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1. LETTER to LORD AMPTHILL [LONDON,] August 5, 1909 MY LORD, I Beg to Acknowledge Your Two Letters of Yesterday’S Date

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1. LETTER to LORD AMPTHILL [LONDON,] August 5, 1909 MY LORD, I Beg to Acknowledge Your Two Letters of Yesterday’S Date 1. LETTER TO LORD AMPTHILL [LONDON,] August 5, 1909 MY LORD, I beg to acknowledge your two letters of yesterday’s date. I hope to send you copies1 of your letters at the earliest opportunity. My letter2 in reply to yours of the 3rd instant has already gone forward. With reference to the allegation as to the question of educated Indians being a new question—I deal with it on a separate sheet of paper3 in order to enable you to use it without having to refer to this letter. The terms of the proposed amendment to be submitted are also enclosed herewith.4 I fully realise that the difficulty will be on the question of right. I have given many an anxious night to find out a solution without insisting on the “right”, but I have failed because anything short of it, in my humble opinion, implies a record on the Statute-book of the Colony of racial inferiority, and this reply to your question is also the reply to Your Lordship’s suggestion that, in the enumeration of demands, the status of educated Indians should be replaced by “the occasional admission of the few highly educated Indians” , etc. Any such substitution is not possible because the fight is not that of getting the few educated Indians admitted, but it is essentially that of having the potential or theoretical right recognised. Physicians, lawyers, etc., have been mentioned in connection with the question in order to emphasise the tangible consequences of a denial of the “right”, and this became necessary in order to satisfy Mr. Cartwright’s friends as …5 [Colon]ial stand [point it] is necessary for them to know in a tangible form that our demand does not involve the admission of more than six such Indians into the Colony; as a matter 1 Lord Ampthill had asked for copies of his letters to Gandhiji, as he had not retained any with him. 2 Vide “Letter to Lord Ampthill”, 4-8-1909. 3 Vide enclosure 1. 4 The original enclosure is not available. But the text of the amendment prepared by Gandhiji, which was forwarded by Lord Ampthill to General Smuts on August 10, is given here as enclosure 2. For the proviso later on added to it by Gandhiji, vide “Letter to Lord Ampthill”,9-8-1909. 5 Some words are missing here. VOL. 10 : 5 AUGUST, 1909 - 9 APRIL, 1910 1 of fact, there may not be even two per year applying for such admission and, personally, I should want no assurance from the local Government that they would admit six or a smaller number. The principle being conceded, mere admission is a matter of detail and I frankly confess that , had it been purely a question of admitting a few such Indians, I should never have advised tremendous suffering on the part of my countrymen of the Transvaal. I am much obliged to Your Lordship for your further and valuable suggestions as to improving the statement1 . In concert with Mr. Ritch, I am attending to it directly. After the suggestions are incorporated, I will have a few copies struck and will forward them to you, but final order for printing them will not be given until I have received your approval and permission to circulate it. I am, etc., [ENCLOSURE 1] AS TO THE ALLEGATION THAT THE QUESTION OF EDUCATED INDIANS IS A NEW QUESTION It is necessary to bear in mind that there were two conferences; the one in the January of 1908 when Mr. Gandhi was still in prison.2 At that time the question of educated Indians was not mentioned because no such mention was necessary. This is so because the repeal of Act 2 of 1907, on condition of voluntary registration being gone through, would have automatically re-instated British Indians possessing educational attainments. The second conference took place on the 20th August between the Executive Council and the leaders of the Progressive Party, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Quinn. This is the meeting concerning which it is alleged that the question of educated Indians was not among the points discussed. This allegation received direct refutation in General Botha’s despatch, No. 528, dated the 5th September 1908, at page 43, cd. 4327. General Botha says there: “The ninth subject of discussion was the fresh demand made for the immigration of Asiatics not claiming previous domicile in the Transvaal, but who could pass an education test.” This is an admission that this subject was discussed at the conference, but, it is claimed by 1 Vide “Statement of Transvaal Indian Case”, 16-7-1909. 2 Gandhiji was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment on January 10, 1908, but was released on January 30 following the settlement; vide “Trial at Johannesburg”, 10-1-1908 and “Interview to “the Transvaal Leader”, 30-1-1908. 2 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI General Botha, it was a fresh demand brought up there. But this is also wrong, as is shown from the correspondence between Mr. Smuts and Mr. Gandhi, commencing from the 22nd February 1908.1 Indeed, as a matter of fact, the conference was brought about because the negotiations that were going on with General Smuts for repeal of the Act fell through, inasmuch as General Smuts imposed a fresh condition as to the prohibition of educated British Indians before he would repeal the Act. Moreover, in the … 2 [above quotation] a claim which ministers had previously decided was inadmissible and even had it been otherwise, it is difficult to see by what means a Bill providing for the immigration of Asiatics and the clause in question could be passed through either of the Houses of Parliament in view of the almost universal feeling of the white colonists on the subject.” It may also be added that at this conference there was no agreement come to. The Asiatic leaders retired with distinct instructions from the members of the Executive Council and the Progressive Leaders that they were to put before their respective committees the points that were discussed at the conference and inform General Smuts of the decision of the committees. Accordingly and immediately, Asiatic meetings were held, and both Messrs Gandhi and Quinn reported to General Smuts. In the Blue-book above-mentioned, the whole of the letter written at the special request of the Private Secretary to Mr. Smuts is not given. The following are the opening sentences from the letter to Mr. Lane (Mr. Smuts’ Private Secretary), dated the 20th August:3 Mr. Cartwright told me that I should write to you what I told him as to the decision of the meeting today, and to give my impressions also. I placed before the meeting, for the third time today, the terms that I told them the Government were prepared to offer, and I told them further that these would form an Acceptable compromise, if some provision was made for highly educated Indians and Mr. Sorabjee’s re-instatement; but the meeting would not listen to anything short of repeal of the Asiatic act and the recognition of highly educated Indians under the general clause of the Immigrants’ Restriction Act. All I could persuade them to accept was that, the statutory right being recognised, there would be no objection to an administrative discrimination against educated Indians, so that only the most highly educated Indians could enter.4 1 Vide “Letter to General Smuts”, 22-2-1908. 2 Some words are missing here. 3 Vide “Letter to E.F.c.Lane”, 20-8-1908. 4 Lord Ampthill, acknowledging this letter on August 7, wrote that this memorandum seemed to be quite convincing and would be of immediate use to him. VOL. 10 : 5 AUGUST, 1909 - 9 APRIL, 1910 3 [ENCLOSURE 2] AMENDMENT Part of sub-section 1 of Proposed Amendment of Section 2 of the Immigrants’ sub-section 1. as follows: Restriction Act No. 15 of 1907 “Any person who when reads as follows: asked whether within or outside “Any person who when this Colony by a duly authorised asked whether within or outside officer shall be unable through this Colony by a duly authorised deficient education to pass an officer shall be unable through examination test in an European deficient education to write out language that may be set; (from dictation or otherwise) and provided that for the purposes of sign in the characters of an this Section Yiddish shall be European language an applic- accepted as an European ation for permission to enter this language and provided further Colony or such other document that the Immigration Officer as such officer may require; shall have full discretion as to the provided that for the purpose of nature of the examination which this sub-section Yiddish shall be may vary in respect of persons or accepted as an European lang- classes and that the decision of uage; provided further that” the Immigration Officer in (what follows is immaterial) respect of the examination shall not be subject to review by or appeal to the Supreme Court or any other Courts of the Colony, and provided further that any Asiatic passing the examination test put to him by the Immigration Officer and not being otherwise in terms of this Act deemed a prohibited immigrant shall not be subject to the provisions of Act 36 of 1908, provided further that” NOTES HEREON 1. If Act 2 of 1907 had been repealed and if there were no Act 36 of 1908, there would be no occasion for reference to Act 36 in the proposed amendment. But the reference has become necessary as Act 4 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF MAHATMA GANDHI 36 contains a removal clause, and as sub-section 4 of Section 2 of Act 15 provides that any person being subject to a removal order becomes a prohibited immigrant in spite of his passing the examination tests.
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