Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/172

 landing of Asiatics, and to obey any orders which may be given by the leaders.

The following passage from Captain Sparks’ concluding speech, at the meeting of the 7th, gives an idea of the methods adopted by the committee to enlist men to join the Demonstration:


 * They intended to call upon the merchants of the town to close their places of business to allow the men who wished to take part in the Demonstration to do so. (Applause.) Then they would be able to see who was on their side. Several merchants had already promised to do all they could; others they wanted to show in their true colours. (Cries of “boycott them”.)

At this stage it would be worth while to see what was happening between the owners and the Government to secure the peaceable landing of the passengers. Your Memorialists may here remark that the town, during the first week in January, was in a perfect state of excitement. It was a time of terror and anxiety for the Indian residents, and collision between the two communities was to be feared at any moment. On the 8th January, 1897, the owners and agents of the ships sent a petition to the Government drawing their attention to the state of public feeling that existed in Durban against the landing of Indians, and asking for “the protection of the Government for passengers and property against the lawless acts of any persons whoever they may be,” and signifying their readiness “to co-operate with the Government in taking all the necessary steps for the landing of passengers quietly and unknown to the public in order to render unnecessary any act on the part of the Government which might tend to intensify the excitement” which then existed. (App. Q.) A letter was sent on the 9th January, further drawing the attention of the Government to the circulation of the document hereinbefore referred to for the forcible resistance against the landing of the passengers, as also to the fact that the railwaymen, being employees of the Government, were to take part in the Demonstration, and praying for assurance of the Government that “Government servants will be prohibited from taking any part in the Demonstration”. (App. R.) On the 11th January, the Principal Under-Secretary thus wrote in reply:


 * Your proposals for the landing of the passengers quietly and unknown to the public is impossible. The Government understand that you have requested the Port Captain not to bring the vessel inside without