THE DAILY PROVINCE
OCTOBER 10, 1907

p.1

NEARLY TWO HUNDRED HINDUS
REFUSED LANDING
------------------Over One Hundred Were Rejected on Ground of
Probable Pauperism.

------------------MANY OTHERS DISEASED.
------------------Three Hundred Were Turned Loose to Join
Unemployed of Their Race.

------------------HERDED this way and driven that way-paraded up and down the upper
deck of the C. P. R. steamship Tartar before the eyes of Dominion
superintendent of immigration Scott, and the discriminating professional
stare of Dr. Monro, federal immigration officer, five hundred and sixteen
lanky, half-starved “British fellow subjects” from India were mustered for
inspection at 7 o’clock this morning as the big boat lay alongside the C. P. R.
wharf.
One hundred and eighty-one of them were refused admittance to
Canada by Dr. Monro, and they will be returned to Hongkong on the Tartar at
the expense of the C. P. R. Of this number one hundred and six were relegated
to the “found wanting” quarter of the deck, because they did no possess
sufficient cash to insure them against starvation before they could find work
here. The remaining seventy-five were rejected because they suffered from
trachoma or were otherwise physically defective.
When Dr. Monro had finished his inspection the population of
Vancouver had grown to the extent of three hundred and thirty-five non-

THE DAILY PROVINCE
OCTOBER 10, 1907

p.1

assimilative males. These men were turned loose on the city to-day to join the
hundreds of other unemployed Hindus, whose principal occupation is
persistent house-to-house begging for money, food and clothes.
Twenty- five Dollars Minimum.
The immigration regulations, while not specifically stating the amount
of money an immigrant must have on entering Canada, give discretionary
powers to the immigration officials by declaring that no person who is likely
to become a public charge shall be allowed to land. It has been estimated by
Dr. Monro that a Hindu with less than $25 in cash stands a poor chance of
securing work before his money would run out, and so not one of the five
hundred and sixteen arrivals who could not show $25 was admitted.
To the knowledge of the immigration authorities there are now several
hundred Hindus hanging around Vancouver without work or visible means of
support. These men have been in the country for some months, and if they
cannot find employment, the opportunity for those arriving on the Tartar to
do so is plainly and logically very small.
Mr. Scott’s Work Finished.
Superintendent of Immigration Scott, who will leave this afternoon for
Ottawa after having spent some weeks on the coast investigating the Asiatic
immigration problem, was an interested spectator of the inspection of the
Hindus. His official opinions he kept to himself, but he seemed to derive no
pleasure in being surrounded by scores of the unkempt, dirty-turbaned,
hungry looking Hindus who swarmed the upper deck of the Tartar. If there is
any truth in the oft-repeated axiom of the medical man that dirt and disease
travel together, the newly arrived contingent are practically all candidates for
either a Turkish bathhouse or a hospital.