THE POSITION IN INDIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 170, 18 July 1907, Page 2

THE POSITION IN INDIA.

(To the Eclitor.J Sir, —A few truths about India. Star--1 vation and plague are being systematicalI ly fabricated in ndia by iiritish rule, by j three great and increasing wrongs:— (1) The drain from India year by year, without return, of £35,000,000, pumped out of the stomachs of the poorest population on the planet: (2) The payments in India of many millions more to white men; (3) The exaction of the I land revenue in money from the miserj able ryots, or peasants, of India before j the crops are garnered. These three inj famous pieces of injustice mean for ln- ! dia such ruin as the world has never yet seen on so enormous a scale. India has had a good harvest over the greater part of its territory. The revenue is "elastic." That is open to question, in so far as its elasticity is supposed to constitute evidence of prosperity. The Government of India in now a huge monopolist concern taking the profits of nearly all the railways, forests, public works, and so on. Now, the returns from the railways may swell when the masses of 1 the people are starving. The transport of food in famine years adds to the profits from the railways, and, as a matter of fact, used to enable the companies in such years to pay a bonus to their shareholders. Moreover, the greater the drain of wealth for nothing to England, the more earnings for the railways to I transport the produce. At any rate, the reason the revenue is "elastic" just now is not because the people are becoming better off, but because the foreign British Government is seizing upon nearly all revenue which in other countries i 3 left in private hands.—l am, etc., J.WJS. (To the Editor.) j Sir, —I am an Englishman who believes I that we have no moral right to govern anyone, and must disagree with you when you say, '"Such a view of life may be a source of sentimental satisfaction to those who hold it, but it certainly means the abnegation of the Empire." I maintain that our Empire could not be held together if England governed by teaching respect through fear. We ourselves should soon cease to be a part of the Empire if "fear" was the causa of our "respect" for the central authority. The Empire can stand only on the principle of gaining the love and goodwill of all its inhabitants. I do not see any great gulf between the minds of Hindus and English, other than that the Hindus have a higher standard of morality and possibly average intelligence. With equal educational advantages and standard of living, the masses of India, would be far superior to Europeans, and better able to govern themselves than we are to govern them. The more freedom of government we grant to India the more they will love v≤, and stronger will be the* bonds to bind us together. I don't believe in the narrow-minded cry. "India for the Hindus," "New Zealand for the New Zealanders," but rather "the world for its inhabitants." I trust that England and Englishmen will continue governing on lines which aim at winning the goodwill of the uncivilised races. The treatment given to the Boers by the present English Liberal Ministry, is, to my mind, the lines on which we should treat ev-ery dependency. should hold and help until the people are capable of governing themselves. This policy will de-

velop love and respect and annihilate fear. Xothing can break th« bonds of Empire founded on love, and no Empire can last if its bonds are founded on fear.—l am, etc., A. SANFORD.