should not have weighed with the Hon. Members at all in considering the petition. Instances of Bills being thrown out or modified, under less imperative circumstances, by the Parliaments of civilized countries, after they have passed through the committee stage, would not be difficult to find. Your Petitioners need hardly mention the instance of the House of Lords having thrown out the Irish Home Rule Bill[16], and the circumstances under which it was so treated. The Franchise Law Amendment Bill as it stands is, your Petitioners submit, so sweeping a measure, that no Indian who is not already on the Voters' List, no matter how capable he may be, can be come a voter if the Bill becomes law. Your Petitioners trust that your Hon. Council will not endorse such a view, and will, therefore, send the Bill back again to the Legislative Assembly for its reconsideration.
And for this act of justice and mercy, your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
- 14↑ No further petition to the Governor of Natal was, in fact, sent. Evidently Gandhiji and his associates intended to do this, but events over took them. Even this petition was rejected and the Bill was rushed through the House in all its stages, for submission to Lord Ripon, for the Queen's approval. A second petition had, therefore, to be submitted through Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson; vide "Petition to Lord Ripon", before 14-7-1894.
- 15↑ This was presented to the President and members of the Legislative Council by Hon. Henry Campbell, advocate and chief agent for British Indian merchants in the Transvaal who drafted and presented petitions for them.
- 16↑ This was introduced by Gladstone in 1886 in the British Parliament. It sought to transfer Irish administration to an executive appointed by an Irish Parliament but left the power of taxation largely to the British Government. It met with furious opposition in the House of Commons. In 1893, Gladstone, again in office, introduced a Home Rule Bill which was passed in the Commons, but was rejected in the Lords by an overwhelming majority.
The Natal Advertiser, 5-7-1894
Extract from Letter to Dadabhai Naoroji (5-7-1894)
DURBAN,[17]
July 5, 1894
The first Parliament of Natal under Responsible Government has been pre-eminently an Indian Parliament. It has for the most part occupied itself with legislation affecting Indians, by no means favourably. The Governor, in opening the Legislative Council and Assembly, remarked that his Ministers would deal with the Franchise which was exercised by Indians in Natal, although they never exercised it in India. The reasons given for the sweeping measure to disfranchise Indians were that they had never exercised the Franchise before, and that they were not fit for it.
