Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/250

 mountains of that weird old country that we have derived the fundamental truths of the very language we speak,one cannot but help regretting that the children of such a race should be treated as equals of the children of black heathendom and outer darkness. Those who, for a few moments, have stayed to converse with the Indian trader have been, perhaps, surprised to find they are speaking to a scholar and a gentleman. ... And it is the sons of this Land of light who are despised as Coolies, and treated as Kaffirs.


 * It is about time that those who cry out against the Indian merchant should have pointed out to them, who and what he is. Many of his worst detractors are British subjects enjoying all the privileges and rights of membership in a glorious community. To them the hatred of injustice, and the love of fair play is inherent, and when it affects themselves, they have a method of insisting upon their rights and liberties, whether under a foreign government or under their own. Possibly, it has never struck them that the Indian merchant is also a British subject, and claims the same liberties and rights with equal justice. To say the very least of it, if we may be permitted to employ a phrase of Palmerston’s days, it is very un-English to claim rights one would not allow to others. The right of trade as an equal privilege has, since the abolition of the Elizabethan monopolies, become almost a part of the English Constitution, and were anyone to interfere with that right, the privilege of British citizenship would suddenly come to the front. That the

Indian is more successful in competition and lives on less than the English merchant is the unfairest and weakest of arguments. The very foundation of English Commerce lies in the fact of our being able to compete more successfully with other nations. Surely, it is protection running to madness when English traders wish the State to intervene to protect them against the more successful operations of their rivals. The injustice to the Indians is so glaring that one is almost ashamed of one’s countrymen in wishing to have these men treated as Natives, simply because of their success in trade. The very reason that they have been so successful against the dominant race is sufficient to raise them above that degrading level. . . . Enough has been said to show that the Indian merchant is something more than the ‘Coolie’ of the newspaper, the Dutchman and the disappointed shopkeeper.

28. It will also be seen from the above quotation that the European feeling, when not blinded by selfishness, is not against the Indians. But since it has been insisted throughout the Green books, before alluded to, that both the Burghers of the State and the European residents objected to the Indians, your Petitioners are sending two petitions to His Honour the State President of the S.A. Republic, one showing that a very large number of the Burghers are