Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/281



26. The present Chief Justice and the then Attorney-General expressed the following opinion:


 * I object to any alternation in the terms of the laws under which Indians are introduced into the Colony. In my opinion the numbers of the Indians who have been introduced have in a great measure provided on the coast for the failure of white immigrants, and have cultivated lands, which would otherwise remain uncultivated with the crops which are of real advantage to the inhabitants of the Colony. Many who have not availed themselves of the return passage to India have turned out to be trusty and useful domestic servants (p. 327).

27. It is yet possible to take out extracts from the same voluminous report and evidence to show what the most distinguished men in the Colony have thought about the arrangement.

28. Your Memorialists further beg to draw your attention to the following from Messrs Binns and Mason’s Report:


 * So far, no second term of indenture has been agreed to in the case of any country to which Coolies emigrated, although the consent of the Government of India has been frequently asked for, and in no case has the condition of compulsory return at the end of the indenture been sanctioned.

29. It has been said in the Colony, in defence of the measure, that there can be no injustice, where two parties voluntarily agree to do a certain thing, and that the Indians before coming to Natal will know under what conditions they will go to Natal. This point has been dealt with in the petitions to the Hon. the Legislative Assembly, and the Hon. the Legislative Council, and your Memorialists venture to repeat that, when the contracting parties are not situated equally, the proposition is entirely inapplicable. An Indian who, in order “to escape from starvation”, as Mr. Saunders has put it, seeks indenture can hardly be called a free agent.

30. So recently as 1894, the evidence as to the indispensableness of the Indian has been dwelt upon in the Protector’s Report referred to above. At p. 15 he says:


 * If it were possible even for a short space of time to withdraw the whole of the Indian population from this Colony, I am convinced that, with but very few exceptions, every industry in existence at the present time would collapse, solely for the want of reliable labour. There is no getting over the fact that the Native as a rule will not work, hence it is generally admitted throughout the Colony that without the Indian as a labourer, no industry, agricultural or otherwise, of any importance could possibly be carried on successfully, and not only this but almost every householder in Natal would be without domestic servants.