Indians in South Africa

AS expected, the Indian National Congress gave the place of honour in its deliberations this year to the question of the treatment being meted out by the Union government to our countrymen in South Africa. The resolution which the Congress put on record on this subject left little to be desired on the score of either definiteness or dignity. There was no beating about the bush and no exhibition of impotent rage. Having heartily endorsed the suggestion that a round-table conference containing, among others, proper Indian representatives, should be called to settle the question, the Congress went on to express its opinion that “in the event of the proposal for a round-table conference and the proposal regarding arbitration failing, the Imperial Government should withhold the royal assent to the Bill, should it pass through the Union Parliament.” In this matter, at any rate, the Congress could claim to speak on behalf of the whole of political India, Liberal and Independent, no less than Swarajist and Non-cooperative. The resolution was appropriately moved by the one man in the Congress and India who knows more about the question than any other, Mahatma Gandhi. It contained the strongest and most effective reply that has so far been given to the Viceroy’s recent speech. “If that was all that Lord Reading proposed to say to the deputation,” said the Mahatma, “he should have said it in the fewest words and spared them the humiliating spectacle of a great Government confessing its ability to render proper redress to those who for no fault of theirs are in danger of being expelled from South Africa.”