INDIANS IN EAST AFRICA.
To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") have read wills amused interest the simulated wrath with which the Spectator has been attacked by certain " authorities " upon the Indian question in East Africa. The general tenor has been that of denying to the editor any knowledge of the subject whatever; but considerable ignorance of some of your correspondents is dioselosed by a single feature. The critics of the Spectator have both directly and inferentially denied that the Indian community in East Africa was other than a coolie labour force with its by-product. This display of ignorance and prejudice saw suit the gullible public of East Africa, but it happens to ignore historic facts. Indian colonization in British East Africa began long beforee a British colonization of the territory. It has existed for several hundreds of years, and, in font, took place even before the Portuguese colonization of the fifteenth century. When coolie immigration commenced in 1895, there were already thousands of Indian colonists in substantial positions in the territory, whilst Sir John Kirk has expressed the opinion that but for these Indian colonists "we [the British] should not be there now "! 'These facts it may be hoped will make us. if not more sympathetic, at least more just to the Indian in
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