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Evening Star, Issue 13104, 10 November 1908, Page 4

Following closely on the King’s recent proclamation to the people Anarchy la of India comes news of a India. frreh outbreak of murderous fanaticism. To what extent the conspiracy of which the latest attack upon the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal is an indication has taken hold upon the people at large it is impossible to say, but the Calcutta ‘ Englishman ’ believes that the propaganda of the Anarchists lias gone deeper and secured a wider range than the world seems disposed to admit. It is true that we have heard somewhat similar statements before, and so far as legislation is able to cope with the disease it has done so. But the strength and extent of a conspiracy against the constituted authorities and tlie established order of things arc, from their very nature, hard to diagnose and difficult to ascertain. All that can be asserted with definiteness is that unrest among the educated natives does exist, that it is deliberately festered by the more daring spirits among them, and’ that as a consequence there have been assassinations, bomb-throwings, and calls to exterminate the hated feringee, who is denounced as the source and cause of all. Beyond these general propositions there is little to lay hc>kl of. We know the aims of the Indian Homo Buie party, from their own declarations, and how they propose to obtain them, and we are constantly being reminded of the savagery of their methods. Chief among the evangelists of the new gospel were Mr Tilak, who was recently deported and has found his way to England; Babu Chundra Pal, who has plainly avowed that the object of his policy is not the good government of India, but the absolute independence of his country from Travanconi to the Himalayas; and (Mr J. Chowdbury. It is the last named whose son, by his murderous attack upon Lieu-tenant-Governor Fraser, has reduced the teachings of his father to practice. (Mr Chowdbury, it may be recalled, was Mr Keir Hardies guide, philosopher, and friend on the occasion of that Labor Leader’s famous tour through India. “God,” declared Mr Chowdbury, “hadsent “Mr Hardie to demolish the gigantic con“spiracy against the Hindus.” In the light of recent ©vents this eulogy of Mr Hardie is interesting, alike for the evidence it affords of Mr Chowdbury’s knowledge and his intentions. Every Englishman knows that there is no conspiracy against the Hindu people, unless the devotion and sacrifice of the best English minds to the service of India can be designated a conspiracy. The withdrawal of England from India, or, what is tantamount to the same thing, the handing of India over to native Home Rule—it cannot be too often in-

slsted, in view of the repetition of absurd statements that are light-heartedly utteredby ignorant humanitarians and sentimen* talists—would be to abandon over 300,000,000 people to internal anarchy, and to create a scramble among the Powers without, of course, advancing native independence by so much as a hair’s breadth. To such a dishonorable retreat, to such a shameless reversal of all that has gone to the making and up-building of British India, tho Imperial Government will never stoop. Among the last words spoken in the House of Commons by tho present Secretary for India were these: “Any dis- “ cussion as to the future in India must be “founded on the assumption that British “rule will continue, ought to continue, and “must continue.” This, too, was the spirit of His Majesty’s proclamation of last week, and we have not tho shadow of doubt that it will continue to bo the spirit in which Englishmen of every shade of political opinion will always approach the problem of Indian government. That sedition will wholly die out is perhaps too much to hope, but it can be made largely innocuous and kept within well-defined limits. The India of to-day is very different to the India of the Great Mutiny. The British Army now on the spot is highly mobile, possesses the most efficient artillery, numbers 70.000 instead of 18,000 available in 1857, and can be transported almost anywhere by railway. There arc, besides, some 40.000 reliable and well-trained volunteers in the principal cities whose services can bo counted on in any real emergency. The hold that England has over India will never be relaxed, for the simple reason that it is in tho best interests of the myriad and diverse native population that British rule shall always bo firmly and equitably maintained.