DEPUTATION TO LORD SELBORNE 33 mischief in Natal. At one time it became so serious that the then Justice, Sir Walter Wagg, had to intervene and to put down the use of that expression in connection with any but indentured Indians, it having been imported into the Court of Justice. As your Excellency may be aware, it means °°labourer" or °°porter." Used, therefore, in connection with traders, it is not only offensive, but a contradiction in terms. THE PEACE PRESERVATION ORDINANCE Coming to the statement that the British Indian Aeso- ciation is submitting to your Excellency, I would take first the Peace Preservation Ordinance. Soon after the Transvaal became part of the British Dominions. the services rendered during the war by the dhooly-bearers that came with Sir George White, and those rendered by the Indian Ambulance Corps in Natal, were on many people’s lips. Sir George White spoke in glowing terms of the heroism of Parbhur Singh, who, perched up in a tree, never once failed to ring the gong as a notice to the inhabitants each time the Boer gun was fired from the Umbulwana Hill. General Buller’s despatchee, praising the work of the corps, were just out and the administra- tion was in the hands of the military officers who knew the Indians. The Bret batch of refugees, therefore, who were waiting at the ports, entered the country without any difficulty, but the civilian population became alarm- ed, and called for the restriction of the entry of even the refugees. The result was that the country was dotted with Asiatic officers, and from that time up to·day the Indian community has known no rest; whereas aliens, in every sense of the term, as a rule, got their permits at tbe· p“orts on application there and then, the Indian, even 3
