Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/282



31. If almost the whole current of what may be called expert opinion, from beginning up to date, goes to show the usefulness of the Indians, then, your Memorialists submit, it is not too much to say that to keep such people under perpetual bondage, or to make them pay a yearly tax of £3 whether they can afford it or not, is, to say the very least, absolutely one-sided and selfish.

32. Your Memorialists beg respectfully to draw your attention to the fact that, were the Bill to become law, the very object of immigration will be frustrated in all its aspects. If it is to enable the Indians to improve their material condition ultimately, the object certainly will not be fulfilled by compelling them to remain under perpetual indenture. If it be to relieve the overcrowded parts of India, that object also will be frustrated. For, the object of the Bill is not to allow the number of Indians in the Colony to increase. The desire is to replace those who can no longer bear the yoke of indenture by fresh importation, and to force the former back to India. Thus your Memorialists humbly submit that the last state will be worse than the first. For, while the number of Indians in the overcrowded districts, so far as Natal as an outlet is concerned, will remain the same, those who would return against their will cannot but be a source of additional anxiety and trouble, because they, being without any prospect of work or any capital to maintain them, may have to be maintained at the public expense. It may be said in reply to this objection that it presupposes a state of things which will never happen, that is to say, the Indians will gladly pay the annual tax. Your Memorialists, however, beg leave to point out that such an argument, if advanced, would really go to prove that the clauses about re-indenture and tax are absolutely useless, in so far as they will not produce the desired effect. It has never been contended that the object is to raise any revenue.

33. Your Memorialists, therefore, submit that, if the Colony cannot put up with the Indians, the only course, in your Memorialists’ humble opinion, is to stop all future immigration to Natal, at any rate for the time being. Your Memorialists beg respectfully, but emphatically, to protest against an arrangement that gives all the benefit to one party only, and that, indeed, the least in need of it. Such stopping of immigration will not, your Memorialists submit, materially effect the congested parts of India.

34. Your Memorialists have so far discussed both the indenture and the licence clauses together. As to the latter, your Memorialists beg to draw your attention to the fact that even in the Transvaal—a foreign State—the Government have not ventured