have been tantamount to an admission that there was wisdom in submitting to the obnoxious Act. We therefore decided to decline their proffered aid.
Again we thought that if Kachhalia allowed himself to be declared an insolvent, his insolvency would serve as a shield for others, for if not in all, at least in an overwhelmingly large majority of cases of insolvency, the creditor stands to lose something. He is quite pleased if he realizes 10 s. in the pound, and considers 15 s. quite as good as 20 s. in the pound. For big traders in South Africa generally reap a profit not of 6¼ but of 25 per cent. They therefore consider 15 s. as good as full payment. But as 20 s. in the pound is hardly ever realized from a bankrupt’s estate, creditors are not anxious to reduce their debtor to a state of insolvency. As soon, therefore, as Kachhalia was declared an insolvent, there was every likelihood that the European traders would cease to threaten other Satyagrahi traders who were their debtors. And that was exactly what happened. The Europeans wanted to compel Kachhalia either to give up the struggle or else to pay them in full in cash. They failed to achieve any of these two objects, and the actual result was the very reverse of what they had expected. They were dumbfounded by this first case of a respectable Indian trader welcoming insolvency and were quiet ever afterwards. In a year’s time the creditors realized 20 s. in the pound from Kachhalia Sheth’s stock-in-trade, and this was the first case in South Africa to my knowledge in which creditors were paid in full from the insolvent debtor’s estate. Thus even while the struggle was in progress, Kachhalia commanded great respect among the European merchants, who showed their readiness to advance to him any amount of goods in spite of his leading the movement. But Kachhalia was every day gaining in strength and in an intelligent appreciation of the struggle. No one could now tell how long the struggle would last. We had therefore resolved after the insolvency proceedings that the Sheth should not make any large commitments in trade during the continuance of the movement, but confine his
