The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1922. INDIAN PROBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 307, 28 December 1922, Page 4

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

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1922. INDIAN PROBLEMS.

Far the cause that lacks assiatvnm, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the $ood that tee can do.

There are two important items of Indian interest in our cable news to-day. The resolution to he moved in the Legislative Assembly for the gradual reduction of the number of British soldiers in India and the Indianisation of the army,

is another step in the Nationalist movement which seeks to replace British by Indians in all the services, civil and mili- j tary. Exactly what the mover has in j mind is not quite clear. Possibly he i would admit, if pressed hard enough, I that no date could safely be fixed for the withdrawal from India of the last white soldier. The proportion of white men in the services is, however, a grievance, and it is the policy of the Government to reduce that proportion. The Indianisation of the army opens up a difficult and complicated problem. The white army of occupation is part of the British Army. It bears a trifling proportion to the Indian population, hut the cost of its maintenance is a grievance stressed by the Nationalist agitator. The native army is largely officered by British soldiers, who have to a most remarkable degree the ability to win the ! respect and confidence and even affection <of their men. The. Indian soldier will ; often prefer the judgment of the latestjoined English subaltern to that of a venerable man of his own race. Sα officered, Indian regiments have fought magnificently in many campaigns its many land*. It is very doubtful whether anything like the same level of efficiency could be maintained under a system of purely Indian leadership. It is not only i that the standard of military skill might be seriously lowered, but. that the priceloss tradition of responsibility and incorruptibility might be. lost. At any rate, if Indians are to be admitted in large numbers to military positions nowi occupied by Britons the change will have, io he made carefully, with due regard to the education and character of the men. selected.

The mover of this army resolution is probably a constitutionalist. The summary of the proceedings at the 'National Congress throws light, nn the work of the unconstitutional wing of the Nationalist movement. Mr. Das, the president of the. Congress, is fiandhi's successor aa leader *f the non-co-operation agitation, and like that very remarkable man has seen the inside of an Indian gaol. On the highly important question of participation in politics, however, Mr. Das opposes the Gandhi policy. ("Jandhi ordered his followers to hold aloof both from candidature and voting in the politics of the Reform Act of 1910. Das wants to capture the Provincial Councils in the elections of next year, and turn them to the'i ends of his extremist policy. Xon-co-operators are to get elected to the Councils and then "demand their own constitution," and if they cannot obtain this to block all business. It has been recognised for some time that these elections will be a critical stage in Indian development, that if the non-co-operators are| able to obtain majorities on the Councils they may create a very difficult situation. The "Round Table ,, said recently

that the extremist politician was gradually realising that "the greatest tactical blunder Mr. Gandhi committed, and one which stamps him as licking in the political sense, was his boycott of the Councils at the first elections. In the then excited condition of the country the non-i co-operation party could have attained; a success at the polls which would have placed them in command of the Legislatures. They could have utilised this power either to mould policy according) to their ideas, or to wreck the Reform Scheme altogether by pursuing an intransigent attitude." Xext time, he predicted, the extremist politician all over India would seek entry to (he

Councils and would succeed in many of the constituencies. It remains to be seen how this prediction will be affected by the decision of the Xational Congress that to contest these e-lections waa "opposed to religion." Some explanation, would seem to be required of a decision, so directjy opposed to the President's wishes. At any rate the "Round Table" does not think that if non-co-operators succeed in entering the Councils theyi will lie as purely destructive as some of the hot-heads would have them be.

For the rest, this address of the Nationalist President is typical of the extremist movement in its disregard of facts and its advocacy of perilous courses. The plea for law and order he describes as "the last resource of bureaucracies." The people at Multan who recently indulged in an old-time Hindis Mohammedan riot, and then telegraphed to the Government for a European magistrate to try the cases and a Euro. pean doctor to give injury certificates, possibly have ideas on this subject, and that of immediate "swaraj," different from those of Mr. Das. An Indian nation is in sight, in this gentleman"s opinion. It must be a very long sight. India's only hope lies in cautious progress, and fortunately there are signs that the really formidable non-co-operation movement, with its most dangerous collection of impossible ideals and flagrant inconsistencies, is not so powerful to-day as it was when Gandhi wae at large.