Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/325



Into the many details and ramifications of the struggle at this stage it is unnecessary now to enter; suffice it to recall the Delagoa Bay incidents, when the Portuguese Government acted as the catspaw of the Transvaal, in preventing the entry into the Transvaal of returning Indians lawfully resident there, the various test-cases brought in the Supreme Court against the Government, some of which were lost and some won, the voluntary insolvency of Mr. A. M. Gachalia, the Chairman of the British Indian Association, who preferred to keep his oath and preserve his honour to the sordid joy of money-making, the imprisonment of Indians of all classes by hundreds, the appeals to India, where protest meetings were held in different parts of the country, the financial help of Natal, the arousing of enthusiasm amongst Indians all over the country, the activity of Lord Ampthill's Committee in London, and of the British Press, the bitter controversies that raged in the Transvaal papers, the latent sympathy of not a few Transvaal Europeans culminating in the formation of Mr. Hosken's Committee, that rendered such splendid and patriotic service in a number of ways, the public letter to the Times, the refusal of the Royal Assent to anti-Indian measures passed by the Legislatures of Natal and Southern Rhodesia, the Indian mass meetings in Johannesburg and all over South Africa, the weakening of some sections of the Indian