Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/243

 Johannesburg and Pretoria. Of traders there are nearly 200 whose liquidated assets would amount to nearly £100,000. Of these about three firms import goods directly from England, Durban, Port Elizabeth, India, and other places, and have thus branches in other parts of the world whose existence mainly depends upon their Transvaal businesses. The rest are small vendors having stores in different places. There are nearly 2,000 hawkers in the Republic who buy goods and hawk them about, while those of your petitioners who are labourers are employed as general servants in European houses or hotels. They number about 1,500 men, of whom about 1,000 live at Johannesburg.

3. Your Excellency’s Petitioners, before entering into a discussion of their precarious position in the State, would with the greatest deference venture to point out that your Petitioners, whose interests were at stake, were never once consulted as to the arbitration, that the moment the question of arbitration was broached, your Petitioners protested both against the principle of arbitration and against the choice of the Arbitrator. Your Petitioners conveyed the protest verbally to His Honour the British Agent at Pretoria, who, your Petitioners here take the opportunity to say, has always been most courteous and attentive to those of your Petitioners who had occasion to wait upon him from time to time in connection with the grievances of the Indians in the Transvaal. Your Petitioners would also draw Your Excellency’s attention to the fact that even a written protest was sent to Her Majesty’s High Commissioner at Cape Town. However, your Petitioners by dwelling upon the matter do not at all wish to cast the slightest reflection on the high-mindedness or probity of the learned Chief Justice of the Orange Free State or to question the wisdom of Her Majesty’s officers. Having known the bias of the learned Chief Justice against the Indians, your Petitioners thought, and still humbly venture to think, that he could not, in spite of his most strenuous efforts to do otherwise, bring to bear upon the question an equibalanced judgment which is so necessary to a right and proper perception of the facts of a case. Judges having a previous knowledge of case have been known to refrain from deciding them, lest they should unconsciously be led away by preconceived notions or prejudices.

4. The reference to the learned Arbitrator in the case submitted on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government runs thus :

The Arbitrator shall be free to decide either in favour of the claims put forward by Her Majesty’s Government or by the South African Republic, or to lay down such interpretation of the