M. K. Gandhi
Colony, But at a mass meeting held in Johannesburg, at which they were present, hundreds of certificates of voluntary registration were publicly burnt, and a challenge of wholesale imprisonment was thrown out to the Government, who took alarm at the situation, and a Conference of leading members of the Government and Opposition, and of representatives of the Indian and Chinese communities, together with Mr. Albert Cartwright, as mediator, was held at Pretoria. The Conference proved abortive, however, for, though they were prepared to waive the other points upon which they had previously insisted, the Government proved adamant on the two main issues. They definitely refused either to repeal the Asiatic Act or to remove the racial bar of the Immigration Law. An amending Bill was passed through both Houses of Parliament, validating voluntary registration, and improving the Indian position in certain respects, but it being, in the main, unsatisfactory for the reasons given above, it was not recognised by the Passive Resisters, who resumed the struggle with energy. The new measure, however, strengthened the hands of the Government by giving them powers of deportation, which, however, were at first neutralised by their deporting Passive Resisters across the Natal border, whence they returned as fast as they were deported.
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