Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/259



We do not believe any good cause exists for compelling them to reside or trade in separate quarters.

We would therefore humbly request Your Honour not to adopt or countenance any measure that would tend to restrict their freedom and ultimately result in their withdrawal from the Republic, a result that cannot but strike at the very means of their livelihood and cannot, therefore, we humbly submit, be contemplated with complacency in a Christian country.

APPENDIX G

I, Haji Mahomed Haji Dada, managing and senior partner of Haji Mahomed Haji Dada & Co., of Durban, Pretoria, Delagoa Bay and elsewhere, merchants, do make oath and say that :


 * 1. Some time in the year 1894, I was travelling from Johannesburg to Charlestown by coach.
 * 2. As I reached the Transvaal border, a European with a uniform and another came up and asked me for a pass. I said I had no pass and was never before required to produce any pass.
 * 3. The man thereupon roughly said to me that I would have to get one.
 * 4. I asked him to get one and offered to pay.
 * 5. He then very roughly asked me to go down with him to the pass officer, and threatened to pull me out if I did not do so.
 * 6. In order to avoid further trouble I got down. I was made to walk about 2 miles, the man riding on a horse.
 * 7. On my reaching the office I was required to take no pass but was only asked where I was going to. I was then asked to go away
 * 8. The man who was on horseback, and who went with me, also left me and I had to walk back two miles to find the coach gone.
 * 9. I was therefore obliged, although I had paid my fare as far as Charlestown, to walk there, a distance of over two miles.
 * 10. I know from personal knowledge that many other Indians, similarly placed, have undergone such troubles and indignity.
 * 11. About a few days ago, I had to travel to Pretoria from Delagoa Bay in the company of two friends.
 * 12. We were all required to arm ourselves with passes, just as the Natives of South

Africa are required to do, in order to be able to travel in the Transvaal.

HAJEE MAHOMED HAJEE DADA Sworn before me at Pretoria, this the 24th day of April, 1895. Envaralohery V. Rrasak