Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/203

 ade that would never have been brought here by the old system of storekeeping. He was quite willing to admit that here and there an European storekeeper had been ruined by the Indians, but their presence here was better than the old days when a few storekeepers had the monopoly. Wherever they met with an Arab, they always found him amenable to law. They had heard it said that the Colonists should not give away their birthright— that the Indians should not be allowed to enter upon the possession of their lands. He was pretty confident that his children, rather than have to work any land he might be able to leave them, would prefer to let it to Indians at reasonable rents. He did not think that that meeting was justified in coming to a wholesale condemnatory resolution of the Asiatics.

A regular correspondent of The Natal Mercury thus writes:


 * We brought the coolies here as a necessity, and, undoubtedly they have been a great help towards the progress of Natal. . ..


 * Twenty-five years ago, in the towns and townships, fruit, vegetables, and fish could hardly be bought. A cauliflower sold for half a crown. Why did not farmers go in for market gardening? There may have been some laziness, but on the other hand, to grow wholesale was useless. I have known the case of cart-loads of fruit, etc., sent a long way, but in good condition to the city, unsaleable. The party who would give half a crown for a stray cauliflower would naturally demur to give a shilling for one, when he saw a wagon-load of them. Here we needed an industrious class of hawkers who could live cheaply and find pleasure and profit in supplying these wants, and we got it in the time-expired indentured coolie. And for waiters and cooks, public or private, the coolie has supplied the want, for in these matters the mass of our natives are awkward, and when not, as soon as carefully taught, are off to their kraals.


 * The free coolie labourer, if an artisan, will work longer hours and take a lower wage cheerfully than the European mechanic, and the coolie trader will sell a cotton blanket three half-pence cheaper than the white storekeeper. That is all.


 * Surely the great economic cry of supply and demand, your patriotic league of British subjects, your glorious cry of Free Trade, which John Bull pays through the nose for to show his faith in, all forbid this outcry.


 * Australia has forbidden coloured immigration. The strikes and band smashes do not make that a grand example. Coolies wear lighter clothes and slippers than Europeans; anyway, that is an advance on our location native, and, many years ago, boots were rarely seen on white men or women on farms, or children even among the uppish classes of the city, except when they went to the park or meeting. Their feet seemed none the worse, though bad for shoemakers. Coolies don’t eat meat or drink