Imperial authorities dismissed native representation concerns with nominal claims of Commons representation.

Evidence

The discussion in the House of Commons in May, 1908, between Charles Dilke and the Colonial Secretary is interesting in this respect. Dilke warned against giving self-government to the Crown colonies because this would result in rule of the white planters over their colored workers. He was told that the natives too had a representation in the English House of Commons. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2206

Categorization

• XREF: The fiction of natives ‘represented’ in the Commons is a case of representation-as-construction the later Islamophobia readings will echo.