Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/497

This page needs to be proofread.

-to dedicate their lives to the cause. Give me such workers and I promise they will rid the land of all the evils that afflict it.

THE PROTECTION OF THE COW.

Mr, Gandhi published the following reply in the "Statesman" of January 19, 1918 to Mr. Irwin's attack on Mr. and Mrs. Gandhi in the columns of the same journal:

Mr. Irwin's latest letter published in your issue of the 12th instant compels me to court the hospitality of your columns. So long as your correspondent con fined himself to matters directly affecting himself, his misrepresentations did not much matter, as the real facts were as much within the knowledge of the Government and those who are concerned with the agrarian question in Champaran, as within mine. But in the letter under notice, he has travelled outside his jurisdiction as it were, and unchivalrously attacked one of the most innocent women walking on the face of the earth (and this I say although she happens to be my wife) and has unpardonably referred to a question of the greatest moment, I mean, the cow-protection question, without taking the precaution as behoves a gentleman of ascertaining facts at first hand.

My address to the Gau-rakshini Sabha he could have easily obtained upon application to me. This at least was due to me as between man and man. Your correspondent accuses me of ' making a united attack on saheb log (their landlords) who slaughter and eat cows daily.' This pre-supposes that I was addressing a comparatively microscopic audience of the planters'