The Hawera Star. THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1924. INDIA AND THE EMPIRE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 August 1924, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1924. INDIA AND THE EMPIRE.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawert, Manaia, N^rmanby. Okaiawa, Eltham, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Onangat, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Otakeho klanutahi, Alton, Barleyville, Mangatoki, Eaponga, Awatuna, Opunake,

Brigadier-General F. G, Stone contributed a very interesting article to the Fortnightly Review recently, throwing light upon the social status of the people of India where the ruling castes keep in absolute subjection the lower castes. The uninitiated and untravelled British citizen may well be pardoned for not knowing all that is implied in the demands made for Indians from time to time for “equal citizenship” within the Efnpire. The writer says that it should be understood that the impassioned cry of political India for “equal citizenship” as between Indians and British all over the Empire must not lead us to infer that the ruling castes in India are in any way desirous of waiving their caste privileges to bring about the “equal citizenship” of Indians In their own country. Tn other words, the doctrine of “equal citizenship’’ is to be applied ruthlessly outside India at the expense of the white men who have founded colonies and made homes in the wilderness, and won barbarous continents for civilisation—for the benefit of the parasitic Indian immigrants who, though incapable of carrying out an overseas colony or dominion for themselves, readily attach themselves to any community of white settlers; and, if unrestricted in numbers and admitted in equal citizenship, may ultimately reach a position of actual ascendancy in the Administration. Lord Winterton, who has for many years been a great student of India and her people, does not think that India herself is ready for selfGovernment, though he has not been unfavourable to the Montford Act giving India a measure of self-govern-ment. He said recently that about one-sixth (50,000,000) of the population of India were in the depressed classes or were outcastes. To show what that meant he. quoted the following from a writer in the London Times: “Let the reader imagine an England in which pig-keepers, barbers, charwomen, agricultural labourers and most unskilled workmen as well, tanners, publicans, brewers, gipsies, and fishermen were not merely forbidden to inter-marry or eat with the rest of the population, but were debarred access to all churches, were liable to be attacked if they were caught drawing or drinking water from public taps, were forbidden the use of respectable streets in many towns, and were in some bounties prevented by threats of violence from sending their children to board schools, all in the name of religion which, its expounders maintained, made these disabilities hereditary; then he will have some idea, of the situation of the outcaste in parts of India. . Lord Winterton’s suggestion to the people of India is the same as that offered by Brigadier-General Stone—-that the Indians should grant

“Swaraj” to the whole of flieir people before demanding “equal citizenship” in the Ship ire. Tlie problem is a very difficult one for the Empire's statesmen, for it has to be remembered that in the hour of the Empire’s trial the people of India did their part nobly and their assistance was very important at the time, but by it the Indians can hardly claim to have won for themselves the right to equal citizenship in the sense that it gives them freedom to settle in unlimited numbers in any part of the Empire, though naturally it is difficult to explain to Indians why such freedom of residence \in any part of the Empire is not desirable.