apply for registration as required by law, they should not be ordered to leave the Transvaal within a given period.
One of these was one Mr Quinn, the leader of the Chinese residents of Johannesburg, who numbered three to four hundred, and were either traders or farmers. India is noted for its agriculture, but I believe that we in India are not as far advanced in agriculture as the Chinese are. The modern progress of agriculture in America and other countries defies description, but I consider it to be still in an experimental stage. China, on the other hand, is an old country like India and a comparison between India and China would be therefore fairly instructive. I observed the agricultural methods of the Chinese in Johannesburg and also talked with them on the subject, and this gave me the impression that the Chinese are more intelligent as well as diligent than we are. We often allow land to lie fallow thinking it is of no use, while the Chinese would grow good crops upon it, thanks to their minute knowledge of varying soils.
The Black Act applied to the Chinese as well as to the Indians whom they therefore joined in the Satyagraha struggle. Still from first to last the activities of the two communities were not allowed to be mixed up. Each worked through its own independent organization. This arrangement produced the beneficent result that so long as both the communities stood to their guns, each would be a source of strength to the other. But if one of the two gave way, that would leave the morale of the other unaffected or at least the other would steer clear of the danger of a total collapse. Many of the Chinese eventually fell away as their leader played them false. He did not indeed submit to the obnoxious law, but one morning some one came and told me that the Chinese leader had fled away without handing over charge of the books and moneys of the Chinese Association in his possession. It is always difficult for followers to sustain a conflict in the absence of their leader, and the shock is all the greater when the leader has disgraced himself. But when the arrests commenced, the Chinese were in high spirits.
