will depend the future of the country. None of us wants to be satisfied with the things as they are. But first we must prove that we can bear these responsibilities before we can ask for any more. I have often said, and I repeat here again, that I do not want any limits, any restrictions on the growth which should be open to our people. I want the people of our country, men and women, to be able to rise to the full height of their stature as men and women of other countries do. But our growth can only, be through the discharge of responsibilities; they must first be well discharged before we can think of further responsibilities. Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you heartily for the manner in which you have listened to me and for the way in which you have received me.

PART III.

SPEECHES ON THE SOUTH AFRICAN INDIAN QUESTION.

THE TRANSVAAL QUESTION.

[At the Twenty-fourth Session of the Indian National Congress held in Lahore, Mr. Gokhale spoke as follows:-]

Mr. President, Fellow-Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been asked to submit for your adoption the following Resolution:—

"That this Congress expresses its great admiration of the intense patriotism, courage and self-sacrifice of the Indians in the Transvaal, Mahomedan and Hindu, Zorastrian and Christian who are heroically suffering persecution in the interest of their country and are carrying on their peaceful and selfless struggle for elementary civil rights against heavy and overwhelming odds; that this Congress offers its warmest encouragement to Mr. M. K. Gandhi and his brave and faithful associates and calls upon all Indians of whatever race or creed to help them unstintedly with funds and in this connection the Congress begs to convey to Mr. R. J. Tata its high appreciation of the patriotic instincts which have inspired his munificent donation of Rs. 25,000 to his suffering countrymen in South Africa in their hour of need and trial.

This Congress begs earnestly to press upon the Government of India the necessity of prohibiting the recruitment of indentured Indian labour for any portion of the South African Union and of dealing with the authorities there in the same manner in which the latter deal with Indian interests so long as they adhere to the selfish and one-sided policy which they proclaim and practise and persist in their present course of denying to His Majesty's Indian subjects

their just rights as citizens of the Empire. The Congress protests against the declaration of responsible statesmen in favour of allowing the Self-Governing Colonies in the British Empire to monopolise the vast undeveloped territories for exclusive white settlement, and deems it its duty to point out that the policy of shutting the door in these territories and denying the rights of full British citizenship to all Asiatic subjects of the British Crown, while preaching and enforcing the opposite policy of the open door in Asia is fraught with grave mischief to the Empire and is as unwise as it is unrighteous."

Fellow-Delegates, the first article of our Constitution says that the Congress seeks to secure for the people of this country, first, a system of administration in India itself similar to that enjoyed by the self-governing members of the British Empire; and, secondly, a participation for our countrymen not only in the burdens and responsibili ties of the Empire but also in its privileges on equal terms with those other members. You will thus see that there are two ideas represented by the aspirations of the efforts of this Congress. One has reference to our status-I mean our political status-in our own country: and the second to our political status in the whole Empire. Yesterday's resolution about the reforms, and some of the resolutions that will follow to-day all deal with the improvement of our political status in our own country. This resolution, that I have just now submitted to you, deals with our political status in the whole of the British Empire. On this account, in the first instance, this question is of great, of supreme and standing importance. But apart from that, there are special circumstances which invest this question to-day with very special importance. You are aware that for many years past Indians in South Africa have had a very difficult time and during the last two years a most acute struggle has been going on in the Transvaal between our countrymen there and the Government of that Colony; but I take it that most of you are familiar with the leading facts of this struggle and yet in commending this resolution for your acceptance I think it is necessary to glance briefly at those facts here,

For the purpose of this review one may divide the whole period of the struggle into three parts: the period of the Boer Government; the period of the Crown Government; and the present period of Self-Government for the Transvaal. During the time of the Boer Government our position was not very satisfactory but in any case emigration into the Colony was perfectly unrestricted; any Indian who chose to go there could go there; all that was required of him was a payment of three pounds as registration fee. That is all. As a matter of fact when the war broke out, there were in the Colony fifteen thousand Indians; that being the male population only, women and children being left out of account. There was another circumstance in our favour in those days. The strong arm of the British Government was behind us in the struggle that our countrymen were making with the Boer oligarchy at the time. As a matter of fact many of you remember that both Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain mentioned the treatment that was sought to be meted out to the Indians in regard to the location laws as the main cause for which the Boer war was undertaken. That was the position under the Boer Government. There was the harsh and degrading law as regards the location but that was never sought to be rigorously applied. Then came the war. Then came five or six years of Crown Government. During this Crown Government when any onewould have thought that the honour of England was committed to the policy of improving the status of Indians -as far as the honour of a country can be said to be committed by its leading statesmen-our countrymen actually found that an attempt was made immediately to render that position worse than it was. The very first thing which the Crown Government sought to do was to enforce that location law even more stringently than the Boer Government. They failed in that for reasons which I need not go into here. But our countrymen saw that for them the war had really made no change and as a matter of fact it had made their status worse. After that for about three to four years both Briton and Boer in the Transvaal, whatever their difference, were of one mind in regard to the treatment of Indians. Both Boer and Briton set up a cry

of dishonest influx of Indians into the Colony. It was a perfectly unjust accusation; it was a lying accusation as was proved by several estimates published by the Government itself. But the cry was kept up for about four or five years. There was a census taken in 1904 when it was found that there were 10,000 Indians in the Colony as against 15 thousand men under the Boer Government; these ten thousand included children and women. There was another estimate published by the Registrar for the Asiatics Immigration in 1906 when again he found that there were ten thousand Indians in the Colony. There were two further estimates, one putting the number at 9,000 and another at 8,000. You will thus see that the cry of dishonest influx of Indians into the Colony was an absolutely unjust cry. This was the beginning of a new struggle. The white colonists were determined to prevent our people from entering and to put out as many as possible. Matters ultimately reached a crisis when an attempt was made to legislate in the matter, legislation being undertaken by the old Legislative Council that the Crown Government had given to the Colony. In 1906, an Ordinance called the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance was introduced into the Legislative Council, the object of which was to confine entry into the Transvaal to pre-war residents and to compel all Indians in the Transvaal to register themselves with the great humiliation attending such registration. All Indians naturally protested against this. But in spite of their protest the Ordinance was passed and then the Indians took a step which lies at the commencement of the present struggle that is going on. In September, 1906; finding that all their efforts were unavailing and that this Ordinance was passed by the Legislative Council, they held a meeting to protest against what was done, and at that meeting they passed their famous resolution-which since then has been known as their Covenant-saying that if the Imperial Government gave their sanction to that legislation, they would not submit to it (hear, hear,-and applause); they appointed at that meeting a deputation to proceed to England and that deputation was headed by our great and illustrious countryman, Mr. Gandhi. Fellow-Delegates,