Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/248

35. PETITION TO NATAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY' Durban,

March 26. 1897 TO The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Honour¬ able the Legislative Assembly of the Colony of Natal in Parliament Assembled, Pietermaritzburg The Petition of the Undersigned Representing the Indian Community in This Colony HUMBLY SHEWETH: That your Petitioners hereby venture to lay before this Honourable House the feeling of the Indian community with reference to the Quarantine, Trade Licences, Immigration and Uncovenanted Indians Protection Bills2 that are now, or soon will be, before this Honourable House for consideration. Your Petitioners understand that the first three Bills herein¬ above referred to are meant, directly or indirectly, to restrict the immigration of Her Majesty’s Indian subjects into the Colony. Strange as it may appear there is no mention of the persons whom they are meant to affect.3 With the greatest defer¬ ence, your Petitioners venture to submit that such a mode of procedure is un-British and, therefore, it should not receive countenance in a Colony which is supposed to be the most British in South Africa. If it is proved to the satisfaction of this Honourable House that the presence of the Indian in the Colony is an evil and there is an alarming influx of Indians into the Colony, your Petitioners submit that it will be better in the in¬ terests of all parties concerned that a Bill directly aiming at the evil be passed.
 * 1) 	The Natal Mercury. 29-3-1897, published the text of the petition with a few introductory lines and some minor verbal alterations.
 * 2) 	For provisions of these enactments, vide pp. 272-80.
 * 3) 	Indians were not specifically mentioned in three of the four measures despite the fact that they were implicitly meant to affect the Indians; only the Uncovenanted Indians Protection Bill referred to the Indians by name.

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