I took upon myself the responsibility of advising my countrymen not to submit to the primary obligation imposed by the Act, but still, as law-abiding subjects of the State, to accept its sanctions. Rightly or wrongly, in common with other Asiatics, I consider that the Act in question, among other things, offends our conscience, and the only way I thought, as I still think, the Asiatics could show their feeling with regard to it was to incur its penalties. And, in pursuance of that policy, I admit that I have advised the accused, who have preceded me, to refuse submission to the Act, as also the Act 36 of 1908, seeing that, in the opinion of British Indians, full relief that was promised by the Government has not been granted. I am now before the Court to suffer the penalties that may be awarded to me."
Just prior to this he wrote to me on a scrap of paper:—"My sole trust is in God, I am therefore quite cheerful."
So, once more, in company with about two hundred and fifty of his people, scattered throughout the Transvaal gaols, Mr. Gandhi is condemned, as he put it in a note recently, "to partake of the hospitality of King Edward's Hotel." Cheerful? Naturally so; according to his own words "the
