In Natal, agitation against immigrants also became vociferous in the 1890s, focused on an ‘invasion’ of Indian immigrants, many of whom were also accused of bringing the plague. More important than the fear of disease, however, was the prospect of their competition in employment and business and their future participation in politics for, as the Colonial Office observed sympathetically with reference to an 1894 franchise amendment, ‘the Whites would never submit to being overruled by the Indian vote’.[40]
In promising to limit Indian immigration, the Natal government insisted on the political imperative of securing white man’s rule:
We have got a large unenfranchised [Black] population of roughly 500,000; we have got a European population – which in fact is the governing body as regards the whole community – roughly in numbers, 50,000; and we have got Indians who have come here at our own expense, or who have come here as a consequence of our own Immigration Laws, in round numbers nearly equal to Europeans. And we think that a large addition to the Indian population will be a cause for difficulty, not only in the present as regards competition, but also in the future as regards the political conditions of the colony.[41]
The government initially determined to follow the Australian colony of New South Wales, which had recently passed legislation extending its earlier 1888 exclusion of Chinese to ‘all coloured races’ regardless of their status as British subjects. However, on preparation of a similar Bill called ‘A Bill to restrict the immigration of Asiatics into Natal’, the government was informed that the New South Wales legislation had been ‘reserved’ by the Colonial Office.
Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain explained to both New South Wales and Natal that these measures – and the issue of discrimination against Chinese and Indian British subjects more generally – would be discussed later that year in London when the colonial Premiers gathered to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne. The invitation to join the celebrations was welcomed in Natal as a great compliment to ‘the self-governing Colonies’.[42]
Clearly, explicit race-based legislation would not receive royal assent, so Natal looked to the example of the ‘great Republic of America’ which claimed, like themselves, ‘an absolute right’ ‘if they think fit to place a restriction on the introduction of immigration into their country of persons who are regarded by the community as undesirable immigrants’.[43] In moving the second reading of the Immigration Restriction Bill in the Legislative Assembly, in March 1897, the Premier explained:
The great Republic of America has found it necessary to have recourse to that restriction and I may say generally that the Bill that I now have the honour to submit to this Assembly is founded on the American Act. But it goes one step further. The American Act prohibits the immigration of ... ‘persons who cannot read and write in their own language or in some other language’ (these are the words of the statute) ‘being of the age of sixteen and upwards’.[44]
The Premier explained further that the Natal legislation had to ‘go one step further than the American Bill’ because the persons whom Natal desired to exclude were ‘perfectly well able to read and write in their own language’. The Natal Bill stipulated that if prospective immigrants were
unable to satisfy the immigration officer that they can read and write in the English language in the form prescribed by the Bill – a form that will not admit of any evasion – that if persons are unable to comply with that educational test it will be competent for the Government of this country, through the proper officers, to exclude those people from forming part and parcel of this community’.[45]
The final legislation actually specified that the application must be written in ‘any European language’, both to avoid discouraging other European immigrants and causing offence to Britain’s European allies.
Several members of the Natal Legislative Assembly had objected to the provision for a literacy test because, on the one hand, ‘the wily Hindoo’ could certainly circumvent such a requirement, while on the other, it would prevent otherwise excellent European colonists from immigrating to Natal. Some argued, as they would also argue in Australia, that it was more becoming to white men to speak honestly about their intentions and forget about Colonial Office objections on behalf of coloured British subjects, for ‘the idea of the British subject was fading more and more every year’. It was also suggested that the American precedent was inappropriate because their legislation was thought to be directed at lower class Europeans. Rather, some politicians urged, Natal should follow her ‘sister colony’ of New South Wales and join them in presenting a united front to the Colonial Office on the particular matter of ‘Asiatic immigration’.
In the event, the Bill ‘founded on the American Act’ was passed with few dissenting voices and would thence be recommended by Secretary of State Joseph Chamberlain as a model to the Australians in 1901.