to be decided judicially only. And if it is true that the Chief Justice of the Transvaal has already expressed his opinion in the case presented on behalf of the Transvaal Government, the decision of the question is almost a foregone conclusion. To prove that this is so, your Petitioners refer Your Excellency to newspapers of current dates, especially The Johannesburg Times of 27th April 1895 (weekly edition).
9. But your Petitioners’ appeal to Your Excellency is on higher and broader grounds; your Petitioners have every confidence that the question that affects thousands of Her Majesty’s subjects, on a proper solution of which depend the bread and butter of hundreds of British subjects, and a technical solution of which may bring ruin to hundreds of homes and may leave them penniless, will not be left to be decided merely in a court of law where everybody’s hands are tied down, and where such considerations find no place. So far as the traders are concerned, if the contention of the Transvaal Government is ultimately upheld, it means absolute ruin to them, and not only to them personally, but to their families and relations and servants, both in India and the Transvaal, who are dependent upon them. It is impossible for some of your Petitioners, who have been trading for a long time in the Transvaal, to seek “pastures new” and manage to keep body and soul together, if they are driven out of their present position through no fault of their own, but merely, as will be seen presently, because of the misrepresentation of a few interested persons.
10. The gravity of the question and the immense interests that are at stake are your Petitioners' excuse for the following some-what lengthy resume of their position, and for humbly soliciting Your Excellency’s undivided attention to it.
11. The unfortunate departure from the 14th Clause of the Convention of 1881[1], which protects equally the interests of all persons other than Natives, has originated and been countenanced in and by the assumption that the Indian settlers in the Transvaal do not observe proper sanitation and is based on the misrepresentations of certain interested persons. It has been emphatically laid down by Her Majesty’s Government throughout the correspondence about the Law 3 of 1885 that separate streets might be set apart for the Indians in the interests of public health, but that they cannot be compelled to trade in certain fixed parts only of the towns. After the Law 3 of 1885 was strenuously opposed for some time, the then High Commissioner, Sir H. Robinson, in withdrawing opposition
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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