INDIA'S FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 10, 12 July 1922, Page 9

INDIA'S FUTURE

| FULL LIBERTY DESIRED WITHIN OR WITHOUT THE EMPIRE MR. SASTRI'S ELOQUENT STATE- ' MENT. An eloquent statement of India's case was made by the Rt. - Hon, Srinivasa Sas.tri, when addressing members of the New Zealand Parliament yesterday. Mr. ' Sastri showed that a rankling grievance was fraught with great danger and might drive India to seek full liberty outside the Empire. It was the duty of the Dominions, where , the ideal was Jield of an Empire comprising equal uations, to assist India to obtain that equality which would assure the stability and power for the good of the Empire.

"There was nothing more prominent to-day," said Mr. Sastri, "than the possible clash of East and West, the probable conflict of civilisations which had come together, not perhaps of their own motion, but under the- will of Providence, for ends greater than they could see to-day. They were all alike bound in 1 duty to see that that clash, that conflict, were averted if possible, and if it were possible for any human agency to avert that catastrophe, he knew of none so. well qualified to perform this high aim as the British Empire. The British Empire, more than any other political institution, was the meeting-ground of races, "of civilisations, of countries, of continents. It has been tested many a time before, and it will still be tested, and we want to be sure that British statesmanship (and in that expression I include Indian statesmanship) . will be quite equal to any trials_ by which our Empire may be tested in the future." A SIGNIFICANT MOVEMENT. "In India," Mr. Sastri continued, "there was prevalent a movement of much significance. He had no time to state the exact proportions and lineaments of that movement, but its main feature could be indicated in a few sentences. There was a large number of people in India, but not alarmingly large, who were content to help the Empire' during the war, but who were now anxiously examining whether they should commit the present and future generations to participation in the Empire. They were wondering if the rest of the Empire understood India's a.pirations. Were the authorities in Whitehall, influenced by the opinions in the Dominions, fully aware of what India would demand if she were to take her place among the nations of the Empire? That demand, in the eyes of India, was nothing unreasonable. It had been granted in advance by declarations of policy of the leading statesmen, by promises and pledges, but the fulfilment of those declarations, promises, and pledges had been rather slow in coming. The history of modern India was all written in letters that anyone might read, and students of the Indian universities, the men who wore to be the citizens of the future in India and in the Empire, were now asking themselves whether they would be'doing right in asking their people to identify themselves with the Empire.

" TRUE LIBERTY. - "We are anxious to- enable them to answer in the affirmative. lam a believer in the Empire. lam an admirer of the qualities of courage and pluck that have built the Empire, and I believe that there is; soon to be added to those qualities a desire to distribute equitably the benefits of Empire among the countries which compose it." Among the great part of the white populations of the Empire there was a love of liberty, not the sham liberty that was concerned* with self alone, but the liberty that desired to extend it to all deserving and loyal neighbours. With the sympathy and support of those representatives, tliey still hoped to keep India loyal and oontented within the Empire, looking for her salvation within the bounds of this Empire, knowing that going outside would be tmnpting Providence, and bringing upon herself risks and perils and calamities, which it was difficult even to imagine. But there was a state of mind for a proud people with an inherited tradition, which would impel them to seek all perils, all calamities, in the pursuit of liberty. If, therefore, there weTe any inequalities which pressed hard upon the tender feelings of our fellow-citi-zens, we should all seek to remove'those inequalities. A SENSE OF GRIEVANCE. There was nothing that would dissolve the Empire so 60011 as a sense of grievance in a civilised community. There was a sense of grievance in India, and he was bound to say that there was a great deal that they were bound anxiously to examine. ,In India, they were not yet a Dominion, but he was not of those who believed that1' the present constitution was a sham. He believed that the present constitution wasi carefully applied, and would lead to better conditions, and, before long, to full Dominion status. Bht he was certainly anxious as to the position which the white populations of the Empire had hitherto accorded to Indians lawfully domiciled among them. The words "lawfully domiciled" were of importance. .There had been an- agreement that Indians should be kept in India, so I-hi t .the fear might be removed>from the Dominions that they would be swamped by people whom they could not assimilate, and who they feared might seriously affect their economic position. That agreement had been made, but the Indian representatives had asked that those who were in the Dominions before the exclusion should be treated fairly. In New Zealand, they had nothing to complain of. The Indians here were treated fairly. But in some other parts of the Empire they were subjected to disabilities and hardships, and even to indignities and humiliations, the description of which would appear as if they were happening, not in the British Empire, but in some barbarous community." He was not' there to fill their minds with alarm or suspicion, but he asked them to assist him to furnish thoee pessimists in India with proof that, provided they were lawfully domiciled, Indians would be treated as equal citizens in the Empire. ESSENTIAL FOR EMPIRE MAINTENANCE. That was a necessary condition to India loyally remaining within the Empire. They received many advantages and benefits from their Imperial con nection, but if it were a connection of which they could not be prond, they would eventually terminate it, and seek their destiny where inequalities .were not tolerated as deliberate policy. A rankling sense of injustice was a greater danger to the Empire than anything else they could think of. No foreign power, no international cataclysm, could shake the Empire as the sense of injustice, which was felt to be irremovable. He felt that the inequalities now in existence could be removed, and that the Empire would really bo of moral value to it. people—an Empire in which all deserving people were equal before the law. This Empire stood, if it stood for anything, for.abeohrte egtul-

ity for brotherhood among the nations. They were an association of free peoples, and they could not deny equality to India, and maintain that the Empire was free. In Great Britain, notwithstanding the healing and chastening influences of the war, the old feeling of Empire baaed on racial domination, on the superiority of one people to another, was still of some little power and strength. From Great Britain many of these inferior ideas of Empire—he would not use a stronger term—many of these lower ideas had been banished, but they were, to some extent, hindering the progress of this magnificent and superb idea of 'equality. A DOMINION- DUTY. * He was happy to think that in the Dominions these feelings were not discernible in any strength. It was then, it seemed to him, a duty resting upon the Dominion's to cleanse the Empire of everything that kept it back, and then the Empire would spring back at a bound to those realms of purity and pure justice where, once established, the British Empire would be coterminous with the Empire of justice, of equality, of humanity, and brotherhood. And from what they might term this lesser League of Nations, ideas of humanity and justice would spread outside, and they would .see the approach of that millennium which at present filled the minds only of poets and philosophers, but to which practical statesmen were now commencing to give consideration. Let them cleanse their house of every distemper, and make it a temple of freedom for all alike, who could use it for the benefit of humankind.

Tlie appreciation of Mr. Sastri's address was shown, when Mr. Massey called for three cheers for "Mr. Sastri, our fellow-citizen." Tho cheers were heartily given.