Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/97

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THE BEGINNING OF THE STRUGGLE
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knife, with this difference between the Paris Pasteur and the Natal Pasteur that, while the former indulged in vivisection with the object of benefiting humanity, the latter has been indulging in it for the sake of amusement out of sheer wantonness, The object of this measure is not political. It is purely and simply to degrade the Indians in the words of a member of the Natal Parliament, "to make the Indian's life more comfortable in his native land than in Natal," in the words of another eminent Natalian, " to keep him for ever a hewer of wood and drawer of water." The very fact that, at present, there are only 250 Indians as against nearly 10,000 European voters shows that there is no fear of the Indian vote swamping the European. For a fuller history of the question, I must refer you to the Green Pamphlet. The London Times which has uniformly supported us in our troubles, dealing with the franchise question in Natal, thus puts it in its issue of the 27th day of June of this year:

The question now put before Mr. Chamberlain is not an academic one. It is not a question of argument but of race feeling. We cannot afford a war of races among our own subjects. It would be a wrong for the Government of India to suddenly arrest the development of Natal by shutting all the supply of immigrants, as it would be for Nata) to deny the right of citizenship to British Indian subjects, who, by years of thrift and good work in the Colony, have raised themselves to the actual status of citizens.

If there is any real danger of the Asiatic vote swamping the European, we should have no objection to an educational test being imposed or the property qualifications being raised. What we object to is class legislation and the degradation which it necessarily involves, We are fighting for no new privilege in opposing the Bill, we are resisting the deprivation of the one we have been enjoying,