The Government struck a snag in its attempt to expel the Indians already in South Africa. A treaty stood in

the way.

South-African employers

who, like some of our employers, depended upon cheap alien labor opposed the move. And, of course, the Indian Government protested. Blocked in this attempt, white South Africa made it very unpleasant for its Indian residents by innumerable irritating discriminations, into which it is not necessary to go here.

Gandhi threw in his lot with that of his fellow-Indians. He won a fight against the Asiatic Exclusion Act by legal tactics. Then, in his fight for political and social recognition, his distinctive tactics of passive resistance were brought into play. This contest has been clearly described by Mr. John Haynes Holmes, who, quite naturally, is attracted to Gandhi because of his adherence to non-resistance. Holmes says:

Mr.

Acting as the leader and counsellor of his people, Gandhi founded a settlement in the open country, just outside the city of Durban. Here he gathered the Indians, placed them on the land for selfsupport, and bound them by the solemn vow of poverty. Here for years these organized thousands of resisters, suffering constant deprivation and frequent outrage, carried on their struggle against the government. It was in essence, I suppose, a strike- -a withdrawal of the Indians from labor in the towns and villages, and a paralysis, therefore, of the industrial and social life of the republic. It was such a strike as Moses declared in ancient Egypt, when he led the Israelites out of the land of Pharaoh into the vast reaches of the wilderness. But this strike, if it may so be called, was in one thing different from any previous strike in human history! Universally in move

ments of this kind, the resisters make it their business to take quick and sharp advantage of any difficulty into which their opponents may fall, and press their claim the harder for this advantage. Gandhi, however, took the opposite course. Whenever, in these years of struggle, the Government became embarrassed by unexpected troubles, Gandhi, instead of pushing the fight ruthlessly to victory, would call a truce and come to the succor of his enemy. In 1899, for instance, the Boer War broke out. Gandhi immediately called off his strike, and organized an Indian Red Cross unit, which served throughout the war, was twice mentioned in dispatches, and was publicly thanked for bravery under fire. In 1904, there came a visitation of the plague in Johannesburg. Instantly, the strike was "off," and Gandhi was busying himself in organizing a hospital in the pest-ridden city. In 1906, there was a native rebellion in Natal. Again the strike was suspended, while Gandhi raised and personally led a corps of stretcher-bearers, whose work was dangerous and painful. On this occasion he was publicly thanked by the Governor of Natal-and shortly afterwards, on the resumption of the resistant movement, thrown into a common jail in Johannesburg! . . . He was thrown into prison countless times, placed in solitary confinement, lashed hand and foot to the bars of his cage. He was again and again set upon by raging mobs, beaten into insensibility, and left for dead by the side of the road. When not outraged in this fashion, he was insulted in public, mortified and humiliated with the most exquisite pains. But nothing shook his courage, disturbed his equanimity, exhausted his patience, or poisoned his love and forgiveness of his foes. And at last, after twenty years of trial and suffering, he won the victory. In 1913, the Indian case was taken up by Lord Hardinge, an imperial commission reported in Gandhi's favor on nearly all

the points at issue, and an act was passed giving official recognition to his claims.

The same principles are now dictating Gandhi's policy in India. He returned to India in 1913. In his absence the revolutionary forces had been gathering. He became at once a leading figure in the movement against British rule. But, true to his policy, when the war began in 1914 Gandhi gave his support to England. He professes to have believed throughout the war that when the war was ended India would be given at least a workable home rule that would enable the people of India to work out their own destiny. In that faith, he says, he supported England during the war as far as he could consistently with his religious principles. He was disappointed with what he terms the "half-hearted reform bill" offered by England. And then his long avowed faith in the fairness and justice of England was finally shattered by the Amritsar massacre. For Gandhi that was the last straw. Straightway he began in earnest to work for a complete boycott of the English Government by the Indian people.

students from schools owned or aided by the British Government, a boycott of British courts and the setting up of private courts of arbitration, a refusal upon the part of all Indians to take office in the new assemblies provided by the recent act, a boycott of all British goods, the resignation of all Indians from government positions, and a refusal to pay taxes levied by the British Government. All this is to be carried out in a peaceful manner.

These measures are, as I understand, to be adopted progressively. That is to say, all of these items of the noncoöperation program are not urged at once, but the plan is to make the boycott progressively severe until independence is achieved. Gandhi sees the possibility of this movement getting out of his hands and becoming the usual violent revolution, but he contends that if violence comes, it will be caused by the repressive measures of England, not by him or his followers.

This apostle of a new kind of warfare is a frail, small man with sunken cheeks, extreme modesty of bearing, and a weak voice; but his appearance is the signal for the assembling of crowds that sometimes number fifty thousand. The disinherited millions of India look to him as to a messiah. The development of his movement will be one of the highly interesting points in world politics for many months to come. Will his influence be confined to what he calls "this religious battle" with the British Government, or will he emerge as the darkskinned messiah of that unified world of color which is disturbing the thought of the ardent defenders of white-world