Evening Post. THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1931. THE INDIAN JANUS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 95, 23 April 1931, Page 10

Evening Post. THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1931. THE INDIAN JANUS

Lord Irwin left India on Saturday afler what the King in a well-de-served message of appreciation and congratulation describes as "five years of exceptional difficulty." If we are to accept the less balanced tributes of the Labour and Liberal Press, these five years of exceptional difficulty have also been years of exceptional success.

Lord Irwin, says the "Daily Herald," had tho imagination to realise, while others had still failed to realise, the need for a bold policy of satisfaction and appeasement. Ho has had- tho courage to carry that policy through.

But even in a valedictory tribute the writer of which is, of course, as i Johnson said of the writer of an epitaph, "not upon oath," such talk is 1 absurd. Lord Irwin has had the i imagination lo see that a policy of satisfaction and appeasement was needed, and the courage to make a start with it. Not only, however, has he failed to carry it through; he has !not even carried it far enough to i prove that it can be carried through. 1 That will be the task of his successor, or, more probably, of a number of his successors, and it may demand a courage equal to that of Lord Irwin 'himself and -an even higher degree of statesmanship. Tlie> appalling difficulties of that task will not be lightened by the tendency to assume that | the substance of it has already been accomplished, and that more concesjsions and more formulae will comjplete the solution of as difficult and perilous a problem as any nation was ever called upon to face. The sentimental weakness _ which seeks to minimise difficulties by ignoring them was revealed in a striking fashion by those members' of all parties in the House of Commons who cabled their congratulations to Lord Irwin on the conclusion of the settlement which he made with Mr. Gandhi on the sth March:—

"We, members of the House of Commons, send our grateful thanks and heartiost congratulations to you on 'your magnificent and successful efforts Ito bring peace, prosperity, concord, and happiness to the peoples of India and I Britain.

There were rejoicings in India as well as in the House of Commons over the settlement, but- to the former at: any rate a contributing element was I what many Indian patriots regarded | as the surrender of the Government. With strict impartiality, the "Times" i rebuked the hasty conclusions of both sides. There is, it said, no prospect of complete tranquillity just because Lord Irwin has convinced Mr. Gandhi that the way of co-operation is better than the .way of conflict. Nor is there any sense in talking about surrender until it is clear that some vital concession is made to the forces, of disorder.

The calling off of the civil disobedience movement and the discontinuance of the boycott of British goods "as a polilical weapon" were great i gains for the Government, but the i"unaggressive" picketing of British' goods was to continue, and the right to manufacture salt, which was the primary objective of Mr. Gandhi's illegal campaign, was in large measure conceded. It is difficult to understand how M.P.'s of all parlies can have sent iheir unreserved congratulations to ihc Viceroy on the "magnificent and successful efforts" which had' purchased a truce with Mr. Gandhi at such a price, and one might have supposed the salt-tax concession lo be a "vital concession to the forces of disorder" within the meaning of the "Times."

When Mr. Gandhi went to the seashore a year ago to make salt, said Mr. Churchill, in the House of Commons on tho 12th March, ho was not looking for salt, he was looking for trouble. Ho was looking for means of flouting the Government and compelling them to arrest him, and now he has compelled tho Government^ to recognise the propriety of his action. He has elevated Ms deliberately solected broach of the law into a trophy ofvictory, tho significance of which will bo appreciated from the Himalayas to Ceylon.

Mr. Churchill is subject lo discount as an incorrigible Die-hard, but on this point his criticism of Lord Irwin scorns a good deal nearer lo (he mark than the exuberance of the congratulations which we havo quoted. Yel In ils warm approval of the set-

tlemcnt ihc British Press, including the "Times," appears lo lake the opposiLe view. The comment of live rank and file of ihe imprisoned lawbreakers i'urihcr discounted ihc hopes of peace. On their release from the Yeravda j gaol, a thousand polilical prisoners regarded their freedom as a hugo victory, and shouted at every European, "Down with tho Union Jack," and "Wo will always boycoLt British goods." Through a deplorable blunder on the part, of the authorities they were in complete ignorance of ihe lerms of fixe agreement under which they were released. Whether Mr. Gandhi issued tho definite orders to his followers to make the terms known, without which, as a Calcutta message reported on the 10th March, "the agreemenL will be a failure," we have not been informed, but our last report of his activities is very far from encouraging. For a few weeks after the successful issue of his negotiations with the Viceroy he was preaching peace to the hotheads of the Congress with promising results, but a few days ago Mr. V. J. Patal, the President of the Congress, was talking Avar instead,. and instead of checking him Mr. Gandhi has backed him up. ' The ostensible object of Mr. Patal's tour among .the Bombay peasants is said to be to persuade them lo abide by the terms of the IrwinGandhi agreement, but he has not stuck punctiliously lo his briel. Either Congress must rule India with six months, he says, or fight for complete independence, and a fight fiercer and intenser than the -world .has yet seen would commence in this landof non-violence. And, addressing peasants in his own district of Gujerat, the saintly Mr. Gandhi1 supports his own »lea for peace with an appeal not only to their warlike but to their lawless and predatory instincts. In their loyalty lo his civil disobedience campaign many of them have lost their land, but he assures them that it all will be restored under Swaraj. Wo shall havo complete solf-rulo within the next few months, or Vallabahi Patal, othor Congress leaders, and myself will again, bo behind prison bars, said Mr. Gandhi. "Complete self-rule within the next few months" is, of course, a sheer impossibility, so that Mr. Gandhi is really preaching peace and war in the same breath. On the Ist February the "Manchester Guardian" attacked one of Mr. Churchill's Indian speeches under the surprising title "Mahatma and Mountebank." It was not flattering to Mr. Churchill, but the Mountebank has one advantage over the Mahatma —he does not face two ways at once.