A BENGALI OF NOTE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 614, 17 September 1909, Page 6

A BENGALI OF NOTE.

.SURENDRA NATH BANERJEE INTERVIEWED' BY A NEW ZEALAXDER. : Surendra Nath Banerjee,' editor oC the Calcutta newspaper "Bengali,", must .be accounted a. force in Indian politics to-day. Hisspontaneous denunciation -of that reactionary fanaticism which swept over India and left a trail of violent crimes 'in its'wake, and; to which Sir George Curzon Wylie. was recently sacrificed -in London by the revolver of an assassin, was a happy augury of the steadying influence which, in the future, will be exerted by the'better-class natives of that exceedingly difficult country.. On.jiis return from the Imperial Press Conference, to which- ho was a .delegate,: Mr. Barferjee -was .. interviewed ■ at Calcutta by Mr. W. H. George, of Wellington, who was then tonring tho principal centres of India. Mr;. George-arrived-back in Wellington yesterday,.and, in 1 the course of a' conversation ■ with, a representative; of The Dominion,' referred'. to his. meeting with Mr. Banerjee. ■ ■; "I was. very deeply, impressed with' his attainments, the strenth of his' convictions; and his personality,", said Mr.- George. . "We discussed the 'Swadeshi' ("Boycott"), and the vexed question of the partition ,'of Bengal. i'eelinß ■ over the oxcise duty, on cotton-goods of Indian manufacture ran 1 very high, 1 : a good deal, of tho resentment, felt: by the natives being duo to an impression that'the .excise duty was 'engineered'-- by-tho Manchester Mills in England.". _■ The worst trouble originated with the native students. "There are, a number of notable exceptions, of course; but' to me it seemed that the average student, , although he has "in a ; remarkable-' degreo ' the capacity for reproducing what he has studied, 1 he is unable to construct for himself any original ideas. He has to be supervised all the<time;. The average well-educated .Bengali has. peculiar notions of commercial- morality. He does , not think it wrong to favour his relatives'in his business transactions, nor to' cheat his helpless subordinates. They, have no stability of ■ character, .and'-hence' were very unreliable. "Ono of the saddest phases of apparently ineradicable native custom is- the pitiful' plight of tho child wives of India," said Mr. George, passing on to one of the'anost difficult problems which the British Government 'has V deal with. "There are 1 not wanting signs, .however," he said, "that 'a sentiment against the. custom is - steadily - growing among the best educated and most highly civilised natives, and this sentiment must, inevitably spread with the passing of the years, and in the course of time leavens the whole." . . ' -