Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/139

 to the Indian Government and the Home Government, drawing their attention to the position of the Indians in South Africa. These meetings have been held throughout the presidencies of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.

Have you received any encouragement from the Indian Government on the subject?


 * No; I had to return before I received any reply.
 * Mr. Gandhi continued:
 * It has been said that I went to India to blacken the character of the Natal Colonists. This I must emphatically deny. It will be remembered that I addressed an ‘Open Letter’ to the members of the Natal Parliament about two years ago, and there I gave my view of the treatment the Indians were receiving, and it was exactly that view that I placed before the Indian public. In fact, I copied an extract from that ‘Open Letter’, word for word, into my pamphlet. It gave my view of the treatment the Indians were receiving before, and no exception was taken to that portion of the ‘Open Letter’ when it was published here. No one then said that I was blackening the character of the Colonists, but only when that statement was repeated in India.


 * How that can amount to blackening the character of the Colonists I fail to understand. At the time of discussing the ‘Open Letter’, almost all the papers said unanimously that I was absolutely impartial, and not a single statement I made was contradicted. Under these circumstances, I thought I was perfectly justified in making the extract from the ‘Open Letter’. I am aware that Reuter cabled Home a summary of the pamphlet that could not be borne out by the ‘Open Letter’, and as soon as you received the pamphlet, both the Durban papers said Reuter had exaggerated its statements. I can hardly be held responsible for Reuter’s statements and opinions, and I believe that the leaders of the demonstration party have not read the ‘Ope