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llth Day.] Indian Emigration and Immigration. [19 June, 1911. EARL OF CREWE— cont. the Conference. It puts into the hands of those—some of them entirely unscrupulous people —who object to our presence in India and who desire to undermine the Government, a weapon which they are not slow to use in attacking us. If, they ask, Indians are to suffer from disabilities in various parts of the Empire, what good is the British connection at all ? Of course, it is a question which can very easily be answered, at any rate to a great extent; but put in that form it naturally makes an appeal to people who are not well informed. I may point out also that the growing tendency to apply principles of self-government to India adds greatly to the complication and difficulty of the matter, because when a Legislative Council, as always possibly may happen, takes occasion to make a particular protest against some legislation or some administrative act on the part of the Government of a Dominion, it becomes —as I am sure you will all be disposed to agree—a far more serious matter than if a mere uninformed grumble, perhaps in the Press or elsewhere, is heard. Therefore, the further we go towards developing the power of India to govern herself the greater are the difficulties which arise on this particular question. What I should venture to state as the lines upon which the Dominion Governments might respectively proceed involve these two considerations. I think that it is possible for the Dominion Governments, strictly within the limits which they lay down for the admission of Indians, to make the entrance of Indians more easy and more pleasant than it has been in the past. It is a matter, I have no doubt, involving some personal trouble, but I am quite certain that if it could become known that, strictly within those limits which we all agree you are entitled to exercise, the Indian subjects of the Crown will receive a real welcome when they come and will not be looked upon with distrust or suspicion, much might be done to better the relations between India and the Dominions. On the other side, as regards the protection of those who are already domiciled there, some, I may remind you, have been there for a very long time indeed. There is at any rate one of the Dominions in which Orientals have been domiciled for some 200 yeais. Sir JOSEPH WARD : That point is not raised in this Resolution at all, Lord Crewe—the domicile of any of the Indians. EARL OF CREWE : No, I was meiely making a general statement; it is quite true I am not speaking to the particular Resolution, but it was asked that I should make a general statement also with regard to the treatment of domiciled Indians. You know very well the matters to which Indians who are in a Dominion attach special importance. In some cases, although not in all, they attach the highest importance to the maintenance of the obligations of caste, and I should hope, therefore, that so far as possible, particularly when Indians are unlucky enough to get into trouble and have to go to prison either for offences against the criminal law or on account of resistance to regulations having the force of law, so far as possible every effort will be made to consider the force of the caste prejudices and similar prejudices which Indians possess, and to make matters as easy for them as possible in that respect. So far as my experience goes, Ministers have shown every desire in every case in which we have appealed to them on the subject to act not merely with humanity (I am speaking, of course, of the Dominion Ministers), but in a broad-minded spirit on these questions. The difficulty, of course, does not arise, I know very well, from the views or prejudices of Ministers themselves, but it cannot always be easy for them to impress upon their subordinates, quite subordinate officials who are probably imbued with a very strong anti-colour prejudice, the importance which we attach, and which those who have to do with India and know India always attach, to what may seem small matters of this kind. lam quite certain that I may venture to appeal to the Dominion Ministers to do all they can to inform public opinion rationally on the points that I have ventured to allude to in the earlier part of my remarks of the general claim of Indians—the members of another race —to considerate