PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION F. 607 



Act, British Indians resident in Australia sought redress for their 

 grievances by forming themselves, at the beginning of 1903, into a 

 body called the " British and Indian Empire League of Australia 

 (affiliated with the National Congress of India and kindred bodies in 

 Great Britain)." Soon afterwards they memorialised the Indian 

 Congress, held in Madras in the same year, to espouse their cause. 

 The following are a few extracts from their petition : — " As loyal 

 subjects of King Edward, all we ask is that the very limited number 

 of British Indians who seek access to Australia should not be excluded 

 by restrictive legislation, so long as they duly respect the laws of the 

 country and the rights of their fellow-subjects of British origin, avoid- 

 ing all interference with the established customs and interests of 

 European residents. The astounding anomaly of which we complain 

 is that about one-half of Australia lies within the tropics. The races 

 indigenous to extra-tropical countries are endowed with a lighter 

 complexion than those who inhabit tropical territories. The obvious 

 physiological cause of this difference is that it was deemed necessary 

 by the author of our existence to enable natives of the tropics to live 

 and labor in that region with comparative immunity from danger to 

 health. They are, accordingly, afforded special protection from the 

 scorching rays of a vertical sun by a different dermic organisation 

 from that of natives of extra-tropical countries. Yet this wise pro- 

 vision is profanely condemned and resented by the dog-in-the-manger 

 policy of the Commonwealth restrictionists. Those whites hostile to 

 us cannot work in the tropics without serious inconvenience ; yet 

 they insist on prohibiting their Indian fellow-subjects, whose physical 

 constitution is expressly adapted to a tropical climate, from developing 

 a vast British country, whose increased products would contribute 

 to the convenience and comfort of the civilised world. The plan of 

 the Creator is contemptuously defied by a majority of Australian 

 legislators, who retaliate against Him for giving us the only kind of 

 complexion by which we could withstand climates that would imperil 

 the health and lives of Europeans. His handiwork is denounced by 

 the Bartons, Kingstons, Deakins, and their followers as a ' curse,' 

 threatening the contamination of the white population. . . . 

 Christian missionary societies profess solicitude for our conversion 

 from the faith of our fathers to their religion on the plea that 

 Christianity is the sole passport to eternal felicity. But it militates 

 greatly against our desire for the society of the professed adherents 

 of that system in the future world that we should be subjected to such 

 ignominious treatment by Australian fellow-subjects of British descent, 

 and that their clergy and the public press should remain silent while 

 we are doomed to unmerited contumely by so large a class of Aus- 

 tralian politicians and citizens, although ruled by the same sovereign 

 as themselves. . . . The British Government must be asked to 

 declare before the world whether it is for or against our cause." 



In response to this appeal the National Congress of India, at its 

 annual meeting in 1903, passed the following resolution : — " That this 

 Congress views with grave concern and regret the hard lot of His 



