nation on a nation that would be unwilling to receive us as such, but we may be pardoned if we state the real facts, the alleged absence of which has been put forward as an argument to pronounce us as unfit for the exercise of the franchise.
Your Honour has, moreover, been reported to have said that it would be cruel to expect Indians to exercise the privilege of franchise. We humbly submit that our petition is a sufficient answer to this.
It has given us no small satisfaction to know that, however unjust Your Honour's speech may have appeared to us from our point of view, it breathed truest sentiments of justice, morality and, what is more, Christianity. So long as such a spirit is noticeable among the chosen of the land, we would never despair of right being done in every case.
It is therefore that we have ventured to approach Your Honour, fully believing that, in the light of the new facts disclosed by our humble petition, a display of the same sentiments will result in substantial justice being done to the Indians in the Colony.
We believe that the prayer of the petitioners is very modest. If the newspaper reports are trustworthy, Your Honour was pleased to acknowledge that there were some respectable Indians who were intelligent enough to exercise the precious privilege. That alone, in our humble opinion, is a sufficient reason for granting a Commission of enquiry into the momentous question. We are willing to face, nay, we court such a Commission, and, will it be asking too much if we ask that the Indians should be allowed to exercise the privilege, if the impartial judgment of an impartial Commission pronounced the Indians fit for such an exercise? If we have understood the Bill rightly, the Indians would, in the event of its becoming law, rank lower than the lowest native. For, while the latter can educate himself into fitness for the power of election, the former never can. The Bill seems to be so sweeping that even the Indian Member of the British House of Commons, did he come here, would not be fit for becoming a voter.
Did we not know that other matters of equal importance seriously engage Your Honour's attention, we could go on showing the injurious consequences that would flow from the interpretation of the Bill, consequences perhaps never contemplated by its illustrious authors. If we were given a week's time we could put our case more exhaustively before the House of Assembly. We would then leave our cause in Your Honour's hands, imploring Your Honour with all the earnestness at our command to use Your Honour's powerful influence and to see that full justice is done to the Indians. For it is justice we want and that only.
