Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/275

 calamity to break the connection between the British people and the people of India. If we are treated as, or assert our right to be treated as, free men, whether in India or etaewhero, the connection between the British people aad the people of India oannob only be mutually banefioial, but is calculated to be of enormous advantage to the world religiously, and, therefore, socially and poli- tically, la my opinion, each Nation is fine complement of the other.

Passive Resistance in connection with the Tran&vaai struggle I should hold justifiable on the strength of any of these propositions. It may be a slow remedy, not only for our ills in the Transvaal, bub for all the political and other troubles from whioh our people suffer in India.

��A MESSAGE TO THE CONGRESS

The following message to the Congress was published in the Indian Review for December, 1909 :

You have cabled me for a message to the forthcom- ing Congress. I do not know tbat I am at all competent to send any message. Simple courtesy, however, de- mands that I should say something in reply to your cable. At the present moment I am unable to think of any- thing but the task immediately before me, namely, the struggle that is going on in the Transvaal. I hope our countrymen throughout India realise that it is national in its aim, in that it has been undertaken to save India's honour. I may be wrong, but I have not hesitated pub- licly to remark that it is the greatest struggle of modern times, because it is the purest as well in its goal as in its

�� �