Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/276

 the Colony”, and who have therefore a special claim on the goodwill and attention of the Colonists.

10. And, if the 'Coolie' “does not come into competition to any considerable extent with the Europeans”, where is the justification, your Memorialists humbly ask, for adopting measures that would make it difficult for the indentured Indians to earn honest bread in peace and freedom? It does not certainly lie in any qualities special to the indentured Indians which render them dangerous members of society. The peace-loving disposition and the mildness of the Indian nation are proverbial. Their obedience to authorities over them is no less prominent a trait of their character, and it would not lie in the mouth of the Delegates to say otherwise; for the Protector, who was one of the Delegates, in his report, at p. 15 of the same book, says:


 * Many persons, I am aware, condemn the Indians as a race, yet these persons cannot fail, if they look around them, to see hundreds of these Indians honestly and peaceably pursuing their several useful and desirable occupations.


 * I am pleased to be able to state that the Indians generally resident in the Colony continue to form a prosperous, enterprising and law-abiding section of the community.

11. The Hon. the Attorney-General, in moving the second reading of the Bill, is reported to have said that:


 * There was no intention to interfere with the introduction of labour to the injury of any industry, but these Indians were brought here for the purpose of supplying labour for the development of local industries, and were not intended to form portion of the South African nation which was being built up in the various States.

12. With the greatest deference to the learned Attorney-General, your Memorialists humbly submit that the above remarks condemn entirely the clauses under discussion, and venture to believe that Her Majesty's Government will not endorse such remarks by sanctioning the Bill.

13.Your Memorialists venture to think that it is against the spirit of the British Constitution to countenance measures that tend to keep men under perpetual bondage. That the Bill, if passed, would do so, it is submitted, is self-evident.

14. The Natal Mercury, the Government organ, of the 11th May, 1895, thus justifies the measure: