Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/285

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Indian Colonial Emigration

the fact that they have avoided all criminal penalties for breach of contract. In India, itself, if the scheme is adopted, we are promised a revival of the much dreaded depots and Emigration Agents, all no doubt on a more respectable basis, but still of the same type and capable of untold mischief.

The rest of the report is not likely to interest the public but those who wish to study it will, I doubt not, come to the conclusion to which I have been driven, that the framers have done their best to strip the old system of many of the abuses which had crept into it, but they have not succeeded in placing before the Indian public an acceptable scheme. I hold that it was an impossible task. The system of indenture was one of temporary slavery; it was incapable of being amended; it should only be ended and it is to be hoped that India will never consent to its revival in any shape or form.—(Indian Review).

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