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FOR INDIA

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Wrni . , iXTRriPTTrTinN BY
i'AUL RICHARD

TOKIO 191/

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in 2008 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/forindiawithintrOOpearuoft

W. W. PEARSON, M. A., B. Sc.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
PAUL RICHARD

D G n

Published By

THE ASIATIC ASSOCIATION OF JAPAN

11 Takagicho, Akasaka, Tokio

AUGUST 1917

PRICE SIX PENCE NET

" We are fighting for the rights of nations, great and
small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose
their own way of life and of obedience."
" We are fighting for the libert}^ the self-government
and the undictatcd development of all peoples, and every
feature of the settlement that concludes this war must
be conceived and executed for that purpose."

President Wilson, to the Provisional Govern-
ment of Russia.

" Russia has found that a free people are the best
defenders of their own honour."

Lloyd George, in the House of Commons.

" What about the historic injustices committed by your-
selves, and your violent oppression of Ireland, India,
Egypt, and the innumerable peoples inhabiting all the
continents of the world ? If you are so anxious for
justice that you are prepared in its name to send mil-
lions of people to the grave, then, gentlemen, begin
with yourselves."

From the Bulletin of the Council of Workmen's
and Soldiers' Delegates at Petrograd.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Mr. W. W. Pearson, the author of this booklet, was educated
at Cambridge where he took an Honours degree in the Natural
Sciences Tripos, after which he proceeded to Oxford and obtained
the degree of B. Sc. for a thesis on " The Teleological Aspect
of Evolution." In 1907 he went to India for the first time
and was for four years engaged in educational work in Calcutta.
When in London in 1912 he met Rabindranath Tagore and was
asked by him to take up work in his school at Shantiniketan.
Since commencing his work there he has been twice asked by
Indian leaders to visit parts of the British Empire where Indians
are living. In 19 13 Mr. C. F. Andrews was asked by the Hon.
Mr. Gokhalc to enquire into the conditions in South Afi'ica where
the treatment of the Indians had given rise to a grave situation.
Mr. Pearson accompanied him to South Africa, and again in
191 5 he went with Mr. Andrev/s to Fiji, and also visited
Australia, in response to a demand for the truth as to the
treatment of indentured Indian labourers in Fiji. A joint report
was published by them on their return to India, and tlie material
contained therein was used as additional argument for the repeated
demand for the abolition of the indentured system of Indian
labour all over the British Empire. Abolition was promised
early in 1916 by the late Viceroy Lord Hardinge.

During Sir. Rabindranath Tagore's tour in America Mr.
Pearson acted as his private Secretary and was able, while in
America, to meet with Canadian citizens who had studied the
disabilities under which the Indians in Canada labour.

Mr. Pearson has written a book on " Shantiniketan," the
school of Rabindranath, which was published recently by the
Macmillan Co. of New York.

The evidence contained herein, emanating^ as it docs from
a well-informed Englishman known for his unbiassed disposition,
is wortliy of serious consideration by :dl interested in Lidiin
problems, as it puts bsyond a shadow of doubt the true state of
India. Really it comes as an eye-opener to all of us. Achievement
of Home Rule for India, as advocated by the learned author and
all prominent leaders of Indian opinion, including friends of
India like Mrs. Besant (who is now under internment with
her co-workers for the advocacy of Home Rule in India), is in
our judgment the only feasible peaceful solution of the political
fate of the 315 millions of the once glorious land of Hindustan, to
which Japan is immensely indebted for her religion, culture and
philosophy.

Tokio, August yth, igiy.

The Publisher.

NTRODUCTION

''For India"

The day will come when all the peoples shall be free. But,

in the meantime, it happens that some which were free are now
enslaved, while others which were enslaved are becoming free.
— ■ India is amongst thfise.

For this war, while judging the peoples, settling old ac-
counts, and preparing new destinies, offers to the captives, if
they are worthy of it, an occasion for breaking their chains ;
their inner cliains more shameful, or their outer ones more
cruel. — The first to break them will be those upon whom they
weighed most heavily. Russia has started, India will follo.v.

India, the third of Asia, a sixth of humanity, subjected by
a nation how much less not only in numbers, but also in true
greatness, in antiquity, nobility and wisdom. ... India the panent,,
India tl-.c defenceless, who by her very gentleness has for a
hundred years heaped burning coals of celestial fire upon the
heads of her oppressors ; — • for she practices that terrible law
of the Go.spel, the law of non-resistance to evil, which leaves to
the implacable hands of th.e Lord of Justice the vengeance on
lier offenders. .. During a hundred years once only has her
patience known an instant of revolt. And tliat revolt was
drowned i.-i torrents of blood. And lo, those torrents of b'ood
are now turning back on those who shed them. ... The Lord of
Justice comes slowly but he comes always ; his .steps are without
IvTste, and without weariness. And none e\'er invoke him in
vain ; but tiiose who in\'oke hiin unworthily to serve their own
hypocritical interests, tremble with fear when he appears. — How
they quake with anger also when, in the midst of a people,
there surges forth undisguised the Liberty of which they called
themselves the heralds.

And yet, is it not natural tliat it should be in their camp,
under the banners of the Rights of which they claim to be the
defenders, that the first great acts of deliverance should be ac-
complished? And must not their war become, at last, what
tlicy proclaim it to be, a war of liberation, an abolitionist war,
putting an end this time to the trade not of the blacks of Ame-
rica, but of peoples of all colours. After the slavery of men it
is the slavery of peoples that must be abolished. For peoples
also are men. After the trade in the Colonies it is the trade of
the Colonies ; the very word colonies being nothing but a
pseudonym for the enslavage of peoples. ...

Colonisation is indeed the mortal sin of Europe. From
that sin has come its Gehenna, and only witli the end of that sin
will come the end of that Gehenna. Some have said that the
trials of this war have converted certain nations. We shall know
it when they have made the great sacrifice, tl-.e sacrifice of their
colonies. We shall know what their insular liberalism is worth
when India is liberated.

Indeed in this matter the conscience of Europe is at last
being aroused. It is already aroused in Russia. In the country
where state imperialism was the worst, they now understand
what is mote odious and more illegitimate still, colonial im-
perialism. From Russia risen, comes the word of resurrection
calling the peoples — those of the West and also of the East — to
emerge from the stony sepulchre of their servitude. And this
word is but an echo of the voice which rises everywhere filling
the heavens of the nations with its rolling thunder. It rises against
those who speak but do not act ; who say, " Equity " and commit
iniquity ; who say, " Liberation " and keep in subjection entire
races ; — " Democracy " and submit multitudes to the autocracy
of force, — " Rights of nationalities " and deny to the three
hundred million people who inhabit India the right to be a
nation, condemning as a crime the name itself of nationalism, of
" Swadeshism," the very love for tlie Hindu Motherland ! As
if the nationalism of a people oppressed were not more to be

respected than that of a people who oppress, and the patriotism
of the "native" of Judea more noble than that of a citizen of
Rome !

To-day it is to all the Romes of the world that an avenging
voice like that of Judea cries again : " Hypocritical nations,
cease to whiten the outsides of your sepulchres filled with rot-
tenness ! Now, whether willingly or no, it is the inside that
must be cleansed." A new day shines upon ancient falsehoods
which were hidden by the night and reveals the secret causes
of all the evils which corrode the peoples.

The root of all these evils has been, for Europe, that
she has thought herself providentially destined to the despotic
domination of the rest of the world. Nothing can cure her
unless she renounces her selfish and wicked dream. Otherwise
the world must deliver her by delivering itself first.

The war which is ruining and draining her to-day, — of
which none confess the true aims, — is a war of supremacy
for the possession of the routes to Asia, for the possession of
Asia, Nothing can disarm their rival ambitions so long as the
prey they covet remains for them a possible prey. — Peace will
come from Asia, when Asia will be free.

It is not then solely for the uplift of Asia and in the
interests of the world to come — for indeed the future of the
world is with Asia — but in the interests of Europe herself,
for her uplift also, that one must wish the end of her domina-
tion. The hour has come for her to collect herself, to withdraw
her forces, to loosen her deadly grip, for her own sake as well
as for others. The yoke of brass which she had forged for the
peoples is now bruising her own nock. The sword with which
she struck has turned back, dripping with blood, against herself.
The hour has come for her to die to the old life that she may
be born anew. Her deaths are the pledge and earnest of that
life to come. But this rebirth of Europe has for its condition
the restoration, the restitution of Asia.

Of Asia and first of India ! For without India there is no

Asia. No Asia, free, uitliout India free. For India is not
simply a part of Asia, .she is its living;- heart, the soul its^-lf.

Free she must be, and not in the way those who govern
her mean — when Governments speak of liberty there is a rattle
of cliains — but as she would be only when they cease to go-
vern her, th.'.t is as free as she is now enslaved.

Of this kind of liberty it is forbidden to speak in India —
the word itiself is seditious. The national hope has the rij:^ht to
express itself only when masquerading under an English euphe-
mism, " Home Rule," invented to solve another problem of
England's oppression, that of Ireland.

" Home Rule " is a practical formula which has the effect
of forthwith changing into interior conflict the hosLility against
England. If this device had been discovered a century earlier
America would still be a colony. It is the formula to which,
in extreme peril, England Vv^ould resort in the ca.se of liidia.
She would prefer, rather than lose her altogether, to n^.ake of
her a new " Dominion." The liberty which she would grant
under that title would be that enjoyed by a people under
guardianship — that which children have not to go outside the
garden. Interior liberty, but prohibition to have any independent
relationship with the exterior, at least as far as it concerns the
most vital matters — ti"ie right of peace and war being reserved
to the English Imperator, just as formerly the right of life and
death was reserved to the head of the Rom.an family.

It is this regime of Colonial Protectorate, devised for white
people — for the Dominions are after :Al but Colonies of whites
— which would be conceded to Lidia by the liberalism and
generosity of her masters.

If whites are willing to accept sucii kind of liberty it is
their own affair. Many accept it only for want of a better,
because they cannot do otherwi.se. The Boer Republicans of
South Africa, and the French of Canada, have made the most
praiseworthy efforts to hand it back to those who presented it to
them. But one thing is certain, that India v.iil never accept for

herself such a makeshift. Never will she hold out her han.ls
to receive in place of her shackles such a token of alliance.

India is a noble nation. Her future place is not in an
English Empire — will indeed a place remain in the future for
such Empire? — • f ler place is in a free federation of Asia. For it
is to create this that now works the Lord of the Nations, the
Master of their Destinies.

When will these events come ? Undoubtedly as catne those
which preceded them; before we have ceased to regard them as
impossible. For to-day all is possible : facts outrun thoughts. In
a year is accomplished the progress of a century. It is no
longer the Past but the Future which creates the Present. And
after the long reign of commonplace forecast, it is licnceforth
the unexpected which realises itself. The unexpected which is
awaited by those who, like the author of this little book, do not
allow national self-interest to blind their vision or racial egoism
to lead their hearts astray.

The following pages are intended to explain events which
are near-at-hand so that they may be understood when they
occur.

They are written in communion with the thought of those
who, watching in tlie night, herald the Dawn, the glorious
Dawn for Asia ; and with the effort of him who, in India,
unknown but of full stature, manifests in himself that Dawn.

Okakitra Villa,
Akakura, Japan. Paul Richard.

J2ily 2^th, 1917.

CONTENTS.

Publisher's Note

Introduction by Paul Richard
I. Home Rule for India
11. Is India Ready? ...

III. Is India United? ...

IV. The Poverty of India
V. India's Humiliation . .

VI. Indians in the British Empire
Vn. The Imminence of Home Rule

VIII. Japan and India

Appendix; Education in India

iii
I

5
II

30
38
45
51

FOR INDIA.

HOME RULE FOR INDIA.

The ideals which the Allies emphatically assert, from pulpit
and platform, they are fighting for are the freedom of small
nations and the liberation of oppressed nationalities. This natu-
rally must be understood as implying not merely but even the
small nations. For an Englishman therefore to apply these
principles to India is merely to carry the spoken words of
England's leaders to their logical conclusion, for if the freedom
of small nations is desirable then surely that of large ones is
more so. Wlien Mr. Lloyd George in his recent speech of en-
thusiastic admiration at the success of the Revolution in Russia
said " a free people are the best defenders of their own honour "
he must have been either insincere or inconsistent if he should
refuse to apply those words to India.

I know that it will be argued by those who have an in-
terest in keeping India a subject nation that she is not yet ready
to govern herself But as this argument almost invariably comes
from those who happen, by the blessing of Providence, to be
receiving tangible benefits from her dependence, it is a little dif-
ficult to be quite sure of the disinterestedness of their judgement.
Just as one knows of doctors who prolong the period of con-
valescence of a wealthy patient not solely in the interests of the
patient's health.

Then again there are certain Indians who assent to this
argument, but it will be found that they also happen in most

cases to De receiving from the established form of Government
some tangible benefits such as salaries, posts and titles. So
with them too it is difficult to be sure of the disinterested char-
acter of their judgement.

On the other hand it often liappens that when an Indian
argues in favour of independence the reply is made that he is
not""entirely free from the warping effects of self-interest. Though
this miy BF true, It should be remembered in his justification
that the self-interest is of a broader type than that of the man
who is obtaining some visible benefits from a continuance of
the present system. In the one cass the argument receives a
bias from the narrow self-interest of the man's personal needs,
while in the other it is biassed by love of his country which is
generally regarded as a noble and disinterested quality.

But happily there are Englishmen, and their number in-
creases as the true facts about India become more widely known,
who not being diplomats and not therefore fearing truth, believe
in the practical application of the principles of justice and free-
dom which are regarded as the peculiar t;lory of tlie British
race. They speak in the interests of Truth and in urging the
granting of Home Rule to India they speak in the best interests
of England herself. To appreciate what are the best interests
of England it suffices to remember what a cause of weakness to
the British Empire the present discontent in Ireland is recognised
to be by all responsible statesmen. But if the case of Ireland,
which interests only herself and her self-chosen friends, is looked
upon as a cloud on the political horizon, then the case of India,
which interests the whole of Asia and is therefore a world
question, is surely an even greater menace. Now that the fore-
most English statesman has, in unmistakable terms, urged a
settlement of the Irish question, there is every reason to urge a
similar settlement of the Indian question. If, as Mr. Lloyd
George says, " a well-knit Empire is essential to the peace of
the world " then certainly tlie problem of India is a far more
important one than that of Ireland, for it is Asia and not

Europe that will decide the question of the future peace of the
"world.

That India is far away from England is all the more reason
•why she should be self-governing. That her people are coloured
makes her claim for independence infinitely stronger, for no one,
except an ignorant and stupid bureaucrat, can suppose that the
Anglo-Saxon race is better able to understand the temperament
of the Indian people than the Indian people themselves.

After saying that a settlement with Ireland was one of the
essentials of a speedy victory, Mr. Lloyd George said that
" India is entitled to ask that her loyal myriads should feel not
as if they were a subject race in the Empire but a partner-
Mation.** This is what India has been asking year after year for
more than a quarter of a century but she has been put off again
and again. Ireland it seems has forced the justice of her claim
to govern herself rather by her disloyalty than by her loyalty,
and only now that her discontent has become a menace to the
Empire are her claims being granted. England will make a
iatal mistake if she waits till India has followed Ireland's ex-
air.ple which has proved so much more effective than India's
patience.

Mr. Lloyd George evidently assumes that India has been
made to feel that she is a subject race. This is entirely true.
In spite of repeated assurances from British statesmen, and even
from British sovereigns, that Indians will in every way receive
equal treatment with other British citizens irrespective of creed
and colour, the people of India, patient to a marvellous degree,
have increasingly been made to feel by the Executive which
jgoverns over her, and by the free Colonies of the Empire of
which she is regarded as a part, that she is looked down upon
as a subject race. Instead of this feeling being allayed by the
showy promises of reform, which are not carried out in reality,
it has become more and more acute as the evidence accumulaics
that the bureaucracy is determined to k-ccp in its hands all the
power it can, and together with the Colonies persists in branding

the people of India with a purely imaginary inferiority.

It is for this reason that since the beginning of the War
tlie demand for Home Rule has become more and more openly
expressed. The Government has attempted to suppress this
movement in many cases, on the ground that it is controversial
and dangerous to the safety of the country, but in vain. When
Mrs. Eesant, an ^ Irish woman of 70 years of age, spoke in
open terms of applying to India the very principles which form
the refrain of the speeches of British statesmen in their appeals
to the British people, she was forbidden to enter the Bombay
Presidency. The immediate result however of this action was
to start an agitation in favour of Home Rule so strong in every
part of India that it was impossible to suppress it by any Go-
vernment measure. *

Since then, though in Bengal alone nearly a thousand young
men have been imprisoned without trial, the claim that the
liberation of India is as justifiable as the claim for the liberation
of Ireland or Poland has become more and more insistent.

It is not that the people of India are unconscious of the
benefits they have gained under British Rule, or that they re-
gard the Government as inefficient. Inefficiency is the last fault
with which any one acquainted with India would think of ac-
cusing the British administration. But having been educated in
the ideas of liberty the leaders of the people have become rest-
less as the burden of unfulfilled promises accumulates. The
deepest causes of the discontent depend as they do in Ireland,
on a difference of temperament, on a lack of sympathy which
shows itself positively in open and arrogant dislike, and on an
almost complete incapacity on the part of the English to under-
stand or respect the people. This has led to an attitude of
arrogant contempt consistently supposed by the majority of
British in India to be the best way in which they can uphold
the prestige of their own country. As a matter of fact however
every act of arrogance on the part of Englishmen is an act of
disloyalty, for it is such acts more even than the unfulfilment of
* On June i6th the Government of Midras interned Mrs. Besant.

pledges which have undermined the influence of the British Raj
in India.

I intend in the following articles to discuss the present
situation in India and to say from my own personal experience,
gained not only from a residence of seven years in India itself
but also from visits to those parts of the British Empire where
Indians are living, what I believe to be the clear indications
why Home Rule should be granted to India. By Home I^ule
I do not mean insincere promises which postpone the granting
of any real autonomy to some distajit future, but an immediate
practical demonstration of the principles for which England is
figfhtinCT,

II.

IS INDIA READY?

Those who are opposed to the granting of Home Rule to
India bring forward certain stock arguments which they find
convince that large public outside India whose ignorance is only
exceeded by their race prejudice. For it is that prejudice which
constitutes the hidden principle of all the objections though it is
seldom honestly expressed.

To this prejudice one exception only has been made in
favour of Japan. And why ? Because fitness to be regarded as
on an equality with the European nations depends solely on the
ability to use force in an argument. Japan was never respected
as a nation until she had defeated one of the European nations
with their own weapons.

But even from this point of view is it so certain that India
is unable to be one of those nations which manifest their super-
iority by material force? One would hardly think so judging
by the care with which England has deprived her people of
the right to cany arms, so that in Bengal the inhabitants arc
not allowed by the police to carry even bamboo sticks of more

than a certain length. The British, after having been careful to
disarm them, find no danger in taunting the Bengalis with the
imputation of cowardice, a taunt which however may be turned
more justly against those who use it, for in a duel that adver-
sary is the coward who takes advantage of the fact that his
opponent is unarmed.

However in leaving the question of race prejudice it is suf-
ficient to point out that India^and other coloured races , governed
themselves long before England even existed as a nation, and
there is nothing to show that India is incapable of doing so
now.

What however is the really serious objection raised by those
who oppose Home Rule for India ?

Sir Archy Birkmire, speaking early in this year in Calcutta as
President of the European Association of India, made a strong
protest against the demand for Home Rule. He answered his
own question " Are the Indians ready for anything like Home
Rule now ?" by an emphatic " No," for he said " If the Indians
were ready for Home Rule no power on earth could stop it."

"The Indians are not yet ready for Home Rule " is what
all such critics say, and it is necessary to ask what they mean
by " ready." They do not care to go into details or explain
what they mean, but doubtless base their assumption on the
well-known adage " Possession is nine-tenths of the law."

What criterion indicates whether a country is ready to
govern herself or not? In every country the one indispensable
condition of self-government is the possession of an intellectual
elite from which a governing class can be drawn.

Is it true that India does not possess an intellectual elite
from which she cm draw men of ability for self-government ?

Emphatically "No." India has at present an intellectual
elite equil to that of any other country in the world.

In Religion there has never been any question of the
power which India possesses to produce leaders and teachers.
Rajah Ram Mohan Roy, Maharshi Dcbendranath Tagore, and

that * Ocean of Learning ' Bidyashagar ,\vere all men of excep-
tional ability in the power of leadership in Social and Religious
Reform in the nineteenth century. No country has produced
finer examples, but they were only links of an unbroken chain
which extends through the centuries. At the present time also
there is living in India a deep philosopher and spiritual teacher,
Sri Aurabinda Ghosh, who is more and more coming to be
regarded as one of the greatest religious and social teachers of
the Future.

In the realm of abstract thought India has always been
acknowledged as the leader of the world, and it is not therefore
surprising to find that she possesses in the present as she has
done in the past great poets, philosophers and thinkers. The
family of Tagore alone has produced quite a number of distinguished
men. There was the Maharshi in the last century, and there
are still living the great poet Rabindranath, the philosopher and
mathematician Dwijendranath, the musician Jyotindranath, and
the two artists Abanindranath and Gaganendranath. These
represent a Renaissance Movement in the Literature and Art of
Bengal which has its wider expression in the writings of the
younger poets and authors of Bengal and in the paintings of the
Calcutta School of Art. In other provinces too there is an ever
increasing number of writers of ability not only in literature but
also on History, Archaeology, Economics and Political Science.
The fact that many of these writers are at present unknown is
only due to the fact that their writings have not been published
in English.

But not only has India got great thinkers, philosophers
and poets, but she has what all modern nations possess, scien-
tists, teachers, doctors, journalists, practical and industrial leaders
like Sir Ratan Tata and Sir R. N. Mukerji, and even statesmen.

Amongst scientists the names of Dr P. C. Ray the chemist,
Dr. J. C, Bose the Botanist who discovered wireless telegraphy
before Marconi and has demonstrated by apparatus invented by
himself the sensitiveness of plants, have world-wide fame, but

there are many others in other Provinces whose names
are not so well known but who, nevertheless represent a scientific
spirit which is carrying on earnest research in spite of the
paucity of opportunity which the policy of the"^ Government has
resulted in. If the same opportunities had \iccn given to the
people of India as have been given by the Japanese Government
to her people there cannot be a doubt that the amount of their
contnbutions to the world of Science would have been immeas-
urably greater.

In journalism we have numerous daily papers, both in the
vernaculars and in English, which are quite able to compete
with journals carried on by English editors in India. Then there
are weekly and monthly publications which have a wide
circulation. Mr. Ramananda Chatterji, editor of " The Modern
Review" and a Bengali monthly "Prabashi" published in Cal-
cutta, Mr. Natesan who publishes " The Indian Review " in
Madras, and Mr. Natarajaa the editor of " The Indian Social
Reformer " in Bombay are all men whom I know personally, and
for ability and high moral ideals they are certainly equal to the
highest type of journalists in America and England. They not
only possess a wide knowledge of the world but also conduct
their magazines with self-sacrifice and high moral purpose.

In England a great number of our politicians have been
drawn from the ranks of the Legal Profession, so that we
have been known to place lawyers in charge of such varied
departments of our administraion as our Finance, our
Education, our Foreign Affairs, and the organisation of the
administrative side of our Army and Navy. Now whatever
criticisms have been levelled against Indians by even the most
bigotted of Anglo-Saxon critics there has always been a recog-
nition of the ability of her lawyers. In fact it is often said
with scorn that Bengalis are fit to be lawyers and nothing else,
while in England and other European countries the Legal pro-
fession has invariably been regarded as the most appropriate pre-
lude to the work of a statesman. Lawyers of the eminence of

_ 8 —

the kte Justice Ranade in the Bombay Presidency, Sir All
Imam who was Legal Member of the Viceroy's Council and
would have been Chief Justice of the new Province of Behar
had it not been for the united opposition of the whole body 'of
English civilians in that Irovince, Sir Ashutosh Mukerji late
Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University, are typical examples
of able judges and lawyers to be found in every Province of
India. They are sufficient proof that at any rate in the profes-
sion of Law India is fully able to hold her own.

In Education also, in spite of the fact that the best posts
are almost invariably reserved, not only in Government but also
in Missionary Institutions, for the foreigners, India has pro-
duced numbers of efficient teachers who are noted not only for
their scholarship but also for their influence over their students.
Aswini Kumar Dutt of Barisal, Dr. B. N. Seal, and Dr. P. C.
Ray in Bengal, Mahatma Munshi Ram of the Arya Somaj
Gurukula in the Punjab, Principal RudraofSt. Stephen's College
in Delhi, Professor Bhagavan Das in Benares, and the Principal
of the Rajah of Pittapuram's College in the Madras Presidency
are only a few of a large army of teachers whose influence over
the coming generation cannot be overestimated. And can it be
argued that foreign teachers who do not know the language of
the students and have had little experience of the country in
which they are working are more efficient educationalists than
such men?

Even Ml politics India has produced men of great eminence
and noble character. Men too who have given their lives to
work for their country with no expectation of material reward.
Those who knew the late Mr. Gokhale would admit that had he
been born in England he would have filled the position of Premier
with as much ability and high moral purpose as a Gladstone or
an Asquith. His mastery of figures and skill in debate won
the admiration of Lord Curzon who was his most distinguished
opponent. But with these qualities he combined in a remarkable
degree a moral fervour and a winning personality which enabled

him to lead every section of the Indian public. In his demands
for a universal system of Elementary Education, and in his
protests against the injustice of the treatment of Indians i[n
South Africa, he truly represented the whole people. And yet
his fine gifts wore themselves /yyOut in the apparently hopeless
task of standing almost alone against a secretly hostile bureau-
cracy of foreigners. When in the last two years of his life he had
to serve on the Public Services Commission, which was ostensibly
appointed to redress the outstanding grievance of the unfair
discrimination against Indians in the Public Services, he found
himself arrayed against a solid phalanx of anti-Indian Commissi-
oners who went through the solemn farce of listening to evidence
for two years and finally arrived at a decision which added
insult to injury. In addition to this wearing task he took up
the cause of the Indians in South Africa and worked night and
day in his efforts to liberate his fellow-countrymen in other
parts of the British Empire from the degradation of their pos-
ition. It was during his last year that I knew him and there
is not the least doubt that his early death was due to the
strenuous and constant fight which he was forced to take up
almost single-handed against a hostile bureaucracy. Had he
been able to carry on his work in a self-governing countiy he
would undoubtedly have been able to serve his people for
another decade.

Another example of an Indian who has proved a supreme
ability of leadership is Mr. Gandhi, who for twenty years lived
in South Africa and, giving up a lucrative legal practice, devoted
himself with constant self-sacrifice to the welfare of the Indian
community. He welded the whole Indian community, Hindu
and Mahomedan alike, into one, and eventually won the respect
and esteem of the very Government which was treating all
Indians with such contempt. In a self-governing country his
ability and devotion would have won instant recognition and
instead of having to devote most of his energy to fighting a

hostile Government he could have used his gifty for constructive
policy.

Finally how can it be argued that the Indians are lacking
in administrative ability when we find that the actual British
Administration is full of Indians of all ranks to such an extent
that if to-morrow the representatives of England were to leave
India the machirery of administration would continue with very
little change of outward form. The chief difference would be
that, being no longer foreign, the ruling power instead of having
as its primary object the enrichment of England and her Colonies
v,'ould strive to prevent the ruin of India. For the demand for
Hoine Rule is based upon the belief that the present policy is
actually leading to that ruin. Even if the contrar)'- of what I
have stated were true and India were not able to govern herself
efficiently, even the worst government she could give herself
could not lead her to greater ruin than that with which she is
threatened to-day.

But how can one any longer pretend that she is not able
and ready to govern herself when she possesses such an elite
which places her on a moral equality with the freeest and most
respected countries of the world ?

III.
IS INDIA UNITED?

A second objection to Home Rule for India is that she is
not united and is therefore unfit for self-government.

But in what sense is the word ' unity ' used by those who
make this objection? They argue that India is historically and
actually divided into several peoples wlio have religious, social
and linguistic differences.

In the first place it seems unlikely that a country so obvi-
ously a unit>' geographically should be incapable of interior
unity. For as Mr, Chisholm, a well-known authority on Geogra-

phy, says : " There is no p:irt of the world better marked out
by Nature as a region by itself than India." Again, Mr. Vincent
Smith, a reoognised authority on early Indian History, writes :
" India, encircled as she is by seas and mountains, is indisput-
ably a geographical unit, and as such is designated by one name-'*
-•Secondly it seems unlikely, if we consider the past history
of India, that she should be so entirely incapable of unity in
the present and future. When Lord Curzon spoke at the Delhi
Durbar of 1901 he said of India :

"Powerful Empires existed and flourished here while Eng-
lishmen were still wandering painted in the woods, and while
the British ColcMiies were a wilderness and jungle. India has left
a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion
of mankind, than any other terrestrial unit in the universe."

In the past indeed she has proved her ability to be regarded
as a political unity. Before the Christian era Asoka the Great
ruled over an Empire which Vincent Smith has declared to be
" far more extensive than British India of to-day, including
Burma." From his reign onwards for several centuries India
was (to quote from Radha K. Mukerji's recent book on " The
Fundamental Unity of India") "a. vast imperial organisation,
highly centralised, coherent in all its parts, full of the geogra-
phical consciousness, uttering itself in similar architectural forms
in the east and west of India, passionately eager to unify and
elevate the people and to adorn the land. India became a self-
contained, self-conscious unit, in full communication both by land
and sea with China and Japan, Syria and Egypt, sending abroad
ambassadors, merchants and missionaries with messages, com-
modities and ideas."

Students of Indian History need only to be reminded of
the names of such rulers as Harsavardhana (606 to 648 A. D.),
Samudra /jupta (fourth century) whose kingdom was visited by
the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien, and Chandra Gupta of whose
kingdom an account has been left by Megasthenes, to realise
that India was not lacking in unity in ancient times. And

though Akbar the Great did not rule over such extensive king-
doms he proved the possibility of welding together in a common
political unity both Hindus and Maliomedans, by his broad
policy of tolerance and justice.

As a study of the past history of India proves that she has
bee;i able more than once to achieve a political unity in the
past, so a knowledge of tlie current conditions in India proves
that her people are able to combine in the strongest possible
manner on political questions which involve the honour of the
whole nation, and this in spite of all differences of language and
even of religion.

When about four years ago the question of the treatment
of Indians in South Africa became acute, and the Passive Resis-
tance Movement in that Colony resulted in the Indian leaders
being arrested, and thousands of Indians being imprisoned, ter-
rorised, and in some cases shot, I visited centres in India so far
apart as Bombay, Delhi, Allahabad, Calcutta and Madias, and
everywhere from one end of the country to the other the peopio,
Mahomedans and Hindus alike, were united in their indignant
prot s's against this humiliating helotage of Indians in the Em-
pire. The fact that the Viceroy himself felt compelled, in
a public speech, to express his strong disapproval of the action
of the Government of South Africa in their treatment of the
Indians suffices to show how justified the people of India were
in their protest. In every town mass meetings were held, and
money was poured out by both men and women to assist the
Indians in South Africa in their fight for human freedom.

Together with Mr. C. F. Andrews, who went at the request
of Mr. Gokhale, I left India for South Africa. There we found that
the Government of South Africa, aUrmed at the serious result of
their action had released the leaders (including two European
sympathisers who had also b-:en imprisoned) and had appointed
a Commission on which however there was not a single repre-
sentative of the Indian Community, to enquire into the grievances
of the Indians. The whole community of Indians which con-

si.sted of more than a hundred thGi:?and of the coolie class, L;nd
many hundreds of traders and Colonial-born English speaking
Indians were united as one man under the leadership of Mr.
Gmdhi. Parsees, Mahomedans and Hindus alike proved the
sincerity of their corivictions by sharin;^ with each other the
hardships of prison life, hardships which can with difficulty be
understood except by one who has visited the prisons in South
Africa, and seen the attitude of the prison officials towards all
coloured people, and even towards tlieir white friends !

These two examples I give because tliey are conspic'>.;ous
proofs of the ability of Hindus and Mahomedans of every Pro-
vince to unite in the cause of their common Motherland, and
because I happened to be in close personal touch with tlie
leaders both in India and in South Africa. But other examples
are not lacking in proof of the unity of all classes of the people
of India. The question of the abolition of the Indenture System
of Indian Labour in the British Colonies, which system v/as a
cor.stant reproach to the self-respect of the Indian people, in-
terested the Marvvaris in Calcutta, the Parsees in Bombay^ and
the people of every Province in India. On man}^ other ques-
tions such as Home Rule, the attitude of Canada towards In-
dians, and the question of the position of Indians in the Public
Services, the people of India have been unquestionably united.
It is only necessary to read the daily press, both vernacular and
English, in eveiy Province, to s:e that the people are united in
their interest in those questions which involve the good name
and self-respect of India as a whole. Nothing indeed is more
remarkable to one coming from Europe • where the sense of
nationality is so narrow in its application, than to find, in spite
of vast differences in race and language, a common sense of the
uni:y of India, a sentiment which has been strengthened by the
very attempts of the British to emphasise divisions.

To what then is this strong sense of unity due? That the
British occupation has helped by tlie inroduction of English as
erii'jiiKi.OM }{iediUm_,iQfIcQrmr.iniicnr2n^^ the"educated com-

•munities of the differt;:!': provn.-ces cannot_ for_a i-noment__b&
"cloubtcd, and tirfe'Ts one of the beneficial results of the British
nile. _ But there is every reason to suppose that this sense of
the unity of India is an inheritance of the past which lias merely
received its expression in modern form through the medium of
the English langua-;e. If we study the history of ancient India
and understand the significance of her numerous places of pilgri-
mage we shall realise how it was that, even when in India there
was every appearance of chaos and disorder, the sense of her
essential unity was preserved. In every part of India there have
been for more than twenty five centuries holy places which have
been the object of veneration to pilgrims from every pai't of that
vast continent. Long before railways were even dreamt of the
whole of India was united by a network of roads leading from
one holy place to anotlier, and throughout the ceiit'jries the
stream of pilgrims has never ceased. From North to South,
and from East to West they have travelled bearing news from
one part of the country to another, so that even when India
was outwardly divided into warring kingdoms her peoples were
united by the strong ties of a commoi faith and a common
veneration for her holy places. This inner unity, because it is
deeper and more lasting than any outer political unity could have
been, has created an atmosphere in v*'hich i\Iahomcdans as well
as Hindus have conie to possess a living sense of their oneiiess.
If then even differences of religion as great as those which
exist between Hindus and Mahomedans can be forgotten In a
common love for the Motherland, minor differences can surely
be overcome. It is true that each province has its o.vn peculiar
problems and its own language and sense of nationality, but
nothing has so far pioved that the people of the various pro-
vinces are unable to unite In the expression of their views, and
when the question Is one which Involves Indians as a whole there
has been complete unity of expression. That the provinces must
retain their provincial characteristics and problems Is certain, but
there Is no inherent reason against the different provinces forming

a United States of India in wiiich the individual states will sub-
ordinate themselves to the wcll-bcia^ of the whole. In fact
India has already proved in a remarkable manner her ability to
subordinate local questions to lhose which affect the w'nole
country, and if she has done so under foreign rule is there any
reason for supposing that she will be unable to do so when she
governs herself?

In India, as in all countries, differences are not^onLy not an

obstacle to TjnitJ' l3ut7on the contrary form__aji__ijidispensable
condition of the truest unity which is not merey superficial and
exterior. For unity is not uniformity,

And after all what is the meaning of this objection ? Why
is England so anxious to achieve the unity of India bcfoie
granting her self-government ? India consists of 300 million in-
habitants, and if, left to her own free devices she were to
develop into a number of separate states of 50 or lOO million
inhabitants each, it might well be argued that a divided India
would be, according to the modern conception of nationalisni
based on mutual menace^ Ie?s of a danger to Europe than an
India united against the rest of the world. But I do not believe
India will ever use her freedom as the European nations have
used theirs, naTiCly to exploit weak nations and when the field
of exploitation becomes too narrow for their combined appetites
turi on each other and waste their spoils in reciprocal destruc-
tion. India h?.s, fortunately for Humanity, higher ideals, and
will help to usher in that new era of human brotherhood which
we in the West have so conspicuously failed to establish. There-
fore by grant'ng Home Rule to India not only ai-e the claims
of justice satisfied but the possibility is given her to use her
ow:i freedom for the benefit of humanity.

IV.

THE POYSRTY OF INDIA.
Lord Carmichael, the recent Governor of Bengal, said in

-his fiirewell address be'bre the Bengal Legislative Council that
India is " the most valued dependency of the British Empire,
and one on which other Empires look with longing ej^es," Why ?

What was it v/b.ich attracted England and other European
nations to the shores of India when they first went there ? It
was i:ot philanthropy or a desire to benefit the people of that
x:ountry, but tlie wealth which, in spite of the fact that India
was then in a state of disorder and confusion, was proverbial
when the British first went there. No one has ever disputed
this fact, but the mis'ake has happened that people have con-
tinued to think that a country can remain rich after being
governed for nearly a centuiy by a foreign power whose inter-
ests are mainly commercial and vvhose adminiytrcUloi}j_jiat--being
inSigenous to the soil, is very much more costly than it would
be if carried on by the people of the country itself

In spite of the fact that in times wliich the present British
rulers are never tired of pointing out were times of chaos and
confusion India was so rich as to attract most of the nations of
Europe who were seeking for new sources of trade and wealth,
•there is incontestable evidence that she is now poor. And this
in spite of the efficiency of British rule and although India has
enjoyed the 'Pax Britannica ' during the whole period of that
rule. There is a mass of evidence in proof of this fact and
those who wish to study the question in detail should read the
books written by W. Digby, Hyndman, Romesh Dutt, and
Dadabhai Naoroji. The official statistics given in the Indian
Year Book may also be consulted.

The people of India are mostly of the peasant class and
the following facts should be sufficient to show that, even though
India has thousands of miles of railways which pay handsome
dividends to British shareholders, and Calcutta is called the
" City of Palaces " (mostly however the palaces of the British
merchants and officials) yet tlie peasants of the country are
poorer than ever before.

The cost of living in India has been steadily rising during

the last forty years but the income of the people has been as
stcadily decreaslnc^. In 1S50 the estimated income per head of
the population of India was 2d a d^y: in i832 it was i^-d a
day, while in 1903 it was |d a diy ! How ironical seem the
words' of Queen Victoria's Proclamation, " In their prosperity
shall be our strength."

From the report recently published by a civ^ilian in Bengal,
on the Economic Life of the agricultural district of Faridpur, it
appears that m.ore than half the inliabitants of that district are
unable to obtain the minimum necessities for the maintainance
of merely phj'sical efficiency.

Famines are an indication of the economic condition of a
country, for the mere failure of the rains and consequent failure
of crops could not bring famine to a prosperous peasantry when
there is a widespread network of railways ready to bring grain
from other provinces or from abroad. The British Crown took
over the government of India in 1858. We find from an exam-
ination of the statistics of deaths from famine (see W. S.
Lilly's " India and its Problems.") that in the first 8a years of
tlie nineteenth century the number of deaths from fanzine was
18,000,000. This do;s not take account of the hrge number
who die of disease after being weakened b}'' prolonged star-
vation.

If the nineteenth century is divided into four parts we fi:id
tliat the figures are as follows.

In the first quarter there were five famines. Estimated
loss of life : i,oco,ooo.

In the second quarter there were two famines. Estimated
loss of Hfe 500,000.

In the third quarter there were six famines. Estimated
loss of life 5,COO,ooo.

In the last quarter there were eighteen famines. Estimated
loss of life I5,00D,000 to 26,000,000.

Since 1900 there has been a loss of life owing to famines
of 20,000,000.

The Honorable G. K. Gokhale said that " From 60,000,000
to 70,000,000 of the psople of India do not know what it is
to have their hunger satisfied even once in a year." Sir Charles
Elliott, wlio was an officer in charge of the assessment of land
taxes and was afterwards a Lieutenant-Governor, said :

" I do not hesitate to say that half our agricultural population
never knows from year's end to year's end what it is to have
their hunger fully satisfied." That is to say one hundred nullion
people are always hungry, and yet it is from these half-starved
peasants that the Government takes a third oj^its hard-earned
livelihood to support an expensive administration. For it is
tlie^ unduly heavy taxition of the people \vhich. is the,, root
cau^._Df- -lite— £u3aiaes — m India. It is often stated, and e\'en so
lately as last year by a responsible British official in India,
tliat " India is the most lightly taxed country in the world."
Bi.'.t if this is so wh\- is the Government fiading it increasingly
difncuU to discover new means of taxation ? The fact is that
tile Indian peasant is the most heavily taxed peasant in the
world, but his income being so light it appears that the am^ount
of his taxation is light also, if however we are honest and com-
pare ti^e taxes extracted from the poverty of the Indian peasant
with the taxes paid b}' the comparatively wealthy people of
England we find that India pays out of her poverty three times
the percentage which E;igland p:i.ys out of her wealth. Accord-
ing to tiie statistics published in 1905 the annual tax per
person in India am.ounted to a third of the total income !
Unfortunately owing to the expenses of the present v\ar there is
little likelihood of these burdens being lightened. The Finance
Member in his Budget speech delivered at Delhi on Mirch the
first of tliis year made the generous announcement that the
Government refrained " on the present occasion from imposing
additional Government taxation on agricultural incomes " but
added " we can give no pledge that we shall refrain from doing
so hereafter should future necessities oblige us to take this
course." Lord Ronaldshay also, as the new Governor of Bengal,

ill his speech before the Bengal Legislative Council early in the
present year, hinted at the possibilty of further taxation and
sug"gested to the non-official Indian members of the Council that
they mi^ht usefully employ their vacation, while the official British
members were enjoying the cool air of Darjeeling, in going
round their constituencies educating the people with a view to
the possibility of further taxation.

The Salt Tax alone, which is felt most severely by the
poorest classes in the land, yielded to the Government in 19T3-
1914 more than £ 3,000,000. The result of this tax has been
that the quantity of salt consumed by the peasants of India has
been reduced to one-half the quantity declared by medical
authorities to be absolutely necessary for health. Yet this tax
was increased last year, and Sir W. Meyer, in his budget speech
Tor 1917-18 described such increase as "a legitimate measure
when war or other financial dislocations, come upon us," an
argument which might be usjd by a thief to defend his thefts
as legitmate owing to financial dislocations, the question of the
poverty of his victims being quite secondary or even unimpor-
tant.

It is not difficult to discover where the resources which India
possessed once in such abundance disappear. John Bright once
said, " If a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and
capable of bearing every variety of production, and, notwith-
standing, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and
suffering, the chances are there is some fundamental error
in the government of that country." In the case of India
however it is not an error but a voluntary policy. The Govern-
ment of India has voluntarily adopted its present policy in its
own interests and in favour of British capitalists. For indeed
it is not difficult to find in what direction India's wealth has
leaked away. Near a newly dug grave there is always a pile,
and even if the Indian peasant is ruined the Government has
the satisfaction of knowing that British capitalists are not. For
example, at the beginning of t!ie present war famine conditions

were artificially created in the jutc-giowing districts of Eastern
Bengal by the spreading of the report that jute would not be
wanted for export. The reports were spread just before the
time for cutting the crops with the result that jute merchants
were able to buy any amount of jute at less than' the actual
cost of planting and cutting it. Whole districts were practically
ruined, money was lacking even in middle-class homes and
could only be borrowed at prohibitive rates of interest. Con-
ditions similar to those prevalent in fliminc times were common
over wide areas, but two years later the jute mills of Calcutta
were able to declare dividends of from 30 to 50 per cent.

Take the case of India's Railways which are always quoted
as one of themost obvious and tangible benefits of British, iiule.
\\c are told they have opened up the country for trade.
True enough the benefits are tangible and the country has been
opened up to trade. But who receive these benefits ? European
officials receive highly paid posts in the different Railways,^ aU.
aniiual" amount of more than ;^io,ooo,ooD, is p^id out of India
as interest on the foreign capital invested in the railways of the
country, aiid in addition to this the Railways are invariably
made to serve the interests of the European passengers_and
"Business firms in preference- la^tliosc. of I ndiaus- -themselves.

The Army is another * benefit ' of British rule. It is sup-
posed to be an army for the defense of India, but is in reality
an army of occupation which is occasionally used to put down
Prontier risings*__but has more frequently been used ia_,-fb.ixdgn_
wars which had as their object the aggrandisernejit_of the
Bntish ^Empire. . For this India is forced to pay without getting
anything in return from the rest of the Empire except insults.
India has in fact been made the training ground for an Imperial
army from which soldiers arc drawn without the c~)nsent of India
for service in foreign lands. During the last century India has
paid nearly ;^ioo,o00,Ood for military help in wars and cam-
paigns outside India in whicli the people of India had no manner

of interest, the aim r»f ^hirh ui-a tVif^ r^vf^ncinn nf T^riti-^i piiTxrPr

The late Sir Henry Campbdl-Banncrinaii said " Justice demands
that ICn;:jland should pay a portion of the cost of the great
Indian army maintained in India for Imperial rather than Indian
purposes. This has not yet been done, and famine-stricken
India is being bled for the maintenance of England's world-wide
Empire." This demand of justice has not yet been fulfilled.

Take next the question of India's manufactures. Sir Henry
Cotton in his book " New India " writes ; " The increasing
poverty of India is due to many causes, but primarily I trace it
to the decay of handisrafls and the substitution of foreign for
ho!ne manufactures."

India's manuEicture^ hr^v-n — begji practically destroyed since
the British first appeired upon the scene, and why ? Not because
they were inferior to European products but because they were
superior and were therefore a menace to the prosperous devel-
opment of British industries. Great Britain, which first entered
India as a commercial power, has ever since remained commercial
in all her deepest instincts. She wanted India's markets and
she still wants them, but in order to k£S?£._sL secure hokl of
them she must pursue a^golicy which is in direct opposition to
the best interests of India herself. The selfishness of her
policy has never been more clearly shown than by the action
of all the members from Lanca.shire who, during a recent
sitting of the ISritish Parliament, protested against the duty on
cotton goods imported into India beiiig raised from 3 J to 7|
per cent. The Secretaiy of State for India, Mr. Chamberlain,
urged them to withdraw their protest on th.e grounds that the
past policy was " a piece of injustice " to the Indian people,
but the members fiom Lancashire could only see the question
from the point of view of Lancashire. This " piece of injustice "
has been removed now that the Government are in need of
money which they cannot get by taxation, but why is it that
professing as it does to be governing " for the benefit of the
people " it has consistently ignored the repeated protests of the
Indian public against this unjust policy? The only possible

answer is tliat which the members from Laticashire have made
so abundantly clear, namely that it has been in the interests of
Lancashire manufacturers that the import duty on cotton goods

taken mto~Iildia shontaT'rioro'nly be kcpt~a5 low as possible, but
even Le counTeffeatanceid~by ircorfe¥g(^^ on cotton

goods manufactured in India itself^ England has at last, under
the stress of war expenditure, i-eversed her time-honoured policy
and has listened to the just claims of the Indian people, but
she has done so too late to convince thi: Indian public of the
disinterestedness of her action. This is merely one example of
the policy which the British Government in India has consistent-
ly followed.

There is one other reason why the people of India are
annually becoming more poverty-stricken, and that is the simple
and obvious fact that a foreign Government is by its very
nature more costly, .than -g-evernment -by the people of the-
country itself. This is specially the case in India which is so
laf away from England where the seat of govenmient really

is. Every English official requires a _ bigll_.sal^y_ to induce

hini_Jo^ work in a climate so prejudicial to the herdth of_
Europeans. The cost of passage from England to India has to
be met, and almost all English officials, when they have com-
pleted their term of service retire to England where they draw
handsome pensions, and help by their advice to perpetuate the
bureaucratic atmosphere of the India Office in London. In
191 2 there was paid in England out of Indian taxation a sum
of £z,7iopy^.

Sir George Campbell, who was Lieutenant-Governor of the
United Provinces, puts the public remittances from India to
England at .^16,000,000 arid tlie private remittances and the
balance of trade at /'i6,g0o,O0O. This is a constant drain out
of the country which could only be avokiedjfjhe people of
T-ndia^vy^ere-gercrning" fheriTBelves. Mrs. Besant says :

" It is often alleged that the "drain" is "payment for
services rendered," and is therefore legitimate. It is forgotten

that the services, exorbitantly paid, arc not invited but imposed
aticT V.inX, If IndiJl — iTTtcfh'er own way, the "services would be
n.-ndercd by her own people, and the payment would be returned
into her own pocket."

In any case there is no service a Government can rcn ler to
a people which is worth the price of that people's ruin. This
ruin has no other cause than the underlying rapacity of the
British Government in India, for the obvious fact is that the
British Govei'nment rules India not in the interests of India but
m its own interests; "And these interests are not even its future
interests but its immediate interests.

Wiiat then is the reason of such a policy ? The reason is
simply that England knows that the future is not for her, and
feeling instinctively that the present is a merely provisional
piece of good fortune she finds it advisable to provision herself
as rapidly and richly as possible. By all her actions England
has proved that she has never regarded India as a real part of
the Empire, but rather as a possession the temporary occupation
of which has provided her with an unusual opportunity for
intensive exploitation. Otherwise It Is impossible to explain how
her statesmen, possessed with no mean Intelligence and generally
far-seeing, can have blundered so blindly in the administration
of India. But Indeed they have not blundered for they have
been conscious of India's Inevitable future Independence, and
their administration Itself confirms the necessary and near advent
of Home Rule In India.

INDIA'S HUMILIATION.

The late Marquis of Salisbury when speaking to young
Englishmen who were going out as the rulers of India In 1875
said that they were themselves " the only eiiemies England had
to fear " and " the persons who can, If they will, deal a blow

of ihe deadliest character at the future rule of England."

Many years have passed since these words were spoken r.nd
unfortunately the majority of English residents In India, both
official and non-official, have neglected the warning of Lord
Salisbury and by their attitude of contempt towards the people
of India have consistently and constantly undermined the
authority of British rule.

Even before the shores of India are reached the young
Englishman has had his preliminary training in the attitude of
contempt for the "native," for on any P. & O. steamer from
London to Bombay one can see how completely the process of
alienation between English and Indians is prepared for. About
five years ago I travelled in the first class of one of the largest
P. & O. boats together with three prominent Indian gentlemen,
one a Mahomedan judge, one a Christian Principal of an impor-
tant College, and the third a Hindu who was one of the leading
citizens of Delhi. Frcm the commencement of the voyage these
gentlemen and the two Englishmen who were associated with
them were practically boycotted by the rest of the passengers.
At the dinner table the two Englishmen who happened to be
sitting next to two of these Indian gentlemen for ten days ad-
dressed not a single word to them and even made contemptuous
remarks to each other about them. This experience is not ex-
ceptional. It is usual on almost all the steamers which carry
English and Indians to and from India, and if an Englishman
protests either by word or deed he inevitably shares the boycott
•with the Indians.

If this feeling is found to exist even on board steamers
from England to India it is not surprising to find that it per-
sists in India itself. The bitterness of race feelijnLg._iiaii_heen
growing m.Qxe intense dilrin^r^he-iast-tii-ree years. If the ex-
amples which I give seem to be exceptiorial I can only affirm
that they are merely tj'pical of a mass of such incidents which
could be given by anyone who has lived in India for a feu-
years and has been in close touch with Indian life. The dif-

ficulty is not that of finding material but that of selecting it.

There is in the firt.t place the general attitude of contempt
for Indians adopted by the non-official classes of Englishmen in
India. This may be seen every day on the railways and because
the Hnglish know that the railway officials are compelled by
their position to take the side of the governing caste they are
able to indulge in their attitude of superiority, without any f-ar
of being brought to task. Unfortunately the lower in the scale
one goes the more unblushing does this outward exhibition of
superiority become.

This general attitude of contempt towards the people of
India in their own country, though it is ajmost serious_niunace
to the stability of British .rule^ is^ onewhich the Government is
in tile mainunahle to combat. As it depends so largely upon
the inner disposition of mind no amount of legislation could
change things for the better so long as the arro;ance of heart
persists. But the governing class, by almost always taking the
side of the white man, either directly or indirectly condones and
even encourages such a state of things. The official classes
themselves, by adopting this attitude in tlieir daily dealings with
Indians, set an example for the non-officials which they are only
too ready to follow.

The whole atmosphere of the official life of Iidia is siturated
with the conception that the best way of maintaining the prestige
of British rule is to make all Indians, no matter how high their
station may be, feel that they ^re by nature_ 'Inferior to their
Englisti_,ruie-rs= — Many~young^civIliahs, who com^ mainly from the
middle class families of England and Scotland, will keep in
their verandahs Indian gentlemen of high family till it pleases
them to receive them, but if a white man comes he will be
received at once. To uphold the dignity of British rule the
English official often thinks it necessary to forego all considera-
tions of courtesy and impress upon the "native" that he must
keep his proper place of supplicant for favours from his august
rulers.

The lower the official is in position the more completely
does he adopt this attitude with the result that Indian gentlemen
are frequently insulted by petty English officials. Quite recently
in Madras a public meeting was held at which the Governor
took the chair and the principal speaker was to be a prominent
Indian gentleman. On arrival at the side entrance of the hall
where the meeting was to take place this gentleman was turned
away by the English policeman in charge because he . was a
" native." He made no protest not wishing to create a scene,
but sent the manuscript of his speec'i to the papers together
with a dignified letter of explanation as to the cause of his
failing to keep his engagemicnt.

But there are other ways in which officials show their con-
tempt and distrust for Indians which are even more serious
because they are methods which it is well nigh impossible to
meet openly. Leading citizens of India \vho are outwardly
honoured by Government are secretly suspected. The Honour-
able Mr. Gokhale, who was a member of the Viceroy's Council,
publicly asserted in the presence of the Viceroy that he used
to be shadowed by the police, and that Sir Gangadhar Chitnavis,
whom the Governor of his Province had publicly designated as
the " ideal citizen of the Central Provinces " was also under
police surveillance. Men of such eminence as Sir Rabindranath
Tagore, Mahatma Munshi Ram the Governor of the Ar\M Samaj
Gurukula and one of tlie noblest and most self-sacrificing sons
of India, and Sri Aurabinda Ghosh are under the kindly surveil-
lance of the police and those whom the Government openly
professes to honour are secretly spied upon by the agents of
that same Government. When two years ago I was about to
go to Fiji I went to visit Mr. Gandhi who had just been
decorated by the Government for his public \\ork. I had not
been in his house half an hour before we received a visit from
the superintendent of police who came to enquire into the char-
acter of Mr. Gandhi's visitors.

But this is not only the case in regard to promiaent men

but even more so in tl:c case of obscure young men who show
any signs of exceptional ability for serving their fellow-country-
men. Let a young man show any enthusiasm for social work,
for night School work or the starting of any kind of organisation
and he at once becomes a suspect. I know personally of many
cases where young men in Bengal and other provinces, whose
one desire has been to have freedom to serve the poor and
teach the ignorant, have been compelled by the constant suspi-
cions of the police to give up their work. Any association of
young men, whether its purpose be for Athletics or Social
Service, is regarded with suspicion as though it were an associ-
ation of criminals. The result is that a widespread atmosphere
of mutual suspicion has grown up which prevents completely
the growth of that spirit of co-operation which the Government
outwardly professes it is anxious to train Indians to acquire.

When in Bengal the National Movement became articulate
the Government, instead of welcoming the signs of the awaken-
ing of that very quality which in England is regarded as most
desirable did everything in its power to suppress it, but in vain,
A young boy in Eastern Bengal, who shouted " Bande Mataram "
(Hail Motherland !) as the District Magistrate was passing, was
expelled from School by order of that same official and forbid-
den to prosecute his studies in any School. His whole educa-
tional future was ruined because he had the audacity to express
openly before one of the rulers of India his love for his Mother
country ! Not long after this the school of Rabindranath Tagore
came under the secret displeasure of the police and a circular
was issued warning all parents that no Government posts would
be given to boys educated at that school. This circular was
eventually rescinded by order of the Lieutenant-Governor to
whose notice it was brought. The worst aspect of such forms
of tyranny is that it is impossible to meet them openly because
they are always carried on covertly and often without any means
of actual proof. But there are certain more open forms of
humiliation from which Indians have to suffer in their own country.

By actual legislation Indians are made to fed their supposed
inferiorits*. The Arms Act is a law which deprives Indians of
the right to carry arms, and this, together with the refusal to
allow the people to become volunteers, is a legal method of
making the whole people feel their inferiority. Although the
Law is profess -dly impartial in its action the very fact that
since the commencement of British rule there have been many
scores of Indians killed by Englishmen and only twice have
Englisiimen been condemned to death, has made Indians feel
that even English justice places a different value on the life of
an Englishman from that which it places on that of an Indian.
Even wjien twice the law condemned Englislimen to death for
the murder of Indians the English community raised an outcry
to have the sentences comrnuted as if they thought each sentence
was a miscarriage of justice. So that even tlie administration of
justice upon which the Bri'dsh have in the past justly prided
themselves is tainted in India with race prejudice.

Finally there is the question of the position of Indians in
the Public Services, a question upon which Indian public opinion
recently grew so strong in mdignant protest tha.t Government
appofntecT aCommissIon_pro[nising to reform the abuses if the
evidence justified such change. The result of this Commission
has just been published, and with what result ? Instead cf car-
rying out the hoped-for reforn-is the humiliation of Indians is
further eniphasised, and with the exception of one Indian mem-
ber who has issued a minority report as a protest against the
findings of the rest of the Commissioners, the recommendations
of the Commission are such as to perpetuate the position of
degradation to which Indian members of the services have had
to submit in the past. This is specially tlie case in the matter
of Education which is the most important element in the life of
a nation and the one in which the people of the country might
be expected to have the largest part. In the past the Educa-
tional service has been divided into two branches, the Imperial
and the Provincial, and Indians like Dr. P. C. Ray who were

members of the Provincial Service were relegated to a position
of permanent inferiority. At present there are 199 posts in the
Imperial Educational Service of wliich 196 are hold by Europe-
ans, and yet the Commissioners declare :

" We do not think that the number of P2uropeans now
employed is excessive, and we would keep the present pro[)ortion
in the future for the existing number of posts taken as a
whole."

It is not v/ithout reason that the editor of " The Modern
Review " has written of the results of this Commission under
the title " Apples of Sodom."

And so, even while England is fighting for " the rights of
nations and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their own
ways of life and obedience " the people of India, under a British
government, are humiliated and made to feel that they are
outcastes intheir own ^ojintry. -Atid while the foreign rulers of
Ihcriar~ regard India as their own sr)ecial preserve the inhab-
itants of the country are made to feel that they are only there
on sufferance and so must be suffered and must suffer.

Is it possible for a state of things so contrar>' to right and
to truth to last for long ? The warning given by Lord Salis-
bury in 1875 has been consistently ignored and he himself has

given the answer oa the same occasion on v.h:ch he uttered his
warning :

" No system of government cri'i be pcrmaMently safe where
there is a feeling of inferiority or of mortification affecting the
relations between the governing and governed."

VI.

liiBIANS m TEE BRITISH EMPIEE.

England has had before her two ideals of Empire, one
v/hich she has found useful for profession and the other for
practice. The former is the ideal of a free federation of nations

held together without the employment of force, in which all
distinctions of creed and colour shall be subordinated to the
common good of all, and the other the ideal of a federation of
the white people of the Empire with full freedom to exploit the
weaker races over which they have obtained control and to
treat with contempt the coloured peoples as permanently inferior
to themselves. Many high-minded Englishmen have believed
that the former high ideal has been put into practice, and
others have made believe that it has. But the fact is that if
England had pursued from the first this ideal she would have
had no Empire to speak of, for Canada, South Africa, Hong-
Kong, and more than all India would never have come into the
Empire unless force had been used, and even Great Britain
herself would have been less by the exclusion of Ireland. It is
true that now some parts actually remain freely as parts of that
Empire, but only those which are free and only so long as the
Empire respects completely all their liberties. They remain
parts of the Empii^e because they find some moral or material
advantage in maintaining the connection, exactly as is the case
in all other Empires of the world in which the liberty of some
parts does not condone for the slavery of others. For in all
Empires such slavery is a fundamental injustice which cannot
possibly persist and indeed forms the principal cause of disinte-
gration. It cannot be otherwise so long as the conception of
Imperial expansion takes precedence of the ideal of the equal
treatment of all races. And in practice it cannot be denied
that England's attitude towards the coloured races has been
either practically to exterminate them (as in Australia) or where
the numbers have been too great for the policy of extermination
to be followed she has relegated them to a position of perma-
nent inferiority. We see for example in South Africa, where
the " native " population vastly outnumbers the white colonists,
that being unable to exterminate this objectionable element the
Government passes legislation which renders the original inhab-
itants of the soil as innocuous as possible. The Native Lands

Act for instance, which was passed the year before the out-
break of the war, deprives the natives of the right to possess
or even to rent all the best and most desirable Lmd in the
Colony, which is now made available only fo.' the white settlers
whose appetite is insatiable. The protests of the Native Lea-
ders have so far been unavailing although they have sent a depu-
tation to England to lay their grievance before the English
public.

But this policy is most clearly seen in the position to
which Indians have been degraded in the different parts of the
British Empire. In their case it is all the more striking because
the excuse tliat the Indians are an uncivilised or uncultured race
cannot be put forward in defence of the treatment accorded to
them.

When Japan closed her doors to foreigners she w.'.s spoken
of as the Hermit Nation as though that were a term of re-
proach. When Tibet refused to admit foreigners her reasons for
doing so were explained by saying that she was uncivilised and
the English had to employ force when they entered Tibetan
territory. But now we find a " white Australia " which closes
its doors to Asiatics on the hypocritical plea that it is inadvi-
sable to introduce into the country the "usual Oriental vices,"
and a Canada which refuses to admit Indians on the same
Pharisaical principles.

Having travelled in different parts of the British Empire in
which Indians are settled I can speak from actual personal
experience of the unjustifiable disabilities under which Indians
are made to labour in almost every part of the Empire where
they have been allowed to settle mainly for the [ rofit of
British Colonists.

Australia of course does not admit coloured settlers so the
problem of the actual treatment of Indians in Australia has
never come up. But the very fact that Australia has perma-
nently branded India, highly civilised and cultured as she is, with
the mark of inferiority has had a serious effect on the loyalty

of Indians to the Empire as a whole. la her attitude towards
India Australia has openly placed her own self-interest before the
interests of the Empire as a whole. When a steamer from
Colombo took a Christian Singhalees doctor from Ceyloa as
Ship's doctor tlie newspapers of Australia made a public protest,
though this doctor had been trained in England and was the
only doctor a\ail?Jole at the time the steamer left Colombo. He
was not allowed to travel further than the first port of call in
Australia but was shipped back to Colombo as though he were
in some way contaminating tlie purity of Australian morals. But
the Australian papers were not the only ones to make a protest.
The whole Press of India referred to the injustice and inhuma-
nity of the treatment thus meted out by a " Christian " nation
towards a member of an ancient and honoured race. The people
of India are fully justified in asking what can the Empire mean
to that part of it which is excluded from the Colonies except
where admission happens to satisfy the greed of the white
colonists.

For the worst feature of the situation is that even where
Indians have been admitted in any large numbers tliey have
been exploited for tlie profit of capitalists and planters wb.o find
it co'.ivenient to obtam a supply of cheap Indian labour. In
Australia itself which excludes Indians there is an influential
Company kaovvn as the^ Colonial Sugar Refining Compaiiy, with
a capital of /■ 3,000,000. It owns large sugar estates in Fiji
where some 63,000 Indian labourers are employed. Tliis com-
pany has made such profits out of its enterprises that it has
been able to pay enormous dividends and has further so in-
creased its capital out of profits that the Government of Australia
found it necessary to appoint a Commission to enquire into its
methods of business. For thirty years it has been paying the
same wages to the Indian coolies who come out from India
under Indenture, and yet tlie officals of this company regarded
with alarm a suggestion made to them in 1915 (when as a
result of the high price of sugar they had niade an extra profit

of ^^500,000) that the time had come foi" them to raise the
wages of the Indian coolies in their employ. The head of this
concern, when lie was told that public opinion in India was.
expressing itself very strongl}' on the question of the treatment of
Indians in Fiji, exclaimed with a cynical laugh, " Public opinion!
Why I always thought there was no such thing as public opin-
on; in India."

Fiji may be taken as an example of a Crown Colony in
which Indians are working under wliat is known as the Inden-
ture system. In 1915 I visited that colony, at the request of
Indian leaders, to enquire into the condition of the coolie class
there. I found that in spite of the constantly increasing cost
of living the wages of those under indenture had remained the
same for thirty years. The suicide rate amongst the indentured
coolies was twenty times as high as the suicide rate in India,
and the proportion of crimes of violence was eighty times as
high owing to the unnatural conditions under which these labour-
ers were compelled to live. Tiie fact that their physical con-
dition was in most cases better than that of most labourers in
India itself was entirely counterbalanced by the degrading con-
ditions under which they lived and by the entire lack of freedom
to choose their own masters so long as tr.eir indenture lasted.

For years the Indian public has been protesting against the
continuance of the Indenture system under which thousands of
Indian labourers have, year after year, been shipped off to dis^
tant parts of the British Empire to satisfy the demands of white
planters. At last, after ceaseless agitation, a promise was made
by the Government of India early in 19 16 that the system would
be abolished at the earliest possible opportunity. The Indian
public was therefore startled to find carl}' in the present year
that the planters of Fiji had been promised an extension of the
system for another five years. A wave of indignation swept
over the country, protests were made in the Press and in public
meetings, and for the first in the history of British rule in
India a deputation of Indian women waited upon the Viceroy to

•protest against this violation of the Government's pledge. The
Viceroy was able to give an assurance that, owing to the scarcity
of available ships no more coolies would be exported to Fiji
under indenture. But the fact that the Government had gone
back on its pledge on pressure from the capitalist interests of
Australia, and had only stopped the traffic under pressure of war
conditions, makes it difficult for the Indian public to believe that,
where the interests of India clash with those of British capita-
lists in the Colonics, the Government will consider first and fore-
most the feelings and wishes of the Indians themselves.

Of all the occasions on which the Indian public has pro-
tested against the treatment of Indians in the different parts of
the Empire the most serious was that in 191 3 when the unjust
treatment of Indians in South Africa led to an intensity of
indignant protest in every part of India. Never since the time
of the Mutiny has the safety of British rule in India been in
such danger. Indignation was at white heat, and if it had not
been for the courage of the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, who took
up the cause of India and In a public speech at Madras protested
against the action of the South African Government, and even
sent a representative of the Government of India by special
steamer to Durban, it is difficult to say what the issue would
have been. Never before have the Indian people been so united,
and though certain concessions were made by the South African
Government the feeling of resentment was too deep to be easily
erased.

I visited Soutli Africa and spent two months studying
conditions amongst the Indian settlers in the Colony. Most of
the Indian leaders, as well as two European sympathisers, had
been put in prison, and when I arrived there were still hundreds
of Indian labourers in jail. I visited some of the jails to see
Indian prisoners and so strong was the colour prejudice that^
even though I was known to represent Indian public opinioa
and was a 'white' man, my sympathy with Indians was sufficient
to expose me to the same insults which were invariably showered

upon coloured people. In the law courts the same colour
■prejudice prevailed to make equal justice almost impossible, and
Indian witnesses were bullied and laughed at by white lawyers
without any protest from the bench, and even to be seen talking
with an Indian in the streets of Durban was to make people
stop and stare. And yet the Colony of Natal, with its ioo,coo
Indians, owes its prosperiiy to the work which Indian labour
has given to the Sugar plantations. The colour prejudice against
the Indians was so intense that I wondered how the Empire
could hold together with such a palpable cleavage weakening its
fabric. On my way back to India I visited Portuguese East
Africa, and it vv-as v.ith a sense of shame that I found the
Indians under the Portuguese flag were treated m.ore justly and
with infinitely more consideralion by the Portuguese than they
were in British territory.

The attitude of Canada is probably well-known. The
" Komagata Maru " incident was only one act of the tragedy of
race prejudice which is being enacted in tha': part of the British
Empire. While Sikh soldiers were being v/clcomed in France
v/ith enthusiasm and the English newspapers were praising the
loyalty of India in extravagent terms, tliose Siichs who had been
turned away from Canada were met on their return to India by
armed police and some of them were shot because they protested
against the decision of the authorities forbidding them to visit
Calcutta on twiv way back to their homes. Canada has passed
legislation which forbids the immigration of Indians, even the wives
of those already settled there, though the Sikhs are recognised to
be excellent farmers, and yet has, since passing this anti-Indian
legislation, allowed more than 30,000 Clrnese and Japanese
immigrants to land. The people of India may well ask, " What
does this Empire m.ean for us who are excluded from almost
every part of it, and even v.-hen admitted are only tolerated as
coolies who can help the white man to irake money ?"

It may be asked whether things are not likely to be belter
after the war. An Imperial Conference has been appointed and

there are " representatives " from Lidia on it, and unanimous
resolutions have been already passed which refer to India as
well as to other questions of Imperial interest. But the so-called
representatives do not represent tha Indian public but only the
bureaucratic views of the Government. The Indian Press regards
this " representation " as a hollow delusion. The London
" Nation " refers to this latest attempt to deceive the people of
India by an appearance of justice in th - following words:

" Like all our handling of India — • 2.s of Ireland — ■ during
this war, it is a travesty of the gratitude which we ought to
feel. A delusive representation is more useless than no repre-
sentation at all. It concedes a right, and denies it in fact."

If we examine the two resolutions passed unamimously at
this Conference which make special reference to India we sec
how helpless the case of India has become. The first is that
which declares that " re-adjustment of the component parts of
the Empire should be based upon a full recognition of the
Dominions as autonomous nations of the Imperial Common-
wealth and India as an important portioti of that Commonwealth."
India always has been an important portion of the Empiric just
as the treasury is an important part of a large Bank, and there
has never been any doubt as to the wish of the other parts of
the Empire to continue to have India as an important portion of
the Imperial fabric.

The other resolution is that which ?ays :
"The Conference having examined a memorandum on the posi-
tion of Indians in the self-governing Do.minions presented by the
representatives of India accepts tiie principle of reciprocity of
treatment and recommends the memora.ndum for favourable con-
sideration by the Governments concerned."

Neither of these resolulious concede a.nyLhing in tlie direction
of juster treatment for India. They give the appearance of fair-
ness without its reality. For the first resolution merely affirms
a truth which has never been disputed, while the second recom-
mends a reciprocity which in reality is impracticable, for no-one

iniag;Ines that the wliitc self-governing Colonies will ever submit
willingly to treatment by India such as they have consistently
adopted towards Indians.

The fact is that India lias been made to feel too keenly the
attitude of arrogant superiority taken up towards her by the
other parts of the British Empire for the sense of insult and
injury to be easily forgotten. Her self-respect has been too
deeply wounded. Even in the midst of this gigantic struggle
for ' freedom ' in which the British Empire is now engaged the
Government of India has been unable to throw aside its ancient
prejudice and take the people of India fully into her confidence
and trust. Had she been trusted, and made to feel that she
was really regarded as on an equality with the other parts of
the Empire, India niight now have b;:en the m.ost powerful asset
to the strength of the Empire instead of proving, as Ireland has
done, a source of weakness. If on the contrary a radical change
does not take place then Ir:dia will become for the Empire an
inevitable cause of its final disintegration.

vn.

THE IMMINENCE OF HOME RULE.

Home Rule for India is inevitable and also imminent. Truth
and Justice always have their day. After a hundred years of
waiting this day has come for India. The question is not whether
Home Rule will be or no, but bow it will come. Will it come
in the form of a gift or will it be taken by force ?

The reasons underlying the Indian demand for Home Rule
have been given in the previous articles. There is no inherent
reason against the granting of Home Rule by England herself
except that of England's selfish interests. These have been
strong enough in the past to induce her to break her pledges
and to act in direct contradiction to the ideals of freedom and
liberty which she has persistently professed to follow. The

question is will she continue to be blind to the facts and continue in
her refusal to apply those principles to India, or will she, before
it is too la'.e, accept the inevitable and grant Home Rule in
answer to the demands of the Indian people ?

For many years these demands have been more and more
clearly expressed in constitutional forms, in the Press, in the
meetings of the National Congress, and by the Indian members
of the different Provincial Councils and of the Viceroy's Legisla-
tive Council. As no objection can be legally raised to methods
of agitation which are strictly constitutional the Government has
allowed such expression of public opinion. But while allowing
opinions to be expressed it has almost invariably treated such
expressions as a good-natured mother treats her baby's request for
the moon. Either the baby's demand is ignored as ridiculous
or it is deluded by the presentation, accompanied by protestations
as to the beauty of the gift, of a round object as nearly resem-
bling the moon as possible. Viceroys assure the people that the
fulfilment of their aspirations is the desire nearest their hearts
but at the same time warn the people against the dangers of
going too fast and, to quote tlie words of the present Viceroy,
tell their hearers that " the ideal which is best suited for India
is not so much rapid progress as steady progress. Do not
expect violent changes. If progress is to be sure it must be
consolidated step by step." And so the people of India see the
progress towards the attainment of their ideals becoming so
steady as to be almost stationary. The National Congress has
for thirty years been permitted to air its views, but has never
been taken seriously by the Government except as a safety valve
having no real or vital connection with the aspirations of the
Indian people.

Recently a majority of the Indian representatives of the
Supreme Legislative Council in India presented to the Indian
Government a reform proposition the substance of which was to
the effect that :

Half the number of members of the different Provincial
Councils were to be Indians.

Financial autonomy was to be granted to India.

The Arms Act, forbidding Indians to cany weapons, was to
be repealed.

An Indian Volunteer Service was to be instituted and Indi-
ans were to be made eligible as milifciry and naval officers.

The comment of the London " Times " on these proposals
was that they were " unreasonable and extraordinary and these
representatives do not represent the people." The same newspaper
also stated that " the maddest of all things conceivable is the
idea of Home Rule for India."

In the fond delusion that the Government in India really
represented the ideals of liberty which England has followed
in the evolution of her own national life the people of India
have patiently adopted the methods of constitutional agitation.
Finding these fruitless many have at last begun to despair of
attaining their ends by peaceful means. The increase of anarchy
in Bengal and other parts of India has been the i^atural ap.d
inevitable outcome of the policy which the Government of India
has followed in its attitude towards constitutional demands. Dem-
ands made i;i this form have been answered by saying : ' Wait
a little till you are more fully worthy to receive these gifts of
liberty." or " You do not represent the people of India but only
a small minority of educated and discontented agitators."

The fact that the Government has been adopting more and
more repressive measures in its dealings with the people shows
that the methods of violence have flourished in the atmosphere
of disappointed hopes which the policy of the Government has
created. Having failed to obtain wliat they know to be their
legitimate rights by peaceful means the people of India are being
driven by their despair mofe and more to the use of violence.
They now see in Europe a.11 the nations using force to obtain
freedom and liberty for the i)coples, and Russia applauded by
English statesmen for achieving its liberties by revolution, and

it is natural that they should ask why India alone of all the
nations should be denied the privilege of using foice for the
attainment of those same ideals which they l^ave failed to achieve
by peaceful efforts.

These forces which are at work amongst the people of
India are vital and living forces. Vital forces may be repressed
but not indefinitely, they may be repressed but not suppressed.
If driven underground they will germinate like all living seeds,
and if you compress them they will explode with violence.
This is what is happening in India. The vital forces of legitimate
aspiration have been consistently repressed by the actions of the
bureaucracy, and the result is that in India to-day there is a
hidden but explosive energy waiting only for some small and
apparently trivial incident to burst into a violent and devastating
storm. In Osaka recently it only needed the carelessness of one
coolie, who dropped a cask of potassium chloride, to produce
an explosion of such violence that damage to the extent of ten
million yen was caused. In India it only needs the carelessness
of one English official to bring about a revolution. Every
day events are happening in India which might prove the
spark of ignition. When Mr. Lloyd George decided, for the
sake of a sum of money sufficient only for the carrying oa
of the war for a fortnight, to saddle India, without consulting
her people, with a debt which in their poverty the people
are unable to sustain, he was unloosing forces of dangerous
possibilities. When, after two months, the people of India had
out of their poverty subscribed a sum enough only for one
day's destructive warfare in Europe, the rulers of India were
not satisfied but brought every power of threat and persuasion
to squeeze further millions out of the people of India. In Ben-
gal we had th.e undignified spectacle of an English Lord, the
Governor of the Province, standing up in public begging for
further subscriptions and working out a petty arithmetical
calculation to prove to his hearers that for every ninetj'-fivc
rupees wliich t!;cy subscribe to-day they will receive from tlie

Government in the course of thirty years a sum of two hund-
red and fifty rnpecs ! In every town aud village of India the
same process is going on and the people are being urged to
subscribe towards swelling the millions necessary for fighting a
battle for a freedom in which they may not share. But every rupee
which now go:is to swell the size of the War Loan helps to swell
the widespread feeling of discontent.

More ominous .still is the way in which hundreds of young
men are being put in prison without trial, and numbers of news-
papers are being forfeited under the Press Act. To throw the
blame for the appearance of anarchy and violence on educated
Indians who have agitated for the liberties of the people is to
put the blame on the wrong shoulders. While Indian news-
papers are forfeited under the Press Act, papers published by En-
glishmen, which daily print articles calculated to increase race
hatred and discontent, are allowed to continue publication without
protest from the Government. Those who are directly respon-
sible for this new feature in the life of India are the bureaucrats
of the type of Lord Curzon, Lord vSydenham, Sir Valentine
Chirol and Mr. Lionel Curtis and .all those English officials
whose acts have been calculated to spread disaffection and dis-
content amongst the people of India,

The hope that England will give Home Rule to India is
grov»7ing fainter. The good-will of the people of England is
rendered ineffective by passing through the India Office in
London and thence through the hands of the bureaucrats oT
India. If England were able to give her full attention to the
problem of India there might be some hope, but not only is
she too fully occupied with her own struggle but all that she reads
and is told about India is calculated to mislead her as to the
real situation. Mr. Lloyd George speaks of India's " loyal my-
riads " and his hearers go away satisfied and pride themselves
on the excellence of their rule in India. Probably Mr. Lloyd
George really believes that India's myriads are loyal and like
a flock of sheep will follow where they are told to go. Hq

has acquired his knowledge' of India froai official sources, such
as Mr. Chamberlain who knows more about Birmingham than he
can possibly know about India, a.nd from those to whose inter-
est it is to represent India as loyal. At the beginning of the
war it is true that there was an outbreak of loyalty founded
upon the belief that now at last in their need the governing
classes of India would accept the people of India as their com-
rades and treat them with the consideration which had been so
conspicuously Lacking in the past. The Government had then a
unique opportunity for retrieving in a moment all the blunders
of their past aJmiaistration. But unable to cast aside their pre-
judice and distrust they let it slip and instead of the situation
improving during the last three years it has been getting stead-
ily worse. The publication of the Public Services Commission
Report which emphasises instead of removing the injustice to
which Indians are subjected in the Public Services, the harsh
application of the Defence of India Act, the disabih'ties under
which Indians labour in the Indian Defence Force in spite of the
Commander-in-Chiefs assurance that ; " There is no intention
of discriminating between the two classes " of Indians and
Europeans, and finally the way in which the Indian War Loan
of ^100,000,000 was put upon the people of India without
the question having been brought up even on the Viceroy's
Council, have all contributed towards the volume of the present
discontent.

Home Rule is inevitable. Constitutional methods of agita-
tion have been patiently followed for half-a-century and the peo-
ple have for long believed in the good faith of their governors,
but as evidence accumulates to prove that their Government
is inherently incapable of granting any measure of real self-
government except under extremity of pressure, despair has
taken the place of confidence and there is now a widespread
suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that the Government
does not intend to grant any effectual measure of autonomy to
the people of India until it is forced to do so. This is the

explanation of the alarming growth of anarchy and of the revo-
lutionary spirit in all parts of India. The revolution in Russia
has not been without its lesson to India, but the revolution in
Russia, tliough its pui-pose was the liberation of the people
from the tyranny of a bureaucracy, cannot be compared with
a revolution sucli as would take place in India. The Indian people
are without an army and without arms, and if they rose ip.
revolt against the English army of occupation there could be only
one result. In India there is no Czar whose abdication could stetn
the tide of popular p.assion, and no army whicii would sympa-
thise with the revolutonaries and .so there is no possibility of a
peaceful revolut'on. The only alterra'ive is that of a formidable
uprising of unarmed men individually powerless but invincible by
their numbers who, shrinking not from death, would crush th.e
armed forces .of British domination under the weight of their innum-
erable masses. That Government has realised the possibility of
such a tragedy Is seen from the recent introduction of a Com-
pulsory Military Training Bill for the European and Eurasian
residents in India, which has been commented on by Mrs Besant
In the following terms :

" Here Is a deliberate attempt to arm Englishmen with a
viezv to meet ti'Oitble in this cowitry, I. e. for armed and trained
EnglishmiCn to shoot down unarmed mobs. We are to look
forward In this country In a short time to a complete cleavage
between the English and the Indians, the one forming an army
of occupation, the other a helpless and terrorised population.
All hope of co-oj:erat:on will vanish, all chance of friendship
will be destroyed. Naked force will stand confessed, arrogant
and brutal. This is no War Service for the preservation of
the Empire ; it Is a deliberate preparation for the possible
bloodshed spok'en of by Mr. Curtis. It is not for the defence
of India against an enemy ; it is for the holding of India a-.^ainst
her own sons. Against such an Iniquitous movement every
lover 'of th.e Empire, Indian and English, should protest, for
India can hardly be expected to see going on, paid for out

of her own pocket, preparations for her subjugation under a
regime of rifles and revolvers."

These preparations have however commenced, and if to-
morrow a revolution were to break out in India we should have
the humiliation of seeing the English, who in Europe are fight-
ing to free Belgium from the armed aggression of German}',
shooting down an unarmed and defenceless populace. But a
revolution would not end there. It would develope into a general
and mutual carnage, for the Indians, unarmed though they are,
would, if once blood is shed, begin to massacre the English troops
and residents. It is possible that such a widespread misery might
be averted by the English Government immediately granting
Home Rule to India. But if once the flood of hatred and mutual
murder is unloosed there would be no possibility of stemming
it by any act of legislation however generous. Just as Force
dominates Europe and even the dearest liberties of the peoples of
the West are being bought by bloodshed, so in India Force would
become dominant until from the fire of revolution the people of
India emerged a free and self-governing nation.

VIII.

JAPAN AND INDIA.

If India is forced by the prejudice and blindness of her
rulers to seek by revolution what is rcjfused to her as a right,
then the question arises as to what attitude Japan should take
up in such a crisis.

Some people indeed state that England intends to ask the
help of her ally Japan in the event of a revolution in India-
It seems on the face of it to be incredible that England could
be so lost to a sense of her own dignity and honour as to be
driven to ask the intervention of Japan in India. Such action
would not only be an avowal of weakness such as England has
never before been compelled to make, but would be directly
opposed to public opinion in England itself,

Such interference by an outside power, even though that
power is a friendly one and a trusted ally, in the internal affairs
of the British L^mpire, would raise as stronfr a protest as would
have been raised if French or Russian troops had been asVred
to help in puttin;,^ down the Sinn Fein Rebellion in Ireland.
Even the strongest advocates of the Unionist Party in England
would have felt that to ask the help of a foreign ally in settling
the internal troubles of Ireland, a part of the British Empire,
would not only have been a confession of weakness but a
dishonourable act of treachery.

Above all the p'rople of England are the friends of liberty,
however much their own liberties niay have been curtailed during
the present war. When Sir George Buchanan, speaking as
British Ambassador to Russia, said just after the revolution in
that country : " It is impossible that the British Democracy,
the oldest in the world, could be suspected of opposing the
reedom of peoples.", he was speaking for the best elements
of the British public. And we must believe that, even at the
cost of losing India, the people of England would welcome the
claims of that country to the right of self-government.

It is true however that although the people of England are
at heart the friends of freedom their true feelings are at present
in many cases rendered inarticulate. To quote a recent letter
from England : " As Russia frees herself we become more and
more enslaved." And it is possible that England's statesmen
may, against the wishes and even v\-ithout the knowledge of the
British people, barter the honour of their countjy and in their
uncontrollable desire to keep India for England seek for the help
of Japan.

If this were to happen what then v\'ould be the attitude of
Japan to such a request?

Some people argue that England would be justified in asking
the help of Japan to put down a revolution in India, basing
their argument on the traditional faithfulness of Japan to Great
Britain, and on the fact that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance guar-

antces the actual siaius quo of the different parts of Asia. If
this were so then Japan would feel bound in honour to accede
to England's request. But there is nothing in the existing
treaties, at any rate so far as they are known to the public,
v/hich requires Japan to help Great Britain in India, except in
the event of the attack or invasion of India by another power
such as Russia. What secret understandings there may be be-
tween the diplomatists of the two countries It is beyond the
power of any honest man to say, but arguments cannot be based
on the possibility of the existence of agreements which cannot
be made public.

The honour of Japan does not demand her intervention in
India nor do the wishes of her people require it. It is impossible
to imagine that the people of Japan would wish to interfere in
any popular rising in India for the winning of the freedom of
the people. When recently, in certain quarters, rumours were
circulated that the Allies intended to invite Japan to enter
Siberia in the event of the new Russian Government showing
signs of abated enthusiasm in the prosecution of the war against
Germany, practically the whole of the Japanese Press raised a
protest against such an imputation. It was pointed out that the
Japanese people were friendly towards the people of Russia and
welcomed any efforts made by them which might help them to
assert their right to choose their own path of liberty.

India is bound to Japan by ties closer than those of a
political alliance, and for Japan to help in crushing a revolution
in India would be for her to fight against a part of that great
Unity of which she is a member, and not only so but also
against the possibility of ever becoming the recognised head
of Asia. India would be forced to regard Japan not as her
friend but as a neighbour upon whose friendship she could not
rely, and the whole of Asia would regard her as a renegade
instead of as their natural leader. To follow such a line of
action would politically be more than a fault it would be an
unpardonable and irretrievable blunder.

When Japan conquered Russia the cntliusiasm in India was
immense, and the people of India looked towards Japan not only
with admiration but also with hope. Here at last was the proof
tliat Asia was not moribund and helpless, but had a livinfj and
vital force capable of meeting the forces of the modern world
and holding its own against them. Since then the enthusiasm
for Japan has been somewhat damped owing to the fact that
India has found Japanese statesmen willing, in many cases, to
adopt the polic)^ which Western nations follow in their methods
of exploiting weaker peoples. Many events have happened in
recent years which have shaken the confidence of Asia in the
complete disinterestedness of Japanese statesmanship. But in
the main the inherent admiration for the Japanese people remains
a strong element of the Indian consciousness, and this is an asset
which Japan, as the recognised leader of Asia cannot afford to
lose. She would lose it inevitably and irrevocabl)' if she for a
moment showed a willingness to aid Great Britain in any effort
to suppress the liberties of the Indian people.

The statesmen and diplomatists of Japan would be blind to
the true interests of their own country if they were to dally
with an idea which would so injure the delicate texture of Asia's
Unity. Home Rule for India is the first step towards the Home
|»Rule of Asia, which is but another name for the Monroe
I Doctrine of Asia. And this is the supreme aim of Japanese
I statesmanship and the supreme necessity for the future moral
I and practical progress of Japan herself. For Japan will be fully
respected by the Great Powers of the world only when Asia
becomes free and is also respected by those same Powers.
Materially also the safety of Japan will be assured only wlien
all the forces of Asia are organised behind her and thus consti-
tute a imity capable of resisting all the aggressive covetousness
of the world.

In the next great re-adjustment of World Powers in the
near future in what group could Japan find her true place of
leadership save in that of Asia ? In all other possible combina-

tions she would be merely a vassal. She can be a Master Power
only when all other countries of Asia become free to confer on
her that mastery. How then could Japan fight against Home
Rule for India when that Home Rule is the indispensable condi-
tion of her own rule in the future ?

Tokyo, June ^rd. igiy.

APPENDIX
EDUCATION IN INDIA

In the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the following
statement was exhibited in big c^pItal letters by the United
States Government : —

" The State that fails to educate dooms its children to in-
dustrial subjugation to tho.sc states that do educate. More than
once have nations lost their land for lack of education."

The British have been in India for a century and a half,
and yet the educational facilities which are available for the vast
population of the Indian Empire have not reached a level which
can bear comparison with those, granted by the Japanese Govern-
ment after fifty years of progress, and by the Government of
tlie Philippine Islands after eighteen years of occupation by the
Americans. In 1873 in Japan 280^ of the children of school
age were at School : by 1903 the percentage had risen to 90.
In India at the present time the percentage is only 19.6. Bengal,
which is the most advanced Province in India so far as progress
in education is concerned, has more than 90% of its population
illiterate. In Japan, which cannot be regarded as in any way
richer than India in natural resources, the proportion of the
population which is literate is over 80^. Before the Civil War
in America the Negroes were most of them illiterate. Now
fully 709^ of them are literate.

But, unfortunately for India, India's children are not children
of the Statii whicli governs her and which is responsible for the
failure to educate. As Sir Rabindranath Tagorc said in an in-
terview with a corrcs[)ondent of tlie Manchester Guardian :
" ICvery Indian feel*^, and every candid student of India must
admit, that you (i. e. tlie English) have conceived it to be to
your interest to keep us weak and l-.ave discouraged education.

In the laboratories you dislike us to acquire scic;-,ce and to
pursue research."

The usual excuse put forward by those who are responsible
for the slowness of this educational progress is that India is so
vast a country that progress cannot be expected to be rapid.
Lord Ronaldshay, the new Governor of Bengal, offered this
excuse in a recent interview in which the question of the paucity
of educational opportunities in India was raised. In this as in
other matters such as self-government it is assumed by her rulers
that " the ideal best suited to India is not so much rapid as
steady progress." (Lord Chehnsford, Viceroy of India, in a
recent speech.) But the vastness of India did not prevent tlie
government from elaborating very early an efficient apparatus
for collecting taxes from the remotest corner of tlie great con-
tinent, or from establishing a Police force the influence of which
is felt in the smallest village. The real fact is that this excuse
of the vastness of India is merely put forward to enable the
Government to direct the revenue collected from vast India into
other channels than that of education. In Baroda, a native state
with self-government, it has been found possible to introduce a
system of compulsory primary education as efficient as that in
the progressive countries of Europe and in Japan. If the same
energy and willingness had been applied in the Provinces under
British control as have been applied in Baroda the people of
India as a whole would not now be suffering from a famine of
education more widespread than the recurring famines of food.

Another excuse sometimes put forward for the lack of
educational facilities in India is that the bulk of the population
does not demand them, and even if it did, being mainly an
agricultural country, the period of education is necessarily shorter
than in other countries where the bulk of the population is
industrial. As for the first excuse, the allegation that the bulk
of the people do not demand education, it was true also of all
the countries which now enjoy the advantage of a universal
system of education. In those countries the system had to be

introduced before its advantages could be appreciated. But as a
matter of fact in India the desire shown by every class for
education is a remarkable testimony to the widespread nature of
the demand. People of th^ middle and lower classes make
astonishing sacrifices in order that their children may be educated.

As for the statement that an agricultural population does
not need such a long period of education as an industrial popul-
ation, even that excuse does not bear close examination, for
even in countries which are mainly agricultural the proportion
of the population receiving only elementary education is many
times greater than that in India. In France, which is largely
an agricultural country, the proportion of the population enrolled
in primary and High Schools is 16.9^ of the total population.
If we take the percentage of scholars in different countries we
find they are as follows :

in Elementary Schools alone.

England & Wales 17.7^0.

Russia, it is true, has only Z-77% and Brazil only 2.96^^,
but even these low percentages are higher than the percentage in
India.

The final excuse which is made is that India's revenues are
not sufficient to bear the burden of a widespread system of
education, even were it only elementary. That India is poor
and already over-taxed cannot be denied, but it cannot be argued
that India is poorer in natural wealth than Japan was fifty years
ago. If the £iOD,ooo,Ooo spent out of Indian revenue during
the last century, on military operations outside India for purposes
of the British Empire's policy of expansion, had been spent on
India's material and educational expansion the British would to-
day have no reason to be ashamed of the poverty of their
educational policy in India. As to her revenues, the Indian

5;j

Norway

14.6?^.

Austria

15-3?^.

Germany

16.3^.

Ireland

i6.i6»^.

Holland

iS-A2%.

public has constantly urged the Government to discourage the
manufacture of intoxicating liquors, the excise duty on \vhich
provides a profitable source of revenue to the Government, and
yet the Excise Revenue has risen steadily during the last ten
years as the following figures show.

Excise Revenue.

1904-5 1909-10 1914-15

^5.295,863 £6,^1^62,226 ^'8,747,740

India has always been a sober country and doubtless would
remain so if the people were able to direct their ow-n policy,
and yet while on the one hand there is an insistent demand for
education to which the Government remiins deaf, the demand
for the discouragement of the liquor traffic is met by a constant
increase. The reason is simple — to encourage the supply of
liquor is advantageous to the Government Exchequer whereas
to encourage the supply of educatfon is advantageous only to
the Indians themselves. Even if the large increase in Excise
Revenue had been devoted to education there would have been
some consolation for the people, but even that is not done.
Always the plea is raised of " No funds." " No funds."

If we ask what is the root cause of this state of things the
answer is to be found in the simple fact that the educational
policy of India is in the hands, not of the people of the country,
but of a European clique whose interest it is to keep it there.

It is clear that so long as the personnel of the educational
service remains what it is at present no change for the better can
be expected. Even the appointment of an Indian as Education
Member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council cannot improve
matters, for it concedes control of the educational policy of the
Government to Indians in appearance only. It is like so many
other so-called concessions made by the bureaucracy, a delusive
" representation." Let us briefly examine the facts.

Since th.e reorganization of the Indian Educational Service
in 1896 the appointments made have revealed to wliat a dispro-

portionate extent the posts are resen'od for Europeans.

Number of

Period.

Appointments.

Indians.

I 896- I 900

Nil.

1901-1905

Nil.

1906-1910

Nil.

I9II-1916.

115

seven (?)

The division of the Educational Service in India into the
Imperial Educaticnal Seivice which is recruited entirely from
England, and the Provincial Educational Service the members of
which are appointed in India itself, in practice, and it can hardly
be doubted in intention also, results in all the most influential
and highly paid posts bein^ in the hands of Englishmen, The
excuse put forward by the Public Services Commission, which
was appointed ostensibly to do away with just such abuses, was
that the Imperial Educational Service consisted of a "corps
d'elite," implying that its members were men of exceptional
educational ability. We may accept the u.se of the word " elite "
if we interpret it as meaning "chosen" rather than "choice,"
for it is clear to all who know the relative merits of the members
of the two services that the difference consists mainly in the
fact that in tlie one case the members are chosen because of
their race, and in the other for their educational qualifications
only.

That the Indian people have so patiently endured this patent
injustice, in the Department of the Government Service in which
of all others the " natives " of the country might be expected to
have had the largest say, is a proof that the Indians are a long-
suffering people.

When we reali.se that the post of Director of Public Instruc-
tion in every Province is held by a European, who in many
cases does not even possess a working knowledge of the verna-
cular of the Province the educational policy of which he directs,
we see the absurdity of the position.

In the Departments of Public Instruction tncre were in
December 191. 5 only 14 Indians employed in the higher posts
as a']jainst 379 Europeans.

When Lord Curzon was Viceroy he was anxious to " improve "
the educational policy of the Government of India, and with
that purpose in view he held a secret Conference in Simla to
which Directors of Public Instruction and other educational of-
ficials, as well as some educational missionaries, were invited.
But by carefully excluding Indians, both official and non-official,
he clearly revealed the official point of view. Could a greater
insult have been offered to the Indian people than for the
Viceroy thus to express his contempt for the opinions of the
people over whom he had been appointed the ruler ?

But it may be asked why more private institutions are not
founded by Indians themselves without any connection with the
British Government. Experience has proved the hopelessness of
the attempts. The odds are too great. Institutions started with
the hope of carrying on education in accordance with Hindu
ideals fall a prey to the abnormal appetite for exploitation which
the Government displays in the educational as in other depart-
ments. The Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College at Lahore, the
Tata Institute of Science, and the latest attempt, the Hindu
University at Benares are examples of such institutions. Each
and every one, either directly or indirectly, falls under Govern-
ment control. Those which resolutely refuse Government aid
are able, it is true, to carry out their education according to
their own ideas, but they do so under the constant and galling
suspicion of Government officials and especially of the Police.

An example of the extent to which Government controls
or influences the policy of institutions under Indian management
occurred recently in Delhi which, being the capital, one would
have expected to possess enlightened and sympathetic admini-
strators. A School for Hindu Girls received a grant-in-aid from
Government. The Lady Superintendent, a European sympathetic
to Indian aspirations, opened in connectioa with the School a

Library and Reading room in which " Home Rule " literature
was provided for the parents and friends of the pupils. Im-
mediately the reading-room became a rendezvous for police and
detectives. A threat was launched against the Committee of
Management that unless the reading-room were closed or the
Superintendent dismissed the grant-in-aid would be discontinued.
Such is the ' liberty ' enjoyed by a school sti-uggling to carry
on the work which the Government has neglected. This " Home
Rule " literature was not seditious but dealt with perfectly con-
stitutional methods of agitating for self-government, but the
power to with old the grant-in-aid was too good an opportunity
for tyranny to be lost by the small-minded official who possessed
that power.

Enough has been said to show that the Educational policy
of the present Government in India needs to undergo drastic
changes. Briefly to sum up the faults of the present system,
(l). It is not sufficiently widespread and does not lay enough

emphasis on the crying need for elementary education.
(2) Being largely directed by Europeans who require high
salaries and view Indian educational problems from the
standpoint of Western experience, it is loo expensive
for a poor country like India.
(3). Instead of the Vernaculars being used as the medium
, of instruction English is insisted upon, with the result
that a large pait of the pupil's time is spent on acquiring
a knowledge of a foreign language. This means that
the period of education is prolonged and thus the expense
is increased.
(4). Even the English Professors who teach in Government
Colleges are not compelled to learn the vernacular of
the students whom they teach. This results in a lack
of efficiency, and still more serious in a lack of sympathy
between teachers and students.
(5). The education is too purely literary in character and by
its exaggerated emphasis on the student's proficiency

in the English language, results in strangling originality
of thought. The system produces very excellent clerks
able to do the office work of the Government, but does
not djvelope independence and originality.
(6). The number of scientific and industrial institutions wh2re
Indian boys can get a training for practical industrial
enterprises is so small tliat much of the practical work
of industrial development has to be done by foreigners
or by students who have been able to afford a training
in some foreign country.
(7). Any improvements suggested by Government officials
generally resolve themselves into an increase in the cost
of education on the plea of greater efficiency. Good.
buildings and expensive apparatus are no doubt excellent
adjuncts to good teaching, but in India elementary
education could be introduced broadcast with buildings
made with mud walls and thatch.
The conclusion one is forced to, in face of the facts, is that
until India has self-government the fiults of her present educa-
tional system are not likely to be rectified. That other mistakes
will be made is inevitable, but they will be her own mistakes
and not those of foreign rulers. That the people of a country
of such ancient lineage and noble tra:iition3 as India should be
denied the ri;^ht to control their own education is contrary to
the most elementary principles of liberty. Self-government in
educational matters, as in other respects, is essential for India if
she is to escape the shipwreck to which those States are doomed
which fail to educate their children. Without self-government
she will stagnate in the midst of a world of progress, with it
she will advance in the front rank of progressive nations. The
sole excuse given by a conquering nation when it occupies a
foreign country is the progress and education which accompany
that occupation. Indeed that progress would be the only excuse
for their violence to the ideals of liberty if it were, as they .say,
the consequence of it. From this point of view one must juige

the iriorality of Imperialistic rule. In the case of India the
statistics of education rise against England as a most formidable
accusation. She is responsible before Humanity for the state
of intellectual stagnation in which tliree hundred million people
find themselves placed. It is Humanity and its Future which
claim the ending of this slaveiy of darkness. No longer can
the highest human dignity be sacrificed to the material interests
of the exploiters of a country which has been the Light of the
World.

Jidy 2jth, TQry.

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For India

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Full text of "For India. With an introd. by Paul Richard"

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