Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2.djvu/205

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ossible to know whether under the better conditions of a new country they might not take their place amongst useful citizens of the land.

These remarks with the necessary changes are word for word applicable to the Indian community; and if the position there taken up is correct and acceptable with reference to the Uitlanders, much more, your Memorialists venture to submit, should it be in the present case.

The Natal Government, in virtue of their promise to the Demonstration Committee, propose to introduce the following three Bills into the Honourable Legislative Assembly, which sits on the 18th instant:

QUARANTINE[16]: (1) Whenever any place has been proclaimed, under Law 4, 1882, as an infected place; the Governor-in-Council may, by a further Proclamation, order that no person shall be landed from any ship coming from such place. (2) Any such order shall also extend to a ship having on board passengers who have come from a proclaimed place, notwithstanding that they may have embarked at some other place, or that the ship has not touched at the proclaimed place. (3) Any such order as aforesaid shall be in force until revoked by a further Proclamation. (4) Any person who shall land in contravention of this Act, shall, if practicable, be at once returned to the ship in which he came to Natal, and the master of such ship shall be bound to receive such person on board, and to convey him from the Colony at the expense of the owners of the ship. (5) The master and owners of any vessel from which any person shall be landed in contravention of this Act shall be liable to a penalty of not less than one hundred pounds sterling for each person so landed, and the vessel may be made executable by a decree of the Supreme Court in satisfaction of any penalty, and the vessel may be refused a clearance outwards until such penalty has been paid and until provision has been made by the master for the conveyance out of the Colony of each person who may have been so landed.

LICENCES[17]: (1) Any Town Council or Town Board may, from time to time, appoint an Officer to issue the annual licences (not being licences under Act 38, 1896) required in the Borough or Township by wholesale or retail dealers. (2) Any person appointed to issue licences for wholesale or retail dealers under Law 38, 1884, or any like Stamp Act, or under this Act, shall be deemed to be a “Licensing Officer” within the meaning of this Act. (3) A Licensing Officer shall have discretion to issue or refuse a wholesale or retail licence not being a licence