"What are you going to do?" I said the other day to our vegetable-hawker. He shrugged his shoulders, spread out his hands, smiled, showing his white teeth.
"Mr. Gandhi, he know," he replied, "if Mr. Gandhi say go to prison, we go."
I believe if Mr. Gandhi said "die," not a few would cheerfully obey him.
Some, of course, are untouched: they bitterly oppose him. But for most of his countrymen, he is what one called him, with reverent affection, "our true Karma Yogi."
The difficulty has now been whittled down to two disputed points, neither of them being of the least importance to the Colonists, both vitally affecting the Asiatics. The one point is the repeal of the Asiatic Law Amendment Act, which began the trouble. Its repeal was the objective of these men from the very beginning. It formed a verbal but an essential part of the compromise, to which they understood the Government to assent, and its retention on the Statute-book is the cause of unending dispute. It cannot remain and be inoperative. It is operative now, although an Act has been passed which is supposed to supersede it. In addition to
