led India no
longer ruled the Dominions, and that it was on the Dominions that
the responsibility for the exclusion policy must rest. In 1909 Canada
suggested that the Indian Government itself should limit emigration,
but this policy did not meet with approval at the time. Failing in this
measure, the Laurier Government fell back on a general clause in the
Immigration Act prohibiting the entrance of immigrants except by direct
passage from the country of origin and on a continuous ticket, a rule
which effectually barred the Hindu because of the lack of any direct
steamship line between India and Canada. An Order-in-Council further
required that immigrants from all Asiatic countries must possess at
least $200 on entering Canada. The Borden Government supplemented these
restrictions by a special Order-in-Council in 1913 prohibiting the
landing of artisans or unskilled laborers of any race at ports in
British Columbia, ostensibly because of depression in the labor
market. The leaders of the Hindu movement, with apparently some German
assistance, determined to test these restrictions. In May, 1914, there
arrived at Vancouver from Shanghai a Japanese ship carrying four
hundred Sikhs from India. A few were admitted, as having been previously
domiciled in Canada; the others, after careful inquiry, were refused
admittance and ordered to be deported. Local police were driven away
from the ship when attempting to enforce the order, and the Government
ordered H.M.C.S. Rainbow to intervene. By a curious irony of history,
the first occasion on which this first Canadian warship was called on to
display force was in expelling from Canada the subjects of another part
of the British Empire. Further trouble followed when the Sikhs reached
Calcutta in September, 1914, for riots took place involving serious loss
of life and later an abortive attempt at rebellion. Fortunately there
were good prospects that the Indian Government would in future accept
the proposal made by Canada in 1909. At the Imperial Conference of 1917,
where representatives of India were present for the first time, it was
agreed to recommend the principle of reciprocity in the treatment of
immigrants, India thus being free to save her pride by imposing on
men from the Dominions the same restrictions the Dominions imposed on
immigrants from India.

But all these dealings with lands across the sea paled into
insignificance beside the task imposed on Canada by the Great W