24 THE SOUTH AFRICAN INDIAN QUESTION
great onward movements of mankind, to demand of such settlers that they shall rise to their new conditions than to endeavour to maintain the status quo ante by their eutire exclusion,
We believe also that rnuoh of the ill-feeling is das to the wanfa of proper knowledge in South Africa about the Indians in India. Wa are, therefore, endeavouring to educate public opinion in South Africa by imparting the necessary information, Wifah regard to the legal disabilities we have tried to influence in our favour the public opinion both in England and here. As you know both the Conservatives and Liberals have supported us in England without) distinction, The London Times has given eight leading articles to our cause in a very sympathetic spirit. This alone has raised us a step higher in the estimation of tha Europeans in South Africa and has considerably affected for the better the tone of newspapers there. The British Committee of the Congress has been working for us for a very long time. Ever since he entered Parliament, Mr. Bhownaggrea has been pleading our cause in season and out of season. Says one of our best sympathisers in London :
The wrong is so serious that it has only to ba known in order 1 hope to be remedied, I feel it my duty on ail oooasioas and in nil suitable ways to insist that the Indian subjects of the Crown should enjoy the full status of British subject througout the whole British Empire aud in allied states. This is the position whioh you and our Indian friends in South Africa should firmly take up. In such a question compromise is impossible. For any compromise would relinquish the fundamental right of the Indian races to the complete status of British subjects a right whioh they have earned by their loyalty in peace and by their services in war, a right whioh was solemnly guaranteed to them by the Queen's Proclamation in 1857, and which has now been explicitly recognis- ed by Her Majeety's Government,"
Says the same gentleman in another letter : I have great hopes that justice will, in the end, be done. You
have a good cause You have only to take up your position
strongly in order to be successful. That position is that the British Indian subjects in South Africa are alike in our own Colonies and
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