with widespread war; what desolating foreign foe,
what civil discords; what disputed succession;
what religious zeal; what fabled monster has
stalked abroad, and, with malice and mortal en-
mity to man, withered by the grasp of death every
growth of nature and humanity, all means of de-
light, and each original, simple principle of bare
existence?" the answer would have beien, "Not
one of those causes! No wars have ravaged these
lands and depopulated these villages! No desolat-
ing foreign foe! No domestic broils! No disputed
succession! No religious, superservic^able zeal! No
poisonous monster! No affliction of Providence,
which, while it scourged us, cut oif the sources
of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the
mere effusion of British amity! We sink under the
pressure of their support! We writhe under their
perfidious grip! They have embraced us with their
protecting arms, and lo! these are the fruits of
their alliance?"
AFTER A CENTURY AND HALF
Today, after a century and a half of British rule,
we are poor, underfed, illiterate, backward in all res-
pects where Government help was necessary,
thwarted in all matters where no such help was need-
ed. This is neither mere logic, nor rhetoric; it is the
testimony of facts mostly found by Britishers.
All this deterioration, all the humiliation and
wretchedness through which we have been dragged,
has been the result of British trusteeship. I write in
no spirit of bitterness. I believe in Indo-British friend-
ship as partners. I have never been happy when an
opportunity of cementing such a friendship has been