Page:Satyagraha in South Africa.pdf/292

received large reinforcements. Such temptations often faced us in South Africa, but I can emphatically declare that we did not succumb to them in any single case. And therefore I have often said that a Satyagrahi has a single objective from which he cannot recede and beyond which he cannot advance, which can in fact be neither augmented nor abridged. The world learns to apply to a man the standards which he applies to himself. When the Government saw, that the Satyagrahis claimed to follow these fine principles, they began to judge the conduct of the Satyagrahis in the light of those principles, although they themselves were apparently not bound by any principle whatever, and several times charged the Satyagrahis with a violation of their principles. Even a child can see that if fresh anti-Indian legislation was enacted after the Black Act, it must be included in the Satyagraha programme. And yet when fresh restrictions were imposed on Indian immigration and necessitated an extension of our programme, the Government levelled against us the totally undeserved charge of raising fresh issues. If new restraints were placed on Indian newcomers, we must have the right to recruit them for the movement, and hence Sorabji and others entered the Transvaal, as we have already seen. Government could not tolerate this at all, but I had no difficulty in persuading impartial people about the propriety of the step. Another such occasion arose after Gokhale’s departure. Gokhale supposed that the £3 tax would be taken off in a year and the necessary legislation would be introduced in the next ensuing session of the Union Parliament. Instead of this. General Smuts from his seat in the House of Assembly said that as the Europeans in Natal objected to the repeal of the tax, the Union Government were unable to pass legislation directing its removal, which however was not the case. The members from Natal by themselves could do nothing in a body upon which the four Colonies were represented. Again General Smuts ought to have brought forward the necessary Bill in the Assembly on behalf of the Cabinet