Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/31

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SURAT.
15

with too much of law. The laws are too many, and too fine to be equitable in a community of mutually antagonistic classes and conflicting interest unused to such laws. And worse than the laws themselves is the working of them. Except in this, I do not think the people have any real cause for grumbling; and I am sure they seldom grumble, my poor, primitive peace-loving Surtis.

A few Honest Growls

Coming to a class higher, I mean the middle class, what strikes the observer most is this: the rising generation are given every facility and inducement for acquirement of a fairly liberal education. Such education naturally widens their vision and gives play to their innate aspirations. But when they attempt to assert their position as politically and socially the equals of the ruling class, "these natives" are ridiculed for their presumption! Not only are our educated men so many political pariahs,[1] but even in ordinary social matters they are made to feel their inferiority. Those thousand little social charities, which might, perhaps, reconcile them

  1. Degraded homeless outcasts.