Shock report
Mr Callaghan may have shocked the Sun, but I doubt very much it he shocked the Commons, or anyone else who has read the Bill. Indeed Mr Maudling, speaking immedi- ately before Mr Callaghan in the Commons debate, made much the same point. Speaking of those who wourd have the right to come and go as they please Mr Maudling men- tioned the category of 'any Commonwealth citizen who had had a father, mother, or grandparent born in this kingdom. These were the people who would have the right of patriality or abode, with the right to come and go free of control.'
Someone from the Labour benches cried out, 'How many of them?'
'There would be millions of them,' Maud- ling replied.
Having heard this, the Commons—which Is not a body of men and women given to feelings of excessive shock—can hardly have been surprised at Callaghan's actual words : 'One of the difficulties the Gov- ernment would be in as a result of the Bill was on the question of the Anglo-Indians. There were over a million of them. They were either children or grandchildren of persons who were probably in the definition of pat- rials. They had conditional rights of entry to the United Kingdom if they could get a work voucher or entry permit. But when the Bill became law and the grandfather clause came into operation, they would be free to come to Britain'.
And why not, if in similar circumstances Australians and New Zealanders, Rhodesians and South Africans, Canadians and Jamai- cans, who have a parent or grandparent born here, are also free to come? It is a pity that the Sun, in headlining its report of the de- bate, should have described Anglo-Indians as Asians, a description which at best is misleading. To reject the Anglo-Indians while admitting, say, Australians like Mr Murdoch would indeed be to introduce a specifically racial element into the law. It would be to say to someone with Indian blood, 'Because of your blood—because of your Indian parent or grandparent, as well as your Indian birth, you are not free to come and go here as you please'.
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