Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/254

 state of morality of the people is not particularly high, when there are gross misrepresentations about the habits of the Indians which have given rise to special legislation, it is not too much, your Petitioners submit, to request Your Excellency to receive with the utmost caution the statements received against your Petitioners, and the proffered solutions of the Indian question.

40. Your Petitioners would also urge upon Your Excellency's consideration that not only does the Proclamation of 1858 entitle your Petitioners to the same privileges and rights as enjoyed by Her Majesty's other subjects, but your Petitioners have been specially assured of such a treatment by Your Excellency's Despatch, which says:


 * It is the desire of Her Majesty's Government that the Queen's Indian subjects should be treated upon a footing of equality with all Her Majesty's other subjects.

41. Nor is this a local question; but, your Petitioners submit, it is pre-eminently an Imperial question. The decision of the question cannot but affect and guide the policy of the other Colonies and countries, where by treaty Her Majesty's subjects enjoy freedom of commerce, etc., and where Her Majesty's Indian subjects also may emigrate. Again, the question affects a very large Indian population in South Africa. With those who have settled in South Africa, it is almost a question of life and death. By persistent ill-treatment they cannot but degenerate, so much so that from their civilized habits they would be degraded to the habits of the aboriginal Natives, and a generation hence, between the progeny of the Indians thus in course of degeneration and the Natives, there will be very little difference in habits, and customs, and thought. The very object of immigration will be frustrated, and a large portion of Her Majesty's subjects, instead of being raised in the scale of civilization, will be actually lowered. The results of such a state of things cannot but be disastrous. No selfrespecting Indian can dare even visit South Africa. All Indian enterprise will be stifled. Your Petitioners have no doubt that Your Excellency will never allow such a sad event to happen in a place where Her Majesty enjoys suzerain power, or where the Union Jack flies.

42. Your Petitioners beg respectfully to point out that, under the present state of feeling against the Indians in South Africa, for Her Majesty's Government to yield to the interested clamour against your Petitioners would be an act of grave injustice to your Petitioners.