Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/366




 * He might remind members that before long there must be a general election, and they would have to consider upon what register that general election was to take place. It was not for him to say how many Indian electors might or might not be on the ensuing electoral roll, but the Government thought it was high time that no further delay should take place in seizing this question by the throat and setting it once for all, without further delay.

Your Memorialists submit, with all due respect to the Hon. mover, that all these fears have no foundation in fact. According to the Report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1895, out of 46,343 Indians in the Colony, only 30,303 are free Indians. To that may be added the trading Indian population of, say, 5,000. Thus there are only 35,000 Indians, as against over 45,000 Europeans, who can at all compete with the latter. The 16,000 indentured Indians, it is easy to see, never can vote, while they are under indenture. But a large majority of the 30,303 are only a stage higher than the indentured Indians. And your Memorialists venture to say from personal experience that there are in this Colony thousands of Indians who do not pay £10 per year in rents. In fact, there are thousands who have to drag on their existence on that amount. Where then, your Memorialists ask, is the fear of the Indians swamping the Voters’ List next year?

The disfranchisement has been threatened for the last two years. The Electoral Roll has twice undergone revision since. The Indians had every incentive to add to the Indian vote, lest many may be shut out. And yet there has been not a single addition to the Voters’ List from the Indian community.

But the Hon. mover went on to say:


 * Members might not be aware that there was in this country a body, a very powerful body in its way, a very united body, though practically a secret body—he meant the Indian Congress. That was a body which possessed large funds, it was a body presided over by very active and very able men, and it was a body the avowed object of which was to exercise strong political power in the affairs of the Colony.

Your Memorialists venture to say that this estimate of the Congress is not justified by facts. The charge of secrecy, as would appear from the correspondence between the Honourable the Prime Minister of Natal and the Honorary Secretary of the Congress, was made under an erroneous impression (Appendices B,C, D). A statement with regard to the matter also was made