The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi/Volume 1/August 1895 Memorial to J. Chamberlain

by Mohandas K. Gandhi

67. MEMORIAL TO J. CHAMBERLAIN

DURBAN,
August 11, 1895

TO

HE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN,
HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR THE COLONIES, LONDON

THE MEMORIAL OF THE UNDERSIGNED INDIANS
RESIDING IN THE COLONY OF NATAL

HUMBLY SHEWETH THAT:

Your Memorialists, representing the Indian community in the Colony of Natal, respectfully venture to approach you with respect to the Indian Immigration Law Amendment Bill recently passed by the Hon. Legislative Assembly, and the Hon. Legislative Council of Natal, in so far as it affects the existing conditions of indenture and requires a special licence, costing £3 every year, to be taken out by the indentured Indians coming under that Law and wishing to remain in the Colony as free Indians.

2. Your Memorialists, with a view to have the Clauses dealing with the above matter left out, presented respectful memorials^[1] to both the Honourable Houses, but, your Memorialists regret to mention, without avail. The copies of the memorials are annexed hereto, and marked A and B respectively.

3. The Clauses that deal with the matter are as follows:

Clause 2. From and after the date when this Act shall take effect the indentures to be signed by Indian immigrants as provided by Schedules B and C of the Indian Immigration Law, 1891, referred to in Section 11 of the said Law, shall contain a Covenant by the Indian immigrants, in words as follows:

And we further agree that after the expiration or other determination we shall either return to India or remain in Natal under indentures to be from time to time entered into; provided that each term of new indentured service shall be for two years, and provided further, that the rate of wages for each year of indentured service after that provided by this Contract shall be 16/- per month for the first year, 17/- per month for the second year, 18/- per month for the third year, 19/- per month for the fourth year, and 20/- per month for the fifth and each succeeding year.

Clause 6 runs as follows:

Every indentured Indian who shall have entered into the Covenant set out in Section 2 of this Act, and who shall fail, neglect, or refuse to return to India, or become re-indentured in Natal, shall take out year by year, a pass or licence to remain in the Colony to be issued by the Magistrate of his district, and shall pay for such pass or licence a yearly sum of £3 sterling, which may be recovered by summary process by any Clerk of the Peace or other officer appointed to get in such licence money.

The Schedule B referred to in Clause 2, quoted above, so far as it relates to the period of service is as follows:

We, the undersigned, emigrants from . . . . to Natal, hereby engage to serve the employer to whom we may respectively be allotted by the Protector of Indian Immigrants to Natal; provided that we shall receive monthly in money the wages stated hereunder opposite our respective names, and the allowances following.

4. From the above it will be seen, that if the Bill under discussion became law, an indentured Indian, in case he desires to settle in the Colony after the first five years of his indentured service, should either have to remain under perpetual indenture, or pay a yearly tax of £3; your Memorialists have used the word tax advisedly, because that was the word used in the original Bill before it passed the Committee stage. Your Memorialists submit that the mere change of name from tax to licence does not make it the less offensive but shows the knowledge on the part of the framers that a special poll-tax, on a special class of people in the Colony, is entirely repugnant to the British notions of justice.

5. Now, your Memorialists humbly, but emphatically, submit, that to raise the term of indenture from five years to a practically indefinite period is extremely unjust, especially because such a measure is absolutely uncalled for so far as the industries protected, or affected by, the indentured Indians are concerned.

6. The clauses owe their origin to the Commission that was sent out to India in the year 1894 by the Natal Government, and the report made by the Delegates, Messrs Binns and Mason, who formed the Commission. The reasons given in that report for such legislation are given at pp. 20 and 21 of the Annual Report of the Protector of Immigrants for 1894. Your Memorialists venture to quote the following from the report of the Delegates:

In a country where the Native population is in number so far in excess of the European, the unlimited settlement of Indians is not considered desirable, and there is a general wish that when they have completed their last period of indenture they should return to India. There are already about 25,000 free Indians settled in the Colony, many of whom have allowed their right to a return passage to lapse; this is exclusive of a very considerable Banya trading population!

7. Thus the reasons for the special arrangement are political merely. Properly speaking, there is no question of overcrowding at all. There can be none in a newly opened-up country where there are yet vast tracts of land entirely uninhabited and uncultivated.

8. Again, in the same report, the Delegates state as follows:

There is a strong feeling amongst the merchants and shopkeepers with regard to the Arabs, who are all traders and not workers; but as they are mostly British subjects and do not go to the Colony under any form of agreement, it is recognized that they cannot be interfered with.

The Coolie does not come into competition to any considerable extent with the European. Field work for Europeans is impossible on the coast, where all the plantations are situated, and the number of servants other than Coolies and Natives has always been very small.

Although we are decidedly of opinion that up to the present the working Indians who have settled down (the italics are your Memorialists') have been of great benefit to the Colony, we cannot avoid, having regard to the future, and, in the face of the great Native problem yet to be solved in South Africa, sharing in the concern which is now felt. If a large proportion of the Coolies had taken advantage of the return passage provided for them, there would have been less cause for alarm.

9. Your Memorialists most respectfully submit that the above extracts, which form part of the reasons given for measures restrictive of the settlement of freed Indians in the Colony, go to prove the exact opposite; for if the Indian traders, to which class most of your Memorialists belong, who “do not go to the Colony under any form of agreement”, could not be interfered with, much less the indentured Indians, who are also equally British subjects and who are, so to speak, invited to go to the Colony, and whose settlement (in the Delegates' own words) “has been of great benefit to the Colony”, and who have therefore a special claim on the goodwill and attention of the Colonists.

10. And, if the 'Coolie' “does not come into competition to any considerable extent with the Europeans”, where is the justification, your Memorialists humbly ask, for adopting measures that would make it difficult for the indentured Indians to earn honest bread in peace and freedom? It does not certainly lie in any qualities special to the indentured Indians which render them dangerous members of society. The peace-loving disposition and the mildness of the Indian nation are proverbial. Their obedience to authorities over them is no less prominent a trait of their character, and it would not lie in the mouth of the Delegates to say otherwise; for the Protector, who was one of the Delegates, in his report, at p. 15 of the same book, says:

Many persons, I am aware, condemn the Indians as a race, yet these persons cannot fail, if they look around them, to see hundreds of these Indians honestly and peaceably pursuing their several useful and desirable occupations.

I am pleased to be able to state that the Indians generally resident in the Colony continue to form a prosperous, enterprising and law-abiding section of the community.

11. The Hon. the Attorney-General, in moving the second reading of the Bill, is reported to have said that:

There was no intention to interfere with the introduction of labour to the injury of any industry, but these Indians were brought here for the purpose of supplying labour for the development of local industries, and were not intended to form portion of the South African nation which was being built up in the various States.

12. With the greatest deference to the learned Attorney-General, your Memorialists humbly submit that the above remarks condemn entirely the clauses under discussion, and venture to believe that Her Majesty's Government will not endorse such remarks by sanctioning the Bill.

13.Your Memorialists venture to think that it is against the spirit of the British Constitution to countenance measures that tend to keep men under perpetual bondage. That the Bill, if passed, would do so, it is submitted, is self-evident.

14. The Natal Mercury, the Government organ, of the 11th May, 1895, thus justifies the measure:

This much, however, the Government cannot accede to, that men who contract at fair wages to assist the Colonists, should be allowed to break their contract, and remain competitors against the Colonists, those whom, and for no other purpose and no other condition, they came to serve. To do otherwise would be to destroy all distinction between right and wrong and to give tacit disavowal of the existence of law and equity. There is no desire for, nor is there any, harshness of any kind, nor is there anything to which unbiased judgment can take exception.

15. Your Memorialists have quoted the above to show what feeling exists even amongst responsible quarters against the Indians only because some very few dare to trade in the Colony, after having served as labourers, not only under and during their term of indenture, but a long time after the completion of their term.

16. The statement requiring those who are admittedly indispensable to the welfare of the Colony to remain either under perpetual bondage or to “purchase freedom”, as it is put by The Natal Advertiser, 9-5-95, by paying an annual tax of £3, “is neither harsh nor inequitable”, will not, your Memorialists feel sure, be accepted by Her Majesty's Government.

17. The injustice of the clauses seems to be so evident and strong, that even The Natal Advertiser, a paper which is by no means favourable towards the Indian, felt it, and expressed it in the following terms on the 16th May, 1895:

The penal clause of the Bill originally was to the effect that the Indians, failing to return to India, should pay “an annual tax to the Government”. On Tuesday, the Attorney-General moved that this be altered to read: “should take out a pass or licence to remain in the Colony”, for which £3 would be payable. This is decidedly an alteration for the better, and effects the same end under less disagreeable terms. A broad question, however, is raised by this proposal to establish a special tax on the Coolie settlers. If such a disability is to be placed on Coolies coming from another part of the Empire, surely its application should be extended to include members of other non-European races, who have no connection with the British Empire, such as Chinese, Arabs, Kaffirs from outside States, and all such visitors. To specially select the Coolies coming for attention in this way, and to allow all other aliens to settle with impunity, and without disability, is not an equitable arrangement. The practice of taxing aliens, if it is to be inaugurated at all, should surely commence with those races not under the British flag in their native land, and not with those who, whether we like the fact or not, are the subjects of the same Sovereign as ourselves. These should be the last, not the first, to be placed by us under exceptional disabilities.

18. Your Memorialists submit that the arrangement has not appealed to any fair-minded men at all. How the Indian Government could be persuaded by the Natal Delegates to make a promise to sanction an indefinite extension of the indentures, or compulsory return, no matter how reluctantly, your Memorialists do not profess to know. But your Memorialists venture to hope that the case, as put here, on behalf of the indentured Indians will receive full attention from both Her Majesty's Government and the Indian Government, and that any sanction given on the representation of an ex parte Commission will not be allowed to prejudice the case of the indentured Indians.

19. For the sake of ready reference your Memorialists beg leave to quote as follows from His Excellency the Viceroy's despatch to His Excellency the Governor of Natal, dated the 17th September, 1894:

I should myself have preferred the continuance of the existing system under which it is open to an immigrant at the termination of his period of indenture to settle in the Colony on his own account, and I have little sympathy with the views that would prevent any subjects of the Crown from settling in any Colony under the British flag. But, in consideration of the feelings at present manifested in the Colony of Natal towards Indian settlers, I am prepared to accept the proposals (a to f) set forth by the Delegates in the memorandum of 20th January, 1894, referred to in the preceding paragraph, subject to the following provisions, viz.:

(a) That a Coolie when first recruited shall be required by the terms of his contract to return to India, within or immediately on the expiration of the period of his indenture, unless he may prefer to re-enter into a further indenture on the same conditions;

(b) that such Coolies as may refuse to return should in no case be made subject to penalties under criminal law, and

(c) That all renewals shall be for a period of two years, and that a free passage should be secured to the immigrant at the end of the first term for which his engagement is made as well as at the end of every subsequent renewal.

The alterations in the existing system which I am prepared to sanction with the approval of Her Majesty's Government may be summarized as follows.^[2]

20. Your Memorialists notice with a feeling of relief that Her Majesty's Government have not yet approved of the suggestions of the Delegates.

21. To show yet further how grossly unjust the adoption of the compulsory return or re-indenture has seemed from the first time that the idea was started, your Memorialists crave leave to quote from the report of and evidence taken before the Immigration Commission that sat in Natal in the year 1885.

22. Mr. J. R. Saunders, one of the Commissioners, forcibly puts his views on the matter in his additional report in the following terms:

Though the Commission has made no recommendation on the subject of passing a law to force Indians back to India at the expiration of their term of service unless they renew their indentures, I wish to express my strong condemnation of any such idea, and I feel convinced that many who now advocate the plan, when they realize what it means, will reject it as energetically as I do. Stop Indian immigration and face results, but don't try to do what I can show is a great wrong.

What is it but taking the best out of servants (the good as well as the bad), and then refusing them the enjoyment of the reward! Forcing them back (if we could, but we cannot) when their best days have been spent for our benefit. Whereto? Why, back to face a prospect of starvation from which they sought to escape when they were young. Shylock-like, taking the pound of flesh, and Shylock-like we may rely on meeting—Shylock's reward.

Stop Indian immigration if you will; if there are not enough unoccupied houses now, empty more by clearing out Arabs and Indians who live in them, and who add to the productive and consuming power of a less than half-peopled country. But let us trace results in this one branch of the enquiry, taking it as an example of others and trace out how untenanted houses depreciate the value of properties and securities—how, out of this must result stagnation in the building trade and those other trades and stores for supplies dependent on it— follow out how this leads to a reduced demand for white mechanics, and with the reduction in spending power of so many, how fall of revenue is to be expected next, need of retrenchment or taxation, or both. Let this result and others, far too numerous to be calculated in detail, be faced, and if blind race sentimentalism or jealousy is to prevail, so be it. The Colony can stop Indian immigration, and that perhaps far more easily and permanently than some ‘popularity seekers’ would desire. But force men off at the end of their service, this the Colony cannot do. And I urge on it not to discredit a fair name by trying.

23. The late member of the late Legislative Council and the present Attorney-General (the Hon. Mr. Escombe), giving his evidence before the Commission, said (p. 177):

With reference to time-expired Indians, I do not think that it ought to be compulsory on any man to go to any part of the world save for a crime for which he is transported; I hear a great deal of this question; I have been asked again and again to take a different view, but I have not been able to do it. A man is brought here, in theory with his own consent, in practice very often without his consent, (the italics are your Memorialists’) he gives the best five years of his life, he forms new ties, forgets the old ones, perhaps establishes a home here, and he cannot, according to my view of right and wrong, be sent back. Better by far to stop the further introduction of Indians altogether than to take what work you can out of them and order them away. The Colony, or part of the Colony, seems to want Indians but also wishes to avoid the consequences of Indian immigration. The Indian people do no harm as far as I know; in certain respects they do a great deal of good. I have never heard a reason to justify the extradition of a man who has behaved well for five years. I do not think that the Indian, at the expiration of his five years’ service, should be placed under police supervision unless he is a criminal. I know not why Arabs should be placed under police supervision more than Europeans. In cases of some Arabs the thing is simply ridiculous. They are men of large means, large connections, who are always used in trade if they can be dealt with more profitably than others.

24. Your Memorialists, while drawing your attention to the above, cannot help expressing their regret that the gentleman who expressed the above views ten years ago should now be the member to introduce the Bill under discussion.

25. Mr. H. Binns, who went with Mr. Mason as a delegate to induce the Indian Government to sanction the compulsory return or re-indenture, expressed the following opinion in giving his evidence before the Commission :

I think the idea which has been mooted, that all Indians should be compelled to return to India at the end of their term of indenture, is most unfair to the Indian population, and would never be sanctioned by the Indian Government. In my opinion the free Indian population is a most useful section of the community. A large proportion of them, considerably large than is generally supposed, are in service in the Colony, particularly employed as house servants in the towns and village. Before there was a free Indian population the towns of Pietermaritzburg and Durban had no supply of fruit, vegetables and fish. At present all these things are fully supplied. We have never had any immigrants from Europe who have shown any inclination to become market gardeners and fishermen, and I am of opinion that but for the free Indian population, the markets of Pietermaritzburg and Durban would be as badly supplied now as they were ten years ago (pp. 155-6).

26. The present Chief Justice and the then Attorney-General expressed the following opinion:

I object to any alternation in the terms of the laws under which Indians are introduced into the Colony. In my opinion the numbers of the Indians who have been introduced have in a great measure provided on the coast for the failure of white immigrants, and have cultivated lands, which would otherwise remain uncultivated with the crops which are of real advantage to the inhabitants of the Colony. Many who have not availed themselves of the return passage to India have turned out to be trusty and useful domestic servants (p. 327).

27. It is yet possible to take out extracts from the same voluminous report and evidence to show what the most distinguished men in the Colony have thought about the arrangement.

28. Your Memorialists further beg to draw your attention to the following from Messrs Binns and Mason’s Report:

So far, no second term of indenture has been agreed to in the case of any country to which Coolies emigrated, although the consent of the Government of India has been frequently asked for, and in no case has the condition of compulsory return at the end of the indenture been sanctioned.

29. It has been said in the Colony, in defence of the measure, that there can be no injustice, where two parties voluntarily agree to do a certain thing, and that the Indians before coming to Natal will know under what conditions they will go to Natal. This point has been dealt with in the petitions to the Hon. the Legislative Assembly, and the Hon. the Legislative Council, and your Memorialists venture to repeat that, when the contracting parties are not situated equally, the proposition is entirely inapplicable. An Indian who, in order “to escape from starvation”, as Mr. Saunders has put it, seeks indenture can hardly be called a free agent.

30. So recently as 1894, the evidence as to the indispensableness of the Indian has been dwelt upon in the Protector’s Report referred to above. At p. 15 he says:

If it were possible even for a short space of time to withdraw the whole of the Indian population from this Colony, I am convinced that, with but very few exceptions, every industry in existence at the present time would collapse, solely for the want of reliable labour. There is no getting over the fact that the Native as a rule will not work, hence it is generally admitted throughout the Colony that without the Indian as a labourer, no industry, agricultural or otherwise, of any importance could possibly be carried on successfully, and not only this but almost every householder in Natal would be without domestic servants.

31. If almost the whole current of what may be called expert opinion, from beginning up to date, goes to show the usefulness of the Indians, then, your Memorialists submit, it is not too much to say that to keep such people under perpetual bondage, or to make them pay a yearly tax of £3 whether they can afford it or not, is, to say the very least, absolutely one-sided and selfish.

32. Your Memorialists beg respectfully to draw your attention to the fact that, were the Bill to become law, the very object of immigration will be frustrated in all its aspects. If it is to enable the Indians to improve their material condition ultimately, the object certainly will not be fulfilled by compelling them to remain under perpetual indenture. If it be to relieve the overcrowded parts of India, that object also will be frustrated. For, the object of the Bill is not to allow the number of Indians in the Colony to increase. The desire is to replace those who can no longer bear the yoke of indenture by fresh importation, and to force the former back to India. Thus your Memorialists humbly submit that the last state will be worse than the first. For, while the number of Indians in the overcrowded districts, so far as Natal as an outlet is concerned, will remain the same, those who would return against their will cannot but be a source of additional anxiety and trouble, because they, being without any prospect of work or any capital to maintain them, may have to be maintained at the public expense. It may be said in reply to this objection that it presupposes a state of things which will never happen, that is to say, the Indians will gladly pay the annual tax. Your Memorialists, however, beg leave to point out that such an argument, if advanced, would really go to prove that the clauses about re-indenture and tax are absolutely useless, in so far as they will not produce the desired effect. It has never been contended that the object is to raise any revenue.

33. Your Memorialists, therefore, submit that, if the Colony cannot put up with the Indians, the only course, in your Memorialists’ humble opinion, is to stop all future immigration to Natal, at any rate for the time being. Your Memorialists beg respectfully, but emphatically, to protest against an arrangement that gives all the benefit to one party only, and that, indeed, the least in need of it. Such stopping of immigration will not, your Memorialists submit, materially effect the congested parts of India.

34. Your Memorialists have so far discussed both the indenture and the licence clauses together. As to the latter, your Memorialists beg to draw your attention to the fact that even in the Transvaal—a foreign State—the Government have not ventured to levy an annual tax on the Indians who go there of their own accord and on their own means. There is only a licence of £3 10s to be taken out once for all. And this too has, your Memorialists understand, among other things, formed the subject of a memorial^[3] to Her Majesty’s Government. Moreover, the licence in this case is an annual tax in its most obnoxious form. This tax has to be paid whether the unfortunate victim has the means or not. When a member, during the discussion, asked how the tax will be collected if any Indian objected to or did not pay it, the Hon. Attorney-General remarked that there would always be found sufficient in the defaulting Indian’s house to attach under a summary process!

Lastly, your Memorialists submit that the introduction of the licence clause goes beyond the limits laid down by the Viceroy’s Despatch referred to above.

In conclusion, your Memorialists most earnestly pray and confidently hope that Her Majesty’s Government will come to the conclusion that the clauses discussed herein are manifestly unjust, and will, therefore, be pleased to disallow the Indian Immigration Amendment Bill referred to above, or grant such other relief as may meet the ends of justice.

And for this act of justice and mercy, your Memorialists, as in duty bound, shall for ever pray, etc., etc.

From a photostat of a printed copy: S.N. 433 {{reflist|1|refs= ^[1]

^[4]

^[3]

1. “Petition to Natal Legislative Assembly”, before 5-5-1895, and the “Petition to Natal Legislative Assembly”, before 26-6-1985.
2. The original does not furnish the summary.
3. The text of this is not available.
4. The original does not furnish the summary.