Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/202




 * It does not lie within the scope of our Commission to discuss at length the restrictive measures which some desire to impose upon Asiatics or “Arab” traders. We are content to place on record our strong opinion, based on much observation, that the presence of these traders has been beneficial to the whole Colony, and that it would be unwise, if not unjust, to legislate to their prejudice. (The italics are your Memorialists.) . . . Nearly all of them are Mahomedans, either total abstainers from alcoholic liquors or drinking them in moderation. They are thrifty by nature and submissive to the law.

Mr. Saunders, one of the Commissioners, says in his additional report:


 * So far as concerns free Indian traders, their competition and the consequent lowering of the price of articles of consumption by which the public benefits (and yet, strange to say, of which it complains), it is clearly shown that these Indian shops have been and are most exclusively supported by the larger firms of white merchants who thus, practically employ these men to dispose of their goods.


 * Stop Indian immigration if you will, if there are not enough unoccupied houses now, empty more by clearing out Arabs or Indians, who add to the productive and consuming power of a less than half-peopled country, but let us trace results in this one branch of the enquiry taking it as an example of others, trace out how untenanted houses depreciate the value of property and securities, how after this must result stagnation in the building trade, and those other trades and stores for supplies dependent on it. Follow out how this leads to a reduced demand for white mechanics, and with the reduction in spending power of so many, how fall of revenue is to be expected next, need of retrenchment, or taxation, or both. Let this result and others far too numerous to be calculated on in detail be faced, and if blind race sentimentalism or jealousy is to prevail, so be it.

At a meeting lately held in Stanger, one of the speakers (Mr. Clayton) said:


 * Not only the coolie labourer, he said, but the Arab storekeeper had been of benefit to the Colony. He knew it was an unpopular view to take, but he had looked at the question from every point of view. What did they find? The erven round the Market Square were bringing in a good percentage through the presence of Arab storekeepers. The owners of land had been benefited by the coolies taking up land that would never be taken up by anybody else. At the auction sale, the other day, erven abutting on the Market Square fetched a price that would have been out of the question years ago. The Indians had created a trade—a tr