Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/141



I should think your agitation in India would have rather the opposite effect?


 * Certainly. I tried to induce some gentlemen to come who, I thought, would be able to replace me, to work for the cause and I was absolutely unsuccessful. They refused to come. The number of passengers on board the Courland and Naderi has been exaggerated. There are not 800 passengers on the two ships, so far as my information goes. In all there are about 600. Of these, only 200 are for Natal, the rest are for Delagoa Bay, Mauritius, Bourbon, and the Transvaal. Now, out of these 200, about 100 are newcomers and of these new comers about 40 are ladies, and so it is a question of admitting about 60 newcomers. These 60 newcomers consist of storekeepers’ assistants, traders on their own account, and hawkers. I have nothing whatever to do with bringing passengers to any of the other ports either. A statement has appeared to the effect that there is a printing plant, 50 blacksmiths, and 30 compositors on board—all absolutely false. Such a statement is calculated to inflame the passions of the European artisans and the working people in Durban, though it has no foundation in fact. The leader of the demonstration committee, and anybody in Natal, would be perfectly justified in getting up an agitation—a constitutional agitation, remember—if there was an organized attempt to swamp the Colony with Indians, and Indians of this stamp; but, as a matter of fact, there is not a single blacksmith or compositor on board.


 * The statement has been made that I have been advising people on board to institute legal proceedings against the Government for unlawful detention. That is another statement that has no foundation in fact. My object throughout is not to sow dissension between the two communities, but to assist at creating harmony between the two, without the Indians having to accept any degradation of their status as conferred upon them by the Proclamation of 1858, when it was stated that all subjects of Her Majesty in India would be treated on a footing of equality without distinction of race, colour, or creed; and I submit, I am justified in requesting every Colonist to tolerate the attitude, however much they have differed from it. Really speaking, there can be no objection to the Indian. The Colonial Patriotic Union