Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/314



In the face of these incontrovertible facts, is it not rather unfair to impute the blame to the Indians entirely for the Native deterioration? In 1893, while there were 28 convictions against Europeans in the Borough for supplying liquor, there were only 3 against Indians.

VI

“This country shall be and remain a white man’s country and not a black man’s, and the Indian franchise will simply swamp the European vote and give the Indian political supremacy in Natal.”

With the first part of the statement I do not propose to deal. I confess that I do not even understand it fully. I would, however, try to remove the misconception that underlies the latter part of the statement. I venture to say that the Indian vote can never swamp the European vote, and that the idea of the Indian trying to claim political supremacy is contrary to all past experience. I have had the honour to talk to many Europeans with reference to this question, and almost all have argued upon the assumption that there is “one man one vote” in the Colony. That there is a property qualification was an information to them. I must therefore, be pardoned for reproducing here the Section of the Franchise Law dealing with the qualification.


 * Every man, except as hereafter excepted, above the age of twentyone years, who possesses an immovable property to the value of £50 or who rents any such property of the yearly value of £10 within any electoral district and who is duly registered in the manner hereinafter mentioned, shall be entitled to vote at the election of a member for such district. When any such property as aforesaid is occupied by more persons than one as proprietors or renters, each of such occupants, being duly registered, shall be entitled to vote in respect of such property, provided the value or, as the case may be, the rent thereof be such as would entitle each of such joint occupants to vote if equally divided among them.

From this it is clear that it is not every Indian who can get the franchise. And how many Indians are there in the Colony, compared with the Europeans, who have immovable property of the value of £50 or who rent such property of the yearly value of £10? This law has been in force for a long time, and the following table will give some idea of the relative strength of the European and the Indian franchise. I have compiled the table from the latest lists published in the Gazette: