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 206 THB KAIRA QUESTION,

oan only result in progress all round and in giving the Government a bold and a frank peasantry wibh a will ot lfc a own.

I venbure to invite the press and the public to assist these cultivators of Kaira who have dared to enter up a fight for what they consider is just and right. Let the public r ana ana bar this also that unpreoedentally severe plague has decimated the population of Kaira, Peopla are living outside their homes in specially prepared thatched cottages at considerable expenses to themselves. In soma villages mortality has been tremendous. Prices ara ruling high on which owing to the failure of crops they oan but bake little advantage and have to suffer all the disadvantages thereof. It is not money bhey want, so muoh as the voice of a strong, unanimous and em- phatic public opinion,

��BEPLY TO THE COMMISSIONER,

Mr. Gandhi wrote from Nadiad under date 15th April, the following reply to the Commissioner's address to the cultivators to desist from following Mr. Gandhi's lead in regard to the vow of Passive Resistance^ The Commissioner's exhortations to the agriculturists amount- ed to a threat detailing the consequences of non-payment of revenues. Mr. Oandhi replied as follows :

Tbe publication of the summary of the Comm s- sioner's Gujarati address to hue Kaira cultivators necessi- tates a reply in justice to the latter as also the workers,

I have before me a varbatim report of 'the speech. Io is more direct) than the summary in the laying down of the Government policy. The Commissioner's position ia that the revenue authorities' decision regarding 8U8-

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