Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/172




 * Durban,
 * June 29, 1894


 * To Sir John Robinson, K.C.M.G.
 * Premier and Colonial Secretary
 * Colony of Natal

May it please Your Honour,

We have to thank Your Honour very much for sparing some of Your Honour's valuable time to receive this deputation.

We beg to present this petition of the Indians residing in the Colony to Your Honour and beg you to give it Your Honour's earnest attention.

We would not trespass longer on Your Honour's courtesy than is absolutely necessary. We, however, regret that we have not at our disposal time enough to lay our case as thoroughly as possible before Your Honour.

Sir, we have been taunted with having woken up almost too late. It is only necessary to put before you the peculiar circumstances to convince Your Honour that we could not possibly have approached the honourable Houses earlier. The two chief leading members of the community were away from the Colony on urgent business and were shut out from all communication with people in the Colony. Our very imperfect knowledge of the English language materially prevents us from keeping ourselves in touch with important matters as we should like to be.

With greatest respect to Your Honour, we beg to point out that both the Anglo-Saxon and the Indian races belong to the same stock. We read Your Honour's eloquent speech at the time of the second reading of the Bill with rapt attention and took great pains to ascertain if any writer of authority gave countenance to the view expressed by Your Honour about the difference of the stocks from which both the races have sprung up. Max Muller, Morris, Greene and a host of other writers with one voice seem to show very clearly that both the races have sprung from the same Aryan stock, or rather the Indo-European as many call it. We have no wish whatever to thrust ourselves as members of a brother