mis-statements they made, he was not surprised that thousands and thousands of their countrymen were becoming indentured labourers. The Commissioners devoted several pages to the immorality prevailing on the estates. It was not forty women for sixty men; but the statement was made that these men did not marry these women, but kept them, and that many of these women were prostitutes. Mr. Gandhi said he would decline to send his children under such an indenture, if he was worthy of his salt, out of the country. But thousands of men and women had gone. What did they think of that in India?
The conditions were that rigorous provisions should be either expunged from the Ordinances or that the Protector should control employers. As for the regulations made to protect these labourers they could take it from him, Mr. Gandhi said, that there were a great many flaws in them and a coach and four could be easily driven through these. The aim of the rules was to make the employer supreme. Here was capital ranged against labour with artificial props for capital and not labour.
Mr. Gandhi condemned the "protector" of emigrants. They were men belonging to that very class to which employers belonged; they moved among them and was it not only natural that they should have their sympathies on the side of the employer? How was it then possible that they could do justice to the labourer against the employer? He knew many instances when magistrates had meted out justice to the indentured labourer, but it was impossible to expect such a thing from the Protectors of emigrants. The labourer was bound hand and foot to the employer. If he committed an offence against his employer he first of all had to undergo a course of im-
