is once broken through, however slightly it may be, there is the imminent risk of the breach being widened by a Government greedy of power.
That is the objection from the European point of view. Your Memorialists, while agreeing with that view, have a yet more formidable objection to the principle of the clause. It is not so much the number of Indian voters that the Indian community wish to see on the Voters’ Roll as the vindication of their rights and privileges as British subjects and the equal status with European British subjects that is assured to the British Indians by Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Empress on more occasions than one, and that has been specially assured to the Indian community in Natal by Her Majesty’s Government in a special despatch by the Right Honourable the late Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies. If other British subjects having certain qualifications can claim the franchise as of right, why, your Memorialists humbly ask, should not the Indian British subjects?
The method is cumbrous and will tend to keep up the franchise agitation for ever. It would, moreover, transfer the agitation from the Europeans to the Indians. The speeches in the Assembly on the second reading show that the power will be exercised very sparingly, if at all, by the Governor-in-Council.
It is calculated to create dissensions among the Indian community, for the applicant who is rejected may resent the favour granted to a brother applicant if the one considers himself as good as the other.
Education, intelligence, and stake, are mentioned in Your Honour’s despatch relating to the franchise question as entitling the Indians to the franchise. Your Memorialists submit that if a certain amount of education, intelligence or stake is to be sufficient to qualify an Indian to become a voter in the Colony, then such a test could be introduced instead of leaving the power in the hands of the Governor-in-Council. Hereon, your Memorialists beg to draw your attention to a portion of the leading article in The Natal Mercury hereinbefore quoted. If the necessary qualifications for those coming under the operation of that Bill were stated, it would do away with the contentious character of that part of the Bill, and those coming under its operation will then know exactly what qualifications would entitle them to a vote. The position is well summed up in The Natal Advertiser of the 8th May.
- A still further proof of the duplicity of the present Bill lies in its provision that the Governor-in-Council shall have the power to place certain
