News from the Transvaal during the past two weeks shows,
we fear, that the compromise of last January as to the rights of British Indian subjects has broken down. The circumstances are not very clear, as is proved by the fact that Lord Ampthill and the Johannesburg correspondent of the Times are in direct disagreement as to whether the Transvaal Government is trying faithfully to observe the compromise or not. Lord Ampthill, whose industrious championship of Indian claims does him credit, asserts that General Smuts is " seeking to impose a new condition" upon the fulfilment of his promise to repeal the Registration Law. This condition is said to be the exclusion from the Transvaal of all British Indian immi- grants who cannot prove previous domicile. The Times corre- spondent argues, on the other hand, that the condition was implicit in the compromise of January. At all events, it is certain that whether there has been a misunderstanding, or whether, as seems to us more probable, Indians who wish to enter the Transvaal are only agitating in the vague hope of gaining a further modification of regulations which they naturally resent, there has been a renewal of the former disquiet. The protests of the Indians are inspired with a spirit of martyrdom. Mr. Sorabji, who was deported to the
Natal border on. August 20th after a month's imprisonment for entering the Transvaal without a permit, has been sentenced to three months' bard labour for again returning; and the Indians who hate served with British troops have sent a petition to the Imperial Government in which they refuse to accept the compromise of January, and ask that they may be shot on the battlefields where they served.
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