THE UNREST IN INDIA.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 290, 1 September 1908, Page 8

THE UNREST IN INDIA.

Last night, in tho Courtenay Place Congregational Church, a very interesting lecture was delivered by Miss A., J. Harband on the subject of tho unrest in India.. The Hon. G. Fowlds presided, and there was a fair attendance.. Miss Harband,- who jseems to have a thorough grasp of her subject, briefly sketched tho history of European rulo in India, that great country whose history for over a thousand years before Christ had been told in. song and story..Coming to re r cent years, she told of tho establishment of educational institutions in India, and the efforts made by the Government, to find Government employment - for those who graduated from these schools. Tho desire to securo such employment led the Hindoos to enter the'schools, not for tho sake of the knowledge they would gain, but of the lucrative employment it would lead to, and tho rosult wa.s that soon those schools were educating a very large number of youths for whom no Government employment could bo. found. It wa's among .these educated unemployed that the present discontent aroso:.' Miss Harband drew a lurid; picture of tho events of recent acts of violence, and described the 1 proofs that had been discovered of treacherous conspiracies, and the open way in which natives in different parts were forming themselves into volunteer companies and drilling themselves. She considered tho present position a very serious one, but at tho same" t-imo. slio said there was no doubt that tho majority of tho educated Hindoos were loyal, and in support of this-statement she quoted from ono eminent Hindoo after' another, tributes to the beneficence, of English rulo and assurances that whatever might be the destiny of India in far-off years she must'for many a year to come be content with alien ruta Tho network of railways with which England had covered India had, she said, been of inestimable value to '{lie people of the country t and still more valuable had been tho great irrigation schemes which England had carried out for them. One of these schemes had made 150,000 acrcs of land available for rico cultivation for the support of 400,000 human beings.' Miss Harband criticised tho present scheme of education,'which was too literary and academic. In some of the great manufacturing towns, for instance, where there aro people skilled in all sorts of metal and jewel work, and whore the children have been accustomed to follow generation after generation in tho father's steps, it was not advis-. able that they should now be (riven an education which makes them unwilling to become artificers themselves. ' A technical a;nd agricultural education was advocated by many. In conclusion, Miss Harband niado a strong plea for help in mission' work, and said th*t in the spread of Christian teaching was to bo found tho true solution of the Indian problem. '