INDIA

Evening Star, Issue 17920, 16 March 1922, Page 5

INDIA

THE PRINCE'S. TOUR.

POSITION REVIEWED

Press Association-By Telegraph-Copyright,

DELHI, March 14.

'The special Press representative with the Prince, reviewing tho tour and the present position of affairs, says that the arrest of Gandhi and the resignation of Mr Montagu overshadowed tho closing scenes of the Prince’s visit in official circles, civil and military. The hope has arrain arisen that tho Government has at last determined on a firm policy of suppression of tho rebellion, tho protection of loyal Indians, and the sweeping away of the atmosphere of_ suspicion ana uncertainty which is poisoning all the services. Ho hears on all sides such expressions as: “Wo are in for an explosion when tho Prince loaves. Let us get it over clear the air, and end the uncertainty which is paralysing all official and commercial India-.” Ho declares that a crisis is inevitable, and urges.the need for dca.insr firmly with the Gandhist agitation. He declares that the Prince’s tour has not influenced the political situation one rvay or tho other, and it is idle to assort that tho Prince’s personality has been felt by the majority of the people. Ho has teen littlo or nothing of the majority of the natives the precautionary measures lor his safety having prevented free intercourse with them. It is a mistake to think that he has won a single convert from the Gandhist movement. Tho correspondent points out that tho passage through the British-governed portion of the country was characterised by boycotts varying in extent and by rioting in Bombay and Madras. In® Prince acquitted himself in a. delicate and difficult task with characteristic tact,_ and made tho riffiit impression on tne native rulers. It had been suggested that if he had been permitted to go opoi(Iy through the bazaars, even during the hartals, it would have caused a reaction of feeling in his favor on tho part of the impressionable natives, who would acclaim him as a popular hero j but the winter is unable to say how far this would have been justified, 'file tour, however, bad in no sense been a failure, and the correspondent cannot see how, under the circumstances, it could have been a greater success. —A. and N.Z. Cable.

VALUE OF TOUR ESTIMATED. LONDON, .March 15. (Received March 16, at 11 a.m.) The correspondent of ‘ The Times,’ in reviewing the Prince’s visit to India, states that the effect of the visit was to make conditions better. Tins was_ chiefly due to his personality. What evil there was came from sediition mongers. The Prince did all he could to outweigh the evil. The correspondent adds: “I believe that a preponderance of opinion in India will be that the visit has done much good. Apart from all the immediate controversies, the Prince has gained a knowledge of India which cannot fail to be of value to the Empire. Finally, it is no less important that the attention ofthe Press, Parliament, and people of England should bo directed to the seriousness of conditions in India.”—‘Times.’

MB MONTAGU AND THE CABINET.

LORD CURZON’S EXPLANATION,

LONDON, March 14.

In the House of Lords Lord Curzon said that Mr Montagu’s action gravely affected the position of British delegates at the forthcoming Near East Conference at Paris. At a Cabinet meeting held on March 5 he suggested to Mr Montagu that the publication of Lord Reading’s despatch should not be authorised without reference to Cabinet, and was dumbfounded to learn that Mr Montagu had already authorised the publication. He naturally thought it was too late to intervene. Subsequently he wrote to Mr Montagu privately, protesting against a repetition of such an occurrence. He regretted that Mr Montagu, instead of speaking in the House of Commons, wont to his constituency. He traversed both their conversation and his letter, in which, after deploring Mr Montagu’s action, he said that if he, when Viceroy, had ventured tiius to refer publicly to European countries’ foreign policies, he would have been recalled. The letter went on to state that Mr Chamberlain agreed that it was intolerable that a subordinate Government like that of India should seek to dictate the lines of thought Britain ought to follow as regards Thrace and Smyrna. Earl Crewe agreed that Mr Montagu had broken the Cabinet proprieties, the effect of which on Europe and India was a most important consideration. The opinions of the Government of India were well known ; therefore ho thought the publication was not likely to affect the Near East Conference. —A. and N.Z. Cable.

CONGRESS AT DURBAN

PROPOSED HARTAL FAILS,

CAPE TOWN, March 15. (Received March 16, at 12.45 a.rn.) The Indian Congress at Durban, attempted to enforce a hartal as a mark of sympathy in connection with Gandhi’s arrest. The stores were closed in some of the Indian quarters, but the Indian workers generally ignored tho order.—A. and N.Z. Cable.

GANDHI’S INFLUENCE. A man of aus'fl-ro habits and irreproachable private life, Gandhi is regarded by his fanatical followers as a saint if not the incarnation of a deity. He was born in 1869, of a family noted for generations for political service in the province of Kathiawar, his father having been Prime Minister of Porbaijdar for twenty-live years. He matriculated at Ahrnadabad, and in 1888 went to London, where he graduated at the London University, attended lectures at Vie Inner Temple, and was called to tho Bar. Upon returning to India he practised law in Rajkot, and became an advocate of the High Court of Bombay. In 1893 he went to South Africa in connection with an important law suit in Pretoria, A high-caste Hindu, with grandfather, father, and uncle chief Ministers of their several courts, with Prince Ranjitsinhji as his personal friend, proud of his British citiasnship, he sought to instil a sense of civic responsibility in the Indian community, founded the Natal Indian Congress, and presently became an advocate of tho Supreme Court of Natal. During tho South African War he played a plucky part in fh« formation of the Indian Ambulance Corps, and was specially mentioned in General Bailor’s despatches. During the later native rebellion in Natal he .was sergeant-major of the Indian Stretcher-bearer Corps. In tho days of tho Rand plague he undoubtedly saved Johannesburg from disaster. The story of the splendid service of the Eastern sons of the Empire, when Sir Redvers Duller described Gandhi as “ assistant superintendent,” ought not to bo forgotten. It was an Indian contingent that bore the brave son of Lord Roberts seven miles to the base hospital at Chieveley; it was Mr Gandhi who helped to cany General Woodgate from the field; the Indian stretcherbearers who faced the hottest fire of the war between Spion Kop and Fresa, and saved the lives of British soldiers,

With this splendid past behind him Gandhi returned to India to become, by the force of fanatical idealism, the leader of a movement that has resulted in some of the most atrocious crimes in the recent history of India. Two are typical of the bitter fruits of Gandhi's policy. In the spring of IS2O the Muslim wing of the revolutionary party led by Gandhi inveigled many thousands of simple cultivators into that gigantic trek into Afghanistan with their cattle and the rest of their movable wealth. Many perished, many survived to live lives hardly distinguishable from lives of slavery in The inhospitable mountains, of Central Asia. but nerhaw more returned, a train of.

miserable beggars'who camo back through the Khybar Pass only a few weeks_ later, fooled out of everything they had in the ■world. It was the British and the iln tish Government who provided these poor people with food and helped them to their homes. ... Just a year later the Hindu agitators rivalled this performance, .tempting some thousands 'of coolies on the Assam tea gardens to trek back to the village where they or their parents had been horn, ine object of embroiling them with o°W™' ment was attained by encouraging them in tho idea that they should be given free passes to travel by .rail and steamboat. When this was not allowed, and cholera had broken out among the crowded emigrants, the agitators clinched matters by organising a steamship strike, ? , , i le " disappeared, leaving it to the Moderate politicians to charter a boat to carry the victims of this fine stroke of Indian national policy on. . Gandhi himself disclaims all violence, but, seemingly regardless of the consequences until the evil is done—after w recent rioting in Bombay he undertook a fast, ac, a penance —ho preaches/ doctrines that by his following can be translated; only in terms of violence. His_ ideal is a sort of medieval Utopia, in which luma will bo independent of the outside world, the old medieval handcrafts will be revived, and by some miracle the ccntuncsold lend between Moslem and Hindu will bo no more. To attain this goal his means is non-co-operation. This 16 more than the passive resistance known in Western countries, which interferes with no other man’s rights and duties, and abhors violence. Gandhi’s “non-co-operation ” has taken many forms. Prom a tram strike to a wholesale refusal to beget children, there is hardly a menace to Indian well-being which has not been preached or attempted. Kerosene lamps have been discarded in thousands of shops for earthenware chiragha; business debts have been repudiated; trains havo'been derailed ; minor Government officials have been boycotted; and threatening letters have rained upon Indiana with a wider vision and a larger patriotism. The latest development threatened at Gandhi's instigation is mass civil disobedience, which, if carried into effect, would reduce India, to anarchy.