Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/195

 far as to pledge the public funds to buying-off policy, at the dictum of a body with no legal status and pursuing illegal methods of intimidation, as is clearly shown by the terms of the letter. When that failed, came the Demonstration, with the opportune appearance of the Attorney-General on the scene. To use the old tag, comment is unnecessary.— The Natal Advertiser, 20th January 1897.


 * After all the speechifying and the parading, and the bugle-blowing of the past week, the citizens of Durban have fallen short of making history— unless, indeed, the discharge of a rotten potato at the eye of the unspeakable Gandhi may be considered as an historical act. The heroics of mob are apt to sink from the sublime to the ridiculous, and indifferent arguments are often accompanied by equally indifferent eggs . . . For a week the Natal Ministry permitted the situation to develop, without pretence at the feeblest intervention, their policy suggesting and unofficial sanction of the whole business. Then, when the Naderi and Courland are within a few hundred yards of the wharves, Mr. Escombe appears upon the scene, actively intervenes, and the people disperse, to vent their baffled feelings, a few hours later, by upsetting Gandhi’s ricksha, blacking his eye, and savagely assaulting the house in which he is lodged.—Cape Argus, January 1897.


 * A little explanation is still wanting in regard of the presence of a force of several hundred Kaffirs in the Demonstration. Did it mean that the cause of the white man and the cause of the native are one and the same? Or, what else did it symbolize? There is one thing in regard of which public opinion is unanimous. It may be unjust in the conclusion it has drawn. But the fact remains that people will not believe that the whole business was not a plot between the Government and the leaders of the late remarkable movement, but one in which the self-appointed Committee failed to score. It was delightfully dramatic. The Ministry handed over their powers to a Committee claimed to represent the people. Whatever you do, they said, act constitutionally. The word was passed round and the magic of constitutional action took effect, though not a soul to this moment knows what it means. The Ministry acted constitutionally, and promised not to interpose if the peace were broken. They would only go to the Governor, and ask to be relieved of office. The Committee acted quite constitutionally in organizing a force, including natives, to oppose by force the landing of British subjects in a British Colony. The concluding act of this pretty drama was played at the Point, when the Committee handed back their powers to Mr. Escombe, reinstated the Government, and everyone went home satisfied. The Committee claimed a moral victory, though they had been beaten from pillar to post; the Ministry pirouetted on their “single plank”; and the Indians, who were never to