THE Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1907. THE INDIAN PERIL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 165, 12 July 1907, Page 4

THE Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1907. THE INDIAN PERIL.

For the cause that lacks easU>tance, Tor the wrong that needs resistance For the future in the distance, A.u<i the goed tbat we can do.

It is one of many striking proofs of the high intelligence and remarliable capacity of the Hindus that what is perhaps the most pregnant comment yet made upon the Indian unrest should fall from the lips of one of their native rulers. The Maharajah of Kashmir, a powerful prince who has always been loyal and well disposed to the British, has said that the true cause of the disorder that is now so unhappily widespread in India is the system of education introduced by England. The danger of the system lies not in the diffusion of knowledge or the cultivation of independence of thought, but in the practice of rewarding mental proficiency with the outward and visible signs of dignity or distinction so dear to the Oriental mind. The great universities at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Allahabad, and Lahore, specially established and designed to provide . "higher .education" for the natives, swarm with students, and, as the Maharajah says, turn out graduates by the thousand. A large percentage of these have no regular occupation, and either become attached to the native Press, -which is outspokenly "Nationalist" in tone, or take up the profession of popular agitators: It is to this cause more than any other that the Maharajah, one of the most astute and far-seeing rulers in India, attributes the spread of revolutionary ideas and the growth of the desire for national and political independence.

The Oriental, as we have repeatedly had occasion to point out, differs widely from the European in the fundamental features of his mind and his moral nature. But the difference is certainly not a

matter of mere intelligence. The Oriental has proved, times without number, that in the more or less mechanical -work of acquiring knowledge, he at least equals the European, while in the passing of examination tests, on which the rewards of higher education usually depend, he is positively unsurpassable. How does this remarkable facility for gaining degrees and passing official tests affect the question at issue? The answer is to be found in the policy that England has adopted in India ever since the modern gospel of democratic liberalism became her own political watchword. The Hindus have learned from English teachers and politicians that as to moral rights all men are equal; and they know that England has adopted throughout her administrative and educational systems the principle of competitive examination as a test of fitness for office. Moreover, England has generally upheld the dogma of nationalism, which, carried to its logical conclusion, would assuredly secure the right of governing India for its own people. Now they know from experience that they can pass any examinations that Government or the Universities like to set; and that they can generally pass such tests better than Europeans. They have shown that tney can carry out official duties in native states with great success; they make excellent civil judges or tax commissioners, or local administrators, if only their duties are carefully prescribed. Naturally enorgh they have been led to infer that their well-tried intelligence is a sufficient qualification for any sort of public office; and .on the lines in which England has been trying to govern India for many years past, it is very difficult to find any argument that even appears to disprove the case set up by those who have raised the Nationalist cry: "India for the Hindus."

Of course* there is an adequate reply to the claims of the Hindus to govern their country for themselves. It is simply that intelligence alone does not make men fit to rule themselves or others. With all his merits the Oriental is, as a rule, conspicuously lacking in those qualities -which have placed the British race at the head of civilised nations as rulers and administrators.—.

fixity of purpose, definiteness oi aim, an enthusiasm for public duties and a keen sense of justice. These, certainly, have been the national qualities -which, as illustrated by our Great Empire builders, and by the hosts of subordinates who hare served their ends, have made England -what she is among the Great Powers of the earth.

Of course we cannot expect that the Oriental will admit or even understand this !all-important truth. That, however, would be of little importance if England were still prepared to rule as the founders of her Empire were accustomed to rule the "silent, sullen peoples" whom they taught to respect and fear if not always to love them. But the British conception of government seems to have undergone in recent years a curious and radical change. The aim of England, as expressed by many of the leading statesmen of the last half century, appears to be chiefly to win the approbation, or the goodwill of the uncivilised races dependent upon her. Under the disintegrating influence of modern political sophisms, England's old self-reliance and strenuous force of moral conviction seems to be corroding away. Englishmen to-day, it has been well said, "doubt if they have any longer any moral right to rule anyone, themselves almost included." Such a view of life may be a source of sentimental satisfaction to those who hold it, but it certainly means the abnegation of Empire. And herein lies the most serious peril that England has to face in India. She must cease to attempt the futile task of inducing the natives to welcome and' Tejoice in her rule; for that, in view of the gulf between the Eastern and Western mind, is a hopeless impossibility. She must "be content to do her duty to the subject races; "to do justice and to love mercy," to elevate their standards of conduct and their views of life, and to govern their country in no selfish spirit, but chiefly for the benefit of the native peoples themselves. But if she once admits that her subjects are as fit as Englishmen to rule, she can have no answer left for the Hindu Nationalist and the Babu agitator; and our Indian Empire will pass from us for ever.