y are intended to purify reason and illuminate
truth. I am not going to burn a spotless horse because the Vedas are
reported to have advised, tolerated, or sanctioned the sacrifice. For me
the Vedas are divine and unwritten. 'The letter killeth.' It is the
spirit that giveth the light. And the spirit of the Vedas is purity,
truth, innocence, chastity, humility, simplicity, forgiveness,
godliness, and all that makes a man or woman noble and brave. There is
neither nobility nor bravery in treating the great and uncomplaining
scavengers of the nation as worse than dogs to be despised and spat
upon. Would that God gave us the strength and the wisdom to become
voluntary scavengers of the nation as the 'suppressed' classes are
forced to be. There are Augean stables enough and to spare for us to
clean.

VII. TREATMENT OF INDIANS ABROAD

INDIANS ABROAD

The prejudice against Indian settlers outside India is showing itself in
a variety of ways: Under the impudent suggestion of sedition the Fiji
Government has deported Mr. Manilal Doctor who with his brave and
cultured wife has been rendering assistance to the poor indentured
Indians of Fiji in a variety of ways. The whole trouble has arisen over
the strike of the labourers in Fiji. Indentures have been canceled, but
the spirit of slavery is by no means dead. We do not know the genesis of
the strike; we do not know that the strikers have done no wrong. But we
do know what is behind when a charge of sedition is brought against the
strikers and their friends. The readers must remember that the
Government that has scented sedition in the recent upheaval in Fiji is
the Government that had the hardihood to libel Mr. Andrew's character.
What can be the meaning of sedition in connection with the Fiji strikers
and Mr. Manilal Doctor? Did they and he want to seize the reins of
Government? Did they want any power in that country? They struck for
elementary freedom. And it is a prostitution of terms to use the word
sedition in such connection. The strikers may have been overhasty. Mr.
Manilal Doctor may have misled them. If his advice bordered on the
criminal he should have been tried. The information in our possession
goes to show that he has been strictly constitutional. Our point,
however, is that it is an abuse of power for the Fiji Government to have
deported Mr. Manilal Doctor without a trial. It is wrong in principle to
deprive a person of his liberty on mere suspicion and