Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1922. INDIA AND THE EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 10, 12 July 1922, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1922. INDIA AND THE EMPIRE

The oldest civilisation in the Empire and the youngest may be said to have been face to face at the luncheon given by the New Zealand Parliament yesterday to the distinguished visitor from India who is travelling round the Empire as the representative of the Indian Government. The civilisation of this country is not yet a century old. For the origin of the civilisation of India nothing like an exact date can be fixed, but it is certain that when the Aryan invaders streamed through the Himalayan passes into the Punjab they had not only centuries of civilisation behind them but also found a highly developed civilisation well established in the land to which they had come. And the date of this invasion was about four thousand years ago. Such an antiquity makes not only the youngest of the British Dominions but Britain herself appear a mushroom growth in comparison. India had a literature and a philosophy while the savage inhabitants of Britain were still relying upon the occasional visits of Phoenician traders for their first introduction to a genuine civilisation. The conquest of the country, first by Home and afterwards by the Normans, set it on the high road to civilisation and power, but these great events in its history were about two thousand and three thousand years respectively after two advanced civilisations had begun their competition for the domination of India.

The fact, to which we referred yesterday, that Mr. Srinivasa Sastri is said to claim a descent of five thousand years serves to give a sort of personal emphasis to the venerable antiquity of India. When the Emir Feisul visited England shortly after the Armistice, the representative of one of the best families in the land thought it right to open conversation by displaying " the glories of his blood and state." "Tell him," said this strange compound of the statesman and snob to the interpreter, " that the family of the s traces its descent through fifteen generations of English history." " That is good," replied the Emir. "My number is forty-seven." This number would take him right back to the days of the Prophet. But Mr. Sastri's score of about a.hun-dred-and-fifty generations would bring him within measurable distance of where the old-fashioned chronologies placed Adam. In that famous passage which Gibbon concludes with the famous prophecy that "the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial eagle of the House of Austria" —a prophecy which the Great War has fulfilled—he writes of what he regards as the most illustrious family in the world as follows: N

The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious in the world. After- a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and princes of Em-ope are lost in the darkness of the Middle Ages; but, in the vast equality of the Empire of China, the posterity of Confucius have maintained above two thousand two hundred years their peaceful honours and perpetual succession.

An antiquity which antedates not merely the greatest families of Europe but even the beginnings of English history is undoubtedly very respectable, but the family of Mr. Sastri had apparently been going about three thousand years .when the pedigree of Confucius began.

In size no less than in antiquity the contrast between the oldest and greatest of the Dependencies and the youngest and smallest of the Dominions is striking. The area of New Zealand is 104,910 square miles, and that of'lndia 1,8Q3,000 square miles. The disparity in population is still more remarkable, for India has a population of 320,000,000, which is more than three hundred times our own. No less than three-fourths of the population of the British Empire belongs to India, while our own population is less than .25 per cent. These figures may serve to give us some vague idea of the size and the greatness of India, and to suggest that her claims, whatever we may think of them, are at least to be considered with modesty and respect. Before the war our relations with India were neither'intimate nor satisfactory. Not one of the Dominions appreciated its responsibility in regard to India, and most of them gave serious trouble to the Imperial Government and genvß-off ...so t.. th. eaople W ItoM* b# jtheiiv*sßtri.triors PB iwoi&rfk'

tion. The comradeship of the Great War and the wise decision of the Indian Government, to which Mr. Sastri referred yesterday, have fortunately removed the chief cause of trouble. So far as 3STew Zealand is concerned, it is very gratifying to know that there is no cause of estrangement except the ignorance which is still profound on both sides. " There is nothing to-day so prominent," said,Mr. Sastri, "as the likelihood of a clash between East and West." Such a catastrophe would come very near to wrecking j civilisation itself, but if any human agency can avert it, he is satisfied " that there is none so well qualified to perform this high mission as the British Empire." Of the second of the great clashes between East and .West Matthew j Arnold wrote:

The brooding "East with awe tieheld Her impious younger world. The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd, And on her head was hurl'd. The East bow'd low before the blast In patient, deep disdain, She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again. "The. impious younger world" seems to fit the rough-and-ready methods by which the Dominions were protecting themselves with little regard to the susceptibilities of India, at least as well as it fits the methods of ancient' Rome, but that peril has fortunately passed. "The impious younger world" with which the East may now come into conflict covers the whole civilisation of the West, and there is no question of -.- a " brooding East" looking on with awe and bowing its head while the legions of Europe thunder past.. It would be a battle to the death, and the averting of it may be Britain's greatest service to the world. *