Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/262



Even the active agitation, that has brought about the present state of things with regard to the Indian community, has not desired to bring any such charges against the Indians. The only charge brought forward is that the Indians do not observe proper sanitation. Your Petitioners trust that the charge has been conclusively shown to be groundless in the representation to His Excellency the Right Honourable the Marquis of Ripon. But assuming that the charge has some ground, it is clear that that could not be a reason for preventing the Indians from holding fixed property, or moving about the country freely and without restraint on their liberty.

That could not be a reason for making the Indians liable for a special payment of £3 10s. It might be said that the Government of the South African Republic has already passed certain laws, and that the Chief Justice of the Orange Free State has already given his Award which is binding on Her Majesty's Government.

These objections, your Petitioners humbly believe, have been answered in the accompanying petition. The London Convention specially protects the rights of all Her Majesty's British subjects. This is a recognized fact. Her Majesty's Government assented to a departure from the Convention and also to arbitration on sanitary grounds. And such assent to a departure from the Convention, your Petitioners are informed, was given without consulting Your Excellency's predecessor in office. Thus, so far as the Indian Government is concerned, your Petitioners venture to urge that the assent is not binding. That the Indian Government should have been consulted is self-evident. And even if Your Excellency were illdisposed to intervene on your Petitioners' behalf at this stage and on this ground alone, the fact that the reasons which induced the above assent did not and do not exist, that in fact Her Majesty's Government has been misled by misrepresentations is, your Petitioners submit, sufficient to justify them in praying for Your Excellency's intervention, and Your Excellency in granting the prayer. And the issues involved are so tremendously important and Imperial, that in view of your petitioners' emphatic but respectful protest against the allegation about sanitation, your Petitioners humbly urge that the question cannot be settled without a thorough inquiry, without injustice being done to Her Majesty's Indian British subjects in the South African Republic.

Without further encroaching upon Your Excellency's valuable time, your Petitioners would again request Your Excellency's undivided attention to the annexure and, in conclusion, earnestly