TWO EASTERN LEADERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 112, 8 April 1930, Page 8

TWO EASTERN LEADERS

GANDHI AND DR. StIN-YAT-SEN. ADDRESS TO W.E.A. An interesting commentary on vhe lives of the well-known Eastern leaders, Gandhi and Dr. Sun-Yat-sen was made by Mr J. A. Brailsford, 8.A., tutor-organiser of the Workers’ Educational Association, in an address delivered at a well-attended meeting in the Oroua Hall last evening. Mr J. A. Nash, M.P., who presided, expressed his pleasure at being present. He had presided at several meetings of the W.E.A., and had been very interested in the movement. He had given what assistance he could n securing a grant in Parliament, and the efforts made had resulted in legislation being introduced to give local bodies authority to make grants. Mr Nash said he understood that the local municipal authority had not responded as was expected, which was unfortunate. It was hoped that such men as Mr Brailsford would continue their excellent work and in time enlist the interest and support of those who were in authority. PUBLIC PUZZLED. The public must often be puzzled by the newspaper reports of the operations of Gandhi, said the lecturer. One week he was shown to have lost all his influence and to appear a powerless fool whose policy of “soul-force” looked like a burst bubble. A few days later he was so dangerous an enemy that his arrest was imminent. Gandhi was the friend of the poor and the oppressed, and begged the people to put an end to the institution of “untouchability.” This seemed difficult to reconcile with the fact that Gandhi upheld the caste system. But untouchability was only one phase of caste. He was the champion of the cause of women, and was an earnest fighter against child marriage and against compulsory widowhood, especially of girls who were nominally widows through having being betrothed in childhood. Tracing the life of Gandhi, who is now 61 years of age, the speaker said that the Eastern leader’s father was Prime Minister of the little Indian State of Porbandar. At the age of 18 years he went to England to study law, was admitted as a barrister and returned to Bombay to practise. He found plenty of clients, despite The fact that he would abandon a case m court if he found that those for whom he was pleading had deceived him. tie refused to prosecute anyone for debt. After two years at Bombay he took up legal work in South Africa. There he found that Indians, were subjected to the worst humiliations by The whites. He stayed in Africa and legan a struggle with the South African authorities that lasted for 20 years. The outstanding fact was that his campaign of non-co-operation in South Africa was a complete success. PLAN OF NON-CO-OPERATION. Gandhi’s campaign of non-co-opera-tion with the British in India began only after the Great War. Two things had aroused his hostility. The Indian people had been led to believe that a verv large measure of independence would be granted them in consideration of their Help in the war; but they found instead that war-time restrictions on liberty were continued under the Rowlatt Bills. Then came the trouble with the Mohammedans of India concerning the fate of Turkey, and the shooting of hundreds of helpless unarmed men, women and children in the market place at Armritsar. Gandhi had ordered a peaceful protest, but in the Punjab the Indians became violent and riots occurred. A British commission of inquiry censured General Dyer and' had him dismissed, but his admirers in England lionised him and expressed approval of his action. Indian resentment waa deepened! “Since then Gandhi has steadily pursued his peaceful campaign for Indian independence,” said the speaker. “Three times he has been baulked by outbreaks of violence on the part of. his followers. In 1922 he was' tried and imprisoned on a charge of encouraging sedition by his writings. ' He had been working largely through the Indian National Congress, which had once given him dictatorial power to lead the national movement, but in 1925 he retired from poHtics and devoted himself to his religious retreat at Ahmedabad and to preaching the doctrine of the spinning wheel. But he was not a spent rocket, and continued his campaign of “soul-force,” as ho referred to the policy of passive resistance. “I do not know what the outcome will be, but perhaps Gandhi, like the poet Tagore, is more farsighted than many of us,” said the lecturer. * DR. SUN-YAT-SEN. It would be hard to find a statesman in modern history of the Far East who had had such a devoted following ns Dr. Sun-Yat-sen, said the speaker. Defeated again and again, he had never been deserted, but, in flight or exile, had retained his hold over those who looked to him as - the liberator of the Chinese people. His had been the tragic life of a great revolutionary idealist called to a task of reconstruction such as might have been impossible for any man. His face and his manner were those of the dreamer, and his political ideals were those of Utopia. SON OF POOR FARMER. ■ Destiny had worked largely in his life from earliest youth. He was born iii 1866, the eon of a poor farmer. His father seemed to have had less influence over him than his teacher, who was also his uncle. During the Taiping revolt the latter had been closely associated with its chief, Hung Hsiuehwan. He inspired the boy with the Taiping ideal so effectively that Sun was given the “nick name” of’ Hung Hsiu-chwan the second. The name •tuck, so did the ideal. Joining one of his brothers who had gone to Hawaii, Sun was sent to a mission school, where he became a converted 'Christian. His brother, in disgust, sent him back to China. He graduated in medicine at the University of Hong Kong. GREAT HARDSHIPS. He underwent great hardships during the next 17 years when he went in fear of his life. At one period there was a price of £IOO,OOO on his head. His greatest adventure was when he was kidnapped in London, and was saved from an ignominious death only bv the intervention of the British Foreign Minister. The revolution of 1911, which overthrew a dynasty, occurred while the doctor wasrin London, and he arrived in China to he appointed the first provisional president of the republic, and in conflict with the northern leader. Dr. Sun-Yat-sen gave way to the latter, but was disappointed "with his ministry and in 1913 headed a rebellion which proved unsuccessful and he fled to Japan. During the Great War the doctor returned to China to resume his struggle with his northern adversary who, however, died while a punitive expedition was being arranged. A parliament was set up at Canton with Dr. Sun as president, but

another leader had appointed himself president in the northern area and the struggle with these forces was resumed and continued until Dr. Sun’s death. The doctor was also in conflict with the foreign powers,- who held a good deal of control in China, particularly on account of their dominance of the Customs. He earned the dislike of the foreigners when be entered into a V»ooe agreemont with Russia. The doctor died at Pekin in 1925 and proved even more powerful in death than in life.