Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/198




 * The behaviour of the Indian population of Durban during the excitement of the week was all that could be desired. They must have felt sore at the attitude of the townspeople towards their fellow-countrymen. But there was no attempt at retaliation; and by their quiet, peaceable behaviour, and faith in Government, they certainly contributed to the preservation of public order.

Your Memorialists would have refrained from any further reference to the incident in connection with Mr. Gandhi, but for the fact that, since he acts as an interpreter between the two communities in Natal, any misapprehension with regard to his position may seriously damage the Indian cause. Sufficient has been said herein to justify what he did in India in the name of the Indians in South Africa. But, for further explanations as to the matter, your Memorialists hereby refer Her Majesty’s Government to Appendix Y, wherein are collected certain extracts from newspapers. Your Memorialists have been praying Her Majesty’s Government, in the memorials that have preceded this, to define the status of Indian British subjects outside India, and humbly submitting that, in virtue of the gracious Proclamation of 1858, that status should be equal to that of Her Majesty’s all other subjects. Indeed, it has already been defined by His Excellency the Marquis of Ripon, in a despatch with reference to the Colonies, to the effect that “it is the desire of Her Majesty’s Government that the Queen’s Indian subjects should be treated upon a footing of equality with all Her Majesty’s other subjects”, but so many changes have since taken place that a formal pronouncement has evidently become necessary, especially in view of the fact that laws have since been passed in the Colony which are in conflict with that policy.

Another incident of the Demonstration, your Memorialists submit, is worth noting, viz., the massing of natives at the Point. It has already been alluded to above; but the following letter from Mr. G. A. de Labistour, a leading burgess of the town to the Town Council, and the remarks thereon of The Natal Mercury, the Government organ, would give a better idea of the gravity of the situation:


 * ‘Gentlemen—I was one of many burgesses who viewed with concern the rowdy behaviour of the natives who took part in the Demonstration yesterday. Along the Point Road several parties of natives, brandishing sticks and shouting at the top of their voices, had taken possession of the pavement, and at the Point about 500 or 600 boys, mostly Togt boys, all armed with sticks and singing and shouting, congregated