Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/336

 from India, that had been regarded almost as a permanent feature of South African economics, has been ended. The hated £3 tax has been repealed and its attendant misery and insult destroyed. Vested rights, that were tending everywhere to disappear, are to be maintained and protected. The bulk of Indian marriages, that had never previously received the sanction of South African law, are henceforth to be fully recognised in law. But above and beyond all this is the new spirit of conciliation that has resulted from the hardships, the sufferings, the sacrifices of the Passive Resisters. The flag of legal racial equality has been kept flying, and it is now recognised that Indians have rights and aspirations and ideals that cannot be ignored. The struggle has more than proved the immense superiority of right over might, of soul-force over brute-force, of love and reason over hate and passion. India has been raised in the scale of nations, her children in South Africa have been ennobled, and the way is now open to them to develop their capacities in peace and concord, and thus contribute their quota to the building up of this great new nation that is arising in the South African sub-continent.