Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/134

LETTER TO “THE ENGLISHMAN” 117 The Secretary of State has received a telegram from the Indians stating that they have received notice to remove and praying that action may be stayed. I therefore urge Your Honour’s Government to stay action until the resolution and circular of 1893 have been cancelled and the law brought in harmony with the award when a test case can be tried in the courts of the South African Republic. The resolution and the circular referred to have been can¬ celled, but so far as I know, and I have been receiving here the South African papers regularly, a test case has not been tried. Evidently, therefore, the action of the Transvaal Government is premature, and, I venture to think, constitutes a breach of international courtesy, if nothing more. I venture to remind you that the assets of the Indians in the Transvaal amount to over £100,000, and that removal to locations would practically mean ruin to the Indian traders. The question, therefore, in its immediate aspect involves the very existence of hundreds of Her Majesty’s subjects whose only fault is that they are “sober, thrifty and industrious”. I submit that the matter demands the most urgent and immediate attention of the whole public in India. M. K. Gandhi The Englishman, 8-12-1896