
welcomed, we are absolutely certain the Imperial Government will assist in
every way possible. Possibly not only the Imperial Government, but the whole
of the white races within the Empire will gladly do all that is possible to
relieve the pressure of population in India and by so doing develop other
parts of the Empire where the white admittedly can not(Sic) labor.
Mr. Gurdit Singh may insist that colonization is not the point, that he is
fighting for liberty for Hindus to travel and settle where they please. In that
case he is simply running his head against a brick wall. He is trying to
establish a new precedent by destroying an old prejudice which is instinctive
as well as economical.