Canada had been trying to restrict immigration of the Japanese and Indians; but could not successfully do it till 1908. The laws previously made were disallowed and declared void by the courts. The Japanese Government agreed (in that year?) to see that not more than 400 Japanese went to Canada every year, the Canadian Government agreeing on its part to allow admission to every Japanese with a passport. The Government of India did not accept any system of restriction. Determined to prevent the entry of Indians Canada framed rules which, in effect though not in form, completely shut out the Indians. The rules require for instance that a wouldbe immigrant must travel to Canada by a continuous travel from his original place, or purchase a through ticket in advance, must possess 200 dollars in his own name and must not belong to the artisan or skilled or unskilled labour class. Now there is no direct steamship service between India and Canada; and thus no Indian can go and stay there, except for temporary purposes such as study, business and travel.

SOUTH AFRICA

Natal passed the Immigration Act and in 1897, and mention has already been made that it was accepted as a model for similar acts by the Australian States. The Cape Colony followed in 1902, and introduced the dictation test in a European language. In Transvaal Indians were efficiently kept out of the country after the Boar War by the use of wide powers under the Peace Preservation Ordinance of 1902. One of the first Acts of the responsible Government of Transvaal was to pass in 1907 an Immigration Act which absolutely excluded the entry of any Indian, not already domiciled there. It also gave the minister-in-charge wide discretionary powers, to remove from the Colony any person, deemed to be dangerous to the peace, order and good government.' The imperial government assented to the bill after assurances being given in respect of the entry of visitors of ruling chiefs, distinguished persons, and high officials; and also in respect of legislative restrictions on the use of the discretionary powers by the minister. The Orange Free State excluded Indians freely.

After the Union of South Africa came into existence, the Government of India decided to stop all immigration to S. Africa from July 1911, on the ground that there

was no security that Indians would be allowed to become citizens of the Union, if they so desire, after the expiration of their indentures. On the other hand, the Union Government passed an Immigration Act on the usual lines, with a short language test. Free immigration of the Indians among the different parts of the Union was not allowed. There were no Indians in the Orange Free State, and it was felt to be most undesirable that either there or in the Transvaal State it should be possible for the large population in Natal to penetrate. It was forbidden. To meet some of the grievances put forward by the late Mr. Gokhale an Immigration Regulation Act was passed in 1913. It defined the prohibited persons as "persoLs or class of persons deemed by the minister, on economic grounds on account of standard or habits of life to be unsuited to the requirements of the Union or any particular State thereof," or persons who are unable by reason of deficient education to read or write any European language to the satisfaction of the Immigration officer.' The same year, the minister of the Interior declared all Asiatics to be unsuited to the requirements of the Union,---and the validity of this declaration was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1923. The act permitted the entry of the wife and children under 16 years of age, of any person who was legally domiciled, including the wife and children of a lawful and monogamous marriage duly celebrated according to the rites of any religious faith outside the Union. Now, when the occasion came up for the application of this principle, as in the case of one Kulsan Bibi, the courts declared her to be not eligible for entry into the Union, although she was the wife of a person domiciled therein, and held that no Indian marriage. could be deemed monogamous, if by the religious faith of the Indian in question he could have more than one wife without illegality. Feelings of resentment were roused, and this interpretation was described by Sir Narayan Chandavarkar as a legal fraud, if there could be any, and he argued that if such a marriage could be polygamous,

SO

could be a Christian marriage, since a Christian may marry another after divorcing his first wife. Mahatma Gandhi restarted his Passive Resistence Movement to get redressed this as well as other grievances. The question was referred to a Commission with which the Passive Resisters non-co

operated. The Union government accepted the findings of the Commission and passed an act in 1914. The Act provides for the appointment of a priest of any Indian relgion as a marriage officer to solemnise marriages, which will be recognized as legal marriages and respected as such. It provides for the registration of the marriages which are de facto monogamous. It further authorises the introduction into the Union of the wife and children of any domiciled person, notwithstanding the religious faith of the person allowing him to have several wives, on condition of course, that he is not married to a person in the Union.

The question of the admission of Indians to other parts of the Empire was considered at the Imperial Conference of 1917 and 1918, and the resolution adopted runs as follows:

I. It is an inherent function of the Governments of the several Communities of the British Commonwealth including India that each should enjoy complete control of the composition of its own population by means of restrictions on immigration from any other communities.

2. British citizens domiciled into any British country should be admitted into any other British country for visits, for the purpose of pleasure or commerce, including temporary residence for the purpose of education; such a right shall not be extended to a visit or temporary residence. for labour purposes, or to permanent settlement.

3. Indians already permanently domiciled in the other countries should be allowed to bring in their wives and minor children, on condition that not more than one wife and her children be admitted for each such Indian and that each Indian so admitted, shall be certified by the Government of India as being the lawful wife or child of such Indian.

In virtue of the first part of this resolution the Dominions have adopted various restrictions already mentioned, or better these restrictions are now endorsed by the resolution. New Zealand prohibits entry of any person who has not received in advance, a permit from that Government, and this is refused to persons 'unsuitable' to settle in that dominion. Newfoundland imposes no restrictions, India on her part has assumed power to regulate the admission of immigrants from any other parts of the Empire foreign countries by means of passports ; and a Reciprocity Bill was passed in

or

February 1923. Under this Bill the GovernorGeneral in Council is empowered to make rules for securing that persons not being of Indian origin domiciled in any other British possessions, should have no greater rights or privileges as regards entry into and residence in British India than are accorded by law and administration of such possession to persons of Indian domicile. The Bill excludes from its scope persons in service of the Crown.

THE CROWN COLONIES

With regard to Crown Colonies and Protectorates, the Government of India has always maintained the attitude that there is no justification for placing any restrictions on the immigration of British Indians, which are not placed on other British subjects. The Colonial office acts up to this, whenever it. is convenient. The question has mainly cropped up in connection with Kenya. The White Paper on Kenya issued in July 1923, while professing that racial discrimination in immigration would not be in accord with the general policy of His Majesty's Government, said that "some further control over immigration in the interests of the Natives of Kenya is required. The primary duty of the Colonial government is the advancement of the African and it is incumbent upon them to protect him from an influx of immigrants from any any country that might tend to retard his economic development." Further the White Paper defined undesirable economic competitors as "small traders, subordinate clerks in Government and private employ and mercantile labourers." What a strange coincidence that this definition covered the Indians! Is the exclusion on racial or economic ground? We cannot answer the question better than in the words of Prof. Keith. "The restrictions of Indian immigration and the refusal to the resident Indians of the franchise on the same terms as it is accorded to the British settlers is definitely to deny racial equality even within that part of the Empire which is controlled by His Majesty's Government.

contention applies equally to the British; all experience notably in South Africa should have established by now that to create a dominant white population is inconsistent with normal Native development."

MANDATED TERRITORIES

The position of Indians with regard to mandated Territorries is inconsistent with the position of India as a member of the League of Nations. The former German Colonies of New Guinea, W. Sam and S. W. Africa are now administered by Aus

tralia, New Zealand and S. Africa respectively under the League mandates. The League empowers the mandatory nation to administer these areas as integral portions of its territories and under its own laws.

fifteen persons migrated. By 1910, the number increased to 1872. Since then restriction measures were adopted. In 1917, an Immigration Act was passed extending prohibition to native labour of territories within a defined geographical zone which embraces the greater part of Central Asia and the whole of India, excluding China and Japan. Permission is given to students, merchants and travellers.

immigration laws of these dominions are extended to the mandated territories, and Indians are barred from entering them. The position for the Indians is thus worse than what it was before the war. Naturally resentment is felt against this policy of exclusion. Political autonomy and socio-economic ideals made India acquiesce in the exclusion laws of the Dominions; but the promotion of the Native interests in the mandated territories does not appear incompatible with economic equality of all the nationals, of all the members of the League. In any case, the Mandatory power cannot be allowed be the sole judge of how this trust of civilization' is discharged. India herself should be one of the trustees. The question is not of

They did not emigrate to settle down. Their religion forbade it. The system of indentured labour has been primarily responsible for the large numbers of Indians elsewhere. It is on account of the Westerner's feverish activity to better his own economic standard that Indians have suffered. As Mr. Andrews puts it, for the last 1000 years the only migration from India of any Indians has been brought about to supply cheap labour to the British Colonies. "The picture of hungry Indian hordes entering Africa is a pure myth."

The other reason that is generally advanced in favour of the policy of excluding Asiatics is purly economic. It is pleaded that different communities have different standards of living, and different capacities for work. It is feared that the industrial and economic competition by the Asiatics, who are, as a rule, more hard-working and require less for their living, constitute a great danger to the whites. This is the agreement advanced by Canada, U. S. A., S. Africa, Australia &c. Whatever the justice of this contention, as facts stand India has silently acquiesced in it. The Imperial Conference Resolution in 1918 leaves every dominion to leave open or shut and bolt the door of her country against any immigration. And Mr Shastri could not do better than acquiescing in the White Australia Policy.

This work is the result of a happy combination of proficiency in facts and of familiarity with theory and exhibits a mastery of detail controlled and ordered by the sobriety of true scholarship". In this way such an authority on Indian Vernaculars as Sir George Grierson expresses his opinion on the book of Prof. S. K. Chatterji. After the judgment of such an eminent scholar one should prefer to give up any idea of writing a review of the book. In general the reviewer is not satisfied if he does not find something to criticise, something about which he can make a show of his knowledge and induce in the readers the impression that he is a better authority than the writer of the book to be judged. But I do not belong to this kind of critics and therefore I am glad to begin these notes on the recent work by Prof. Chatterji with the words of Sir George Grierson, whose judgment I completely share.

The "Origin and Development of Bengali Language" is indeed the accomplishment, the siddhi of that sadhana of patient and uninterrupted work to which the author has dedicated the best years of his life. But so far as the Bengali language is concerned, he had no guru before him, Except the brilliant and forerunner essays by Rabindranath Tagore, neither Indian nor European scholars had yet worked in a serious and scientific way at the solution of the complicated problems of the origin, development and formation of the Bengali language. Either the traditional system of Sanskrit grammarians or some too often fanciful comparisons and theories (as those of Mr. Majumdar) had pre vented to build up a real scientific idea about the evolution of Bengali. Yet the way how to work was already shown in connexion with other dialects by some great linguists. The "Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages" by Hoernle, the essay on the Rajasthani by the late lamented Italian scholar Tessitori, the masterly book on the Marathi language by Jules Bloch can all be considered as epoch-making works. Taking his diksha about the method of research from these scholars, from Prof. Meiliet whose lectures he attended in Paris. and from Sir George Grierson himself whom he met during his stay in England, the author had to do everything anew in the field of Bengal.

Those who have an idea of the history of

* SUNITI KUMAR CHATTERJI-The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language: Calcutta University Press, 1926: Two Volumes, Foolscap Octavo, Cloth Bound (Vol. I-Introduction and Phonology, pp. i-xci, 1-648; Vol. II-Morphology, Additions and Corrections, and Index of Bengali Words, pp. 649-1179) Price Rupees Twenty.

Bengal and of Bengali literature can only too well realize how difficult this task would be. First of all, the linguistic documents which can give us an idea of Bengali in the earliest stages of its evolution are very scanty, or preserved in a modernized or Sanskritised form. Secondly, the races that have met each other in that vast country which is now called Bengal have been so many and so various, the languages which have been spoken there are so manifold, and the influences which have worked on Bengali are of so many origins and kinds, that no attempt to trace out the history of the language would have proved successful without a sound knowledge not only of IndoEuropean linguistics merely, but also of the fundamental dialects and linguistic groups which have developed in or come in contact with the country and possibly may have contributed to some extent to the actual characterisation of Bengali. As the author has studied all the questions directly or indirectly connected with Bengali, the title of the book does not perhaps say completely what it contains; in fact, we can say that it is of a capital importance not only for those who are particularly interested in Bengali only, but also for the scholars who work in the difficult field of Prakrit researches. Having made for several years the Prakrit dialects (or the Middle Indo-Aryan) according the terminology employed by the author, the object of my studies, I was glad to find in the book many an important question regarding the Sauraseni, the Magadhi, the Ardha-Magadhi, the Apabhransa etc. thoroughly discussed with an up-to-date information In fact, in the Introduction which covers 235 pages as well as in the text, the author has not only given a careful synthesis of the results of modern, research, on the various topics of Indian Vernaculars in the different periods of their evolution, and in this way traced out a clear idea of the linguistic area and of the various elements which co-operated in the formation of Bengali, but alsc very often has come into details and brought into discussion new elements and data, in order to elucidate, with a new light, many a difficult or uncertain question.' I quote for instance the interpretation that he gives (p. 245 ff.) of the 'Prakrta Prakasa' sutra xi. 5 (cavargasya spashtata tathoccaranah), correcting the views expounded by Grierson and proving that in Maharashtri and in Sauraseni, at least during a stage of their evolution, the intervocalic palatal stops did not have a

dental affricate but rather an elided pronunciation. The examples' which he quotes from the Sauraseni of the Mrechakatika', and to which it would be easy to add some others also, are decisive. As it is known, another question of capital interest is that of the division of the dialects of New Indo-Aryan. The theory of a twofold immigration in India by the Aryan invaders, first postulated by Hoernle, has been later on developed on a linguistic basis by Grierson, who in a fundamental article published in the 'Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, London' (1920) tried to demonstrate that there are in India an Outer and an Inner group of languages, the one represented by Lahudi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Bihari, and Pahari, and the other by Western Hindi. This theory of Grierson although based on very many facts, cannot be considered as definitive, inasmuch as there is almost the same amount of linguistic arguments which stand against it. It is a merit of Prof. Chatterji to have collected the largest number of these arguments and to have shown that on many points at least we have to admit a similarity of Bengali with Western Hindi much more than with the western dialects. I myself had serious doubts about this classification by Grierson: all the dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, although they developed very soon some peculiar characteristics, show yet a general unity which can be explained quite well by the fact that they are the common offshoots of the Vedic language. As pointed out recently also by Meillet, there is no need to suppose in ancient times the existence of another dialect other than that which is represented by the Vedic.

We cannot follow here the author in the thousand pages in which with an up-to-date documentation he studies the various phonetical and morphological aspects of the Bengali language, in their evolution, and in their type. A book on pure linguistics, in which the various laws are to be discussed on the basis of facts as they appear in words and forms, cannot be summarised. Moreover, this would compel us to come into minute details which do not befit a literary journal like the present one. Anyhow I

cannot help pointing out Appendix B in which the author studies the Dravidian influences in Bengal. The importance of this subject can be well realized by those who know how modern research emphasises the contribution of pre-Aryan and non-Aryan peoples to Aryan civilisation and language, whose presence is also suficiently witnessed by toponomy. Many a question of great interest in the history of Indian literature is discussed in the Introduction. I must mention, for instance, the conclusions of the author about the fatherland of Vijaya, who, according to some Pali chronicles, went to Ceylon from Lala-rattha, his homeland. Against the opinion of many scholars who thought this Lala to be kadha or West Bengal, he is quite right in supporting the equation Lala-Lada, Skt. Lata, the Larike of Greek geogra phers (p. 72), on the basis of some linguistic facts, which are very important in order to prove the relation between Ceylon and Gujarat (Section 8). And I think that we shall have also to accept as sure the date proposed by the author for Gorakshanatha and Kanhu-pada (XIIth century), on the basis not only of the internal evidence but also with the help of the tradition preserved in the 'Jnanesvari' and the date contained in the colophon of a manuscrit of the Heviaj' alpanjika Yogaratnamala.'

To sum up: We can say that the work by Prof. Chatterji is the first scientific contribution of Modern India to linguistic studies. With his book the author has shown the way how to work, to his younger countrymen who are inclined to this kind of research. Linguistics cannot be based on mere rapprochement of sounds: but it has to establish rules and laws which must be proved by the linguistic facts themselves. Fanciful hypotheses are no more allowed, but only those the probability of which is the result of a thorough discussion of all the documents available.

Of course, books like this cannot be an easy reading, since science, real science, cannot be always merely amusing.

Navadwip, November 3, 1926.