Page:Satyagraha in South Africa.pdf/197

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European Support
177

expenditure. West's mother-in-law is now over eighty years old. She is a fine hand at sewing, and used to help the settlement with her skill as a tailor. Every one in Phoenix called her Granny and felt that she was really related so to him. I need scarcely say anything about Mrs West. When many members of the Phoenix settlement were in jail, the Wests along with Maganlal Gandhi took over the whole management of the institution. West would see to the press and the paper, and in the absence of others and myself, dispatch to Gokhale the cables which were to be sent from Durban. When even West was arrested (though he was soon released), Gokhale got nervous and sent over Andrews and Pearson.

Then there was Mr Ritch. I have already written about him. He had joined my office before the struggle and proceeded to England for the bar with a view to filling my place when I was not available. He was the moving spirit of the South African British Indian Committee in London.

The third was Mr Polak, whose acquaintance like that of West I casually made in the restaurant. He likewise left at once the sub-editorship of The Transvaal Critic to join the staff of Indian Opinion. Every one knows how he went to India and to England in connection with the struggle. When Ritch went to England, I called Polak from Phoenix to Johannesburg, where he became my articled clerk and then a full-fledged attorney. Later on he married. People in India are familiar with Mrs Polak, who not only never came in her husband’s way but was a perfect help-mate to him during the struggle. The Polaks did not see eye to eye with us in the Non-co-operation movement, but they are still serving India to the best of their ability.

The next was Mr Hermann Kallenbach, whom too I came to know before the struggle. He is a German, and had it not been for the Great War, he would be in India today. He is a man of strong feelings, wide sympathies and child-like simplicity. He is an architect by profession, but there is no work, however lowly, which he would consider to be beneath his dignity. When I broke up my Johannesburg

S.A.-12