Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/274

 the second year, 18/- per month for the third year, 19/- per month for the fourth year, and 20/- per month for the fifth and each succeeding year.


 * Clause 6 runs as follows:


 * Every indentured Indian who shall have entered into the Covenant set out in Section 2 of this Act, and who shall fail, neglect, or refuse to return to India, or become re-indentured in Natal, shall take out year by year, a pass or licence to remain in the Colony to be issued by the Magistrate of his district, and shall pay for such pass or licence a yearly sum of £3 sterling, which may be recovered by summary process by any Clerk of the Peace or other officer appointed to get in such licence money.


 * The Schedule B referred to in Clause 2, quoted above, so far as it relates to the period of service is as follows:


 * We, the undersigned, emigrants from . . . . to Natal, hereby engage to serve the employer to whom we may respectively be allotted by the Protector of Indian Immigrants to Natal; provided that we shall receive monthly in money the wages stated hereunder opposite our respective names, and the allowances following.

4. From the above it will be seen, that if the Bill under discussion became law, an indentured Indian, in case he desires to settle in the Colony after the first five years of his indentured service, should either have to remain under perpetual indenture, or pay a yearly tax of £3; your Memorialists have used the word tax advisedly, because that was the word used in the original Bill before it passed the Committee stage. Your Memorialists submit that the mere change of name from tax to licence does not make it the less offensive but shows the knowledge on the part of the framers that a special poll-tax, on a special class of people in the Colony, is entirely repugnant to the British notions of justice.

5. Now, your Memorialists humbly, but emphatically, submit, that to raise the term of indenture from five years to a practically indefinite period is extremely unjust, especially because such a measure is absolutely uncalled for so far as the industries protected, or affected by, the indentured Indians are concerned.

6. The clauses owe their origin to the Commission that was sent out to India in the year 1894 by the Natal Government, and the report made by the Delegates, Messrs Binns and Mason, who formed the Commission. The reasons given in that report for such legislation are given at pp. 20 and 21 of the Annual Report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1894. Your Memorialists venture to quote the following from the report of the Delegates: