OUTLOOK IN INDIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3143, 13 November 1922, Page 8

OUTLOOK IN INDIA.

There is only too much evidence, says Sir Valentine Chirol in the Quarterly Review, that racial bitterness and suspicion are greater in India to-day than at any time since the Mutiny; greater even than during the Mutiny, outside the relatively small area to which the outbreak of 1857 was confined. The bitterness and suspicion, which are not limited entirely to the Indian side, arc constantly fed by the mischievous utterances of British reactionaries. An ominous symptom is the rapidity with which the infection spreads among the masses whose loyalty and contentment had been taken for granted. Racial antagonism has imported fresh difficulties into the whole scheme of constitutional evolution, embodied in the statute of 1919. Gandhi's original campaign was directed mainly against the reforms themselves, and it completely failed, lint the hope that the "politi-cally-minded" classes would rally wholeheartedly to the side «f the Government was only partly fulfilled. The large Indian majority in the new popular assemblages "jibbed" at the word repression, though they did not deny that Gandhi's Non-Co-operators were, in many cases, actual as well as potential lawbreakers. They were swayed by sentiment rather than by reason. Some feared unpopularity, and others remembered the shadow of Amritsar. Sound' and couragous judgment is, after all, the fruit of long training in real responsibility for real power, and only recently has this responsibility been granted. The Indian point of view hay also been influenced by the lamentable trend of events in Ireland, and, in <Hiite another direction, by Mr Churchill's attitude towards British Indians ill" the colonies. There are grievances of a more material order. India had fat years during tho war. when her exports prospered, but they have been followed by desperately lean yeatrs, resulting in widespread economic depression and in grave financial embarrassment, both for the central and the provincial governments. It was contemplated that the departments transferred to Indian Ministers in the provinces would be in a position to dea.l more liberally with education sanitation, pub-lie works, etc., which are the things that India really wants. Instead, the departments have been starved as never before, and popular expectations have been grievously disappointed. Vehement complaints l are made in all provinces that the contributions to be raa*de from the provincial exchequers to that of the Government of India are excessive, and the Government of Tndia is in far too deepi financial waters to reduce them at present, though bound in principle to reduce them as soon as possible. The last two All-India Budgets have shown deficit*; of £18.000.000 and £20,000.000, and have involved heavy increases l of taxation. The Indians see and resent that both the deficits put together represent less than the loss inflicted upon India by a disastrous currency and exchange' policy, for which the Government must bear the blame, even if it originated m Whitehall, rather than in Delhi. Against the whole weight of Indian evidence, before a special commission of inquiry, an attempt was made to take advantage of the artificial rise in. the price of sliver during the war, in order to "stabilise" the rupee at the exchange rate of 2s. A temporary boom sent the rupee up to 2s lOd; then it fell continuously, till at the time o!' writing it was slightlv below the old level of Is -Id. ' The Indian Exchequer suffered .enormous losses on its jwn exchange operations, and tho ivholo trade of Indian was paralysed. Indian merchants, threatened in many ■ases with ruin, appealed for compensation or help, and were told that the l'ovemmont disclaimed all responsibilty. Tho shock was disastrous, both to Britain's reputation for business ca>acity and to its credit for good faith. \'o less unfortunate is the fact that in ' his and last year's Budgets its miliary expenditure which swallows up icarly half the revenue, and is niainy responsible for the increasing bur- : len of taxation. Tbo question to be faced, concludes ' lir Valentino Chirol, is whether Bri- f ain is determined to go through with ho constitutional experiment, and to ccept the implications of Rarliamentry institutions in India, even it' they arry matters further and faster than riginally intended. Indians who sineroly desire to maintain the British | onnection do not regard their new . (institution as an experiment, but as s n irrevocable charter. But many \ ndians believe that neither the Bri- , ish Government nor the British peo- * \(i consider themselves finally com- |. litfed to the new relationship estab- j shed between India and the Empire. ~ ito .Mr Montagu's downfall and Mr < hui'chill's ascendancy in the Cabinet j. icy read the menace of reactionary s iiccs at home. The acid test of British J ncerity will be, above all. the ques- ' j. on of military expenditure, and that ;l Ihe treatment of Indians in the !, (lonics. .Mr Srinavasa Sastri, on his iturn to India, said that ho believed << ou-Co-opcvratioii to be dead, but he unded a grave note of warning, ad•cssed to British .Ministers. He had ~, sver known, he said, ''such profound j. strust of Government a.s existed to- ~ iv, such absolute lack of faith in \\ eir sincerity, such a roted tendency ... put aside all pledges, promises, and tr . iclarations as of no value whatever." f' "" l»i YA bile no evidence has been accuniu- fij. red on the subject as a result of ex- St riinents, it is almost universally i»- Ti yjniscd that strawberry clover is one st the richest milk producing fodder E\ nits. It is more valuable than Lotus cr ijor. sa A waterside worker stated at the co auganui Court (says rjie Herald) da at for the past seven months his earn- ha i« did not average more than £2 th r week at the Wanganui wharf. Out this he had to pay £1 per week rent d keep a family of two. at A curious point in workmen's com- un isation has just been settled- by the 131 glisb Court, of Appeal. A collier who bei I not drink or smoke was in the habit tin carrying a nut in his mouth, ap- hoi ently lor much the same reason Fe it some people carry chewing-gum. he< e day while at work he slipped and far ; and the nut was jerked down hia wn lupine, suffocating him. The Court cuj d that the accident was "in the ma rse of his employment," and entitled me widow to recover. he