BULLY BRITAIN:

NZ Truth, Issue 115, 31 August 1907, Page 1

BULLY BRITAIN:

HER TYRANNY AND PERIL.

It is one: of the peculiarities of the ipersons whom Providence, Chan«e or Intrigue places m power m Great 'Britain that, m spite of any facts to the contrary, they are always perfectly ready to declare that the British . Empire is the best of all possible Empires, and', that this is an allsufficing reason for whatever occurs 1 herein-. It seems that every politician that, by any means, worms his way into any administrative position m Great Britain is extremely ready to take up at a moment's notice the position occupied by Voltaire's great literary creation,, Dr. Pangloss, who was the most thor-ough-going of Optimists ; and), therefore, m spite : of the fact that toe was the victim of the most horrid calamities, believed that the Universe j was regulated on the most admixalb-le j principles and by absolutely' perfect methods, and -that whatever frightful; misfortune overwhelmed , any -:. section of the human race, was ".'all for the best. " The various plutocratic poli■ticians that creep into power m Great Britain take up a precisely similar position with regard (to that portion of the Universe called the British Empire. According to those statesmen thm.zs_may be,, and generally are, exceetfingly bad m other parts of the world, hut m the British Empire they are as perfect as is possible for anything controlled by ifche wit of man. * * * Yet what is the condition- of things Ithat is beheld "by the impartial student when he contemplates the British Empire ? It is a condition of things that is by no means of sudi a nature as to ease the mind of anyibody but a fool, an ignoramus, or a man too lazy to make himself acquainted with the facts. Because a man who once bore arms against Great Britain— General Botha— has been made President of the .Transvaal: St is thought that all is well m. South Africa, bub to think • .sucti, a thing is to ignore some of the most, powerful and persistent feelings of tthe human heart. Botha, no doubt, much prefers being placed in -a governing position, at an exceedingly teood salary, to Tjeing a hunted rebel, refusing to. accept office under (the Power against which he fought, I and, no "doubt, too, the Boers, would 1 sooner be governed! by a Boer, such as is General Botha, than by an /Eng- ; •lisbman. Yet the hatred of the Boers j against the English, is not ■ thereby extinguished, and future events will ', show that the men and women do not j easily forget a frightful war m | iwhich their loved, ones have been shoib down by a professional soldiery. As for the English-speaking workmen of ! the Transvaal, what do we find'? Why, that British soldiers, the same men who shot down Boer men and women, are being used, with the apV. proval of this precious Liberal Government, to intimidate and to re- j iduce to subjection English workmen 5n the Transvaal • It is, however, evident that the British Goyernment. errs egregiously m assuming, ithit [trouble is over m South Africa.: ; , , In Ireland, trouble is more' acute, for while the Nationalists of that pountry arc declaring themselves profoundly dissatisfied with British rule under the Campbell-Bannerman Ministry, they are m their thousands (joining an organisation— the - Sinn Fein Society— that has for its v ol>jißPt the setting up of an independent Irish Parliament m Ireland— with or without the permission of the British (xoivernment; the Protestant- population of the province of Ulster is .being dragooned by British troops: m a .way that recalls the manner m which; jthe French Huguenots were dragooned m the sixteenth century, and later. There is, however, this difference, that while the Protestants of France offered armed resistance to their Government, the Protestants of Ireland, are doing no such thing. Yet their chief city is packed with an unscrupulous soldiery, and this soldiery is being xised to perform tasks that ti o -soldier expects to be called upon to perform. The Liberal Government's outrageous treatment of the men of Ulster is one of tbe tod^est blunders that it has made since it has been m office* and one of the greatest political; crimes, . , . fffie 'troUWes Tfl ireTanH), or ■ 1J» Sovith Sirica, do not, however, fill the British bourgeois with any t/Mog near .the

he contemplates what 'he calls "'the unrest" m India. Here, again, the Government is mainly responsible for the predicament m which it finds itself. The trouble is almost entirely the outcome of the. placing m the India Office of that . wretched backslider, "Honest- John". Morley. When men begin to call a public man . "honest" beware of him. - -His temptations become greater, -because he is aware that the people believe him to be better,, perhaps", . than his environment permits. Morley is, m- fact, a humbug. He is a- Positivist— -a member of the sceptical Church of Humanity founded by Auguste Comte. As such he would, if he : were consistent, —and m this respect, like Professor E. S. Beesley and other great < Positivists—refuse to be a party to the oppression of native races, and, • m ■ particular,* of the': people of that ..great, and], but- little understood, country of poverty-stricken brown people, India. 'John" Morley has, however, done absolutely nothing , since he has been m office for the amelioration of the condition of the Indian people. He has shown himself to be nofthing but a tool of the Indian bureaucrats./ It may be that he is. too old now to exhibit any force of character m the position into which he has climbed. It may be that he is incapable o f seeing through the plausible lies that are sure .to be poured . into his ears with the permanent understrappers of the Indian; Office, or . it may be that, like other •fuglemen of Freetrade, he believes m bleeding and oppressing the people of India as long as it appears fairly safe ■;. but it is quite certain that since he took office the discontent m India has very greatly increased, and that, indeed, things have come to a pass m India that has its dangers of a by no means slight character. John Morley .-has himself recognised some 'Of 'the danger, and has also exaggerated some of it for his own partisan purposes. It is now alleged by him that, by" his action m seizing the'lndian* patriot, Lala Lajpat Rai, he has overcome all the trouble, hut the facts do not 'justify, this assumption.: '■ ' ■'■'■*■ ' ■■'■■•■■ m ■ * . ■:'' "Mis Indian patriot", Lala Rajpat Rai, was not an insurgent or a sedi-tion-monger. On the contrary, he was a perfectly constitutional agitator against an iniquitous . impost — the Land Tax m the Punjaub. This man had soberly protested against the increase of the tax, and this protest, as a British subject, he had a right to make.; Yet he was ' suddenly arrested and deported; and, upon hearing it, one member of the House of Commons (Sir Howard .Vincent) saM that Rai ought to have been shot. Vincent is not, it is true, . ordinarily a supporter of the Government,- but the people of India "are not 'likely to have any feelings otheis. than those of hatred, when they meditate over the" dastardly' words of Vincent, considered iii connection with the dastardly conduct of Morley. In attempted justification of has action, Morley alleged that if Lala .Lajpat Rai had not been arrested,: the Sikh regiments would have risen, m the night, aradi thefe would have' been another Indian mutiny. There, is no good reason to believe that there is any, truth: m this statement, any more than there is m 'the assumption that Morley's action saved the Empire. There .are too, other gangers against which Morleyisrtf is useless. ••••..-■.- :''"■■ '•"■"■ * " ; * !.-.«■ .:. The truth, of the matter is that the condition of things m India is appalling. Morley takes credit to himself for very slightly reducing the salttax,, an odious impost that is felt most cruelly by the inhabitants of India, but the fact is that there is no justification for the salt-tax m any form,. The people of India know the value of salt, which ds a necessary of life that, owing to their great poverty, they find it difficult to purchase, and they should, therefore, have it tax free. There is abundant medical testimony that, without salt, the human body is subject to all kinds of frightful diseases. Leprosy is one of these diseases, and another is the Black Plague. In vast, thickly popu-. lated provinces of India the Black Plague rages all the time. These provinces are.thePunjaub (where England gets seme of ' the finest of. her soldiers), the United Provinces, and Bombay. Morley has himself admitted that the white residents of India are"' almost entirely immune from the tf*y«ges tit ike fciae k 'EUWP»a . ?*»

reason i§- that' the Black Plague flourishes best amongst the poorest - of the people, and ho European m India is so poor as the .poor natives of the country. The insistence upon the payment ;of this salt-tax m any form is an outrage that excites the gravest discontent m India.. * • ♦ The frightfyl amount of taxation extorted, from the overburdened and poverty-stricken people of India is paralleled by the scandalously unjust treatment of the natives of India with regard to the matter of positions m the Civil Service of that country. It has been recently shown that, out of 960 Civil Servants holding high 1 rank m India, only GO positions are filled by natives, the rest being occupied by Europeans. Such a condition of things as this cannot fail to excite the utmost discontent among the people who see 1 themselves thus discriminated against. What is probably found even more galling by the natives of India is the fact that the Indian railroads have the cars so arranged that it is actually the fact that, m their own country— in a country, be it borne m mind, m which the colored natives are enormously m 'the majority— there are what are abhorred as "Jim Crow" cars. These i are marked, "For Indians only." Nevertheless, the Europeans may goin and out of these cars. Yet into other cars, which are marked, "For Europeans only,"' Indians dare not venture. This insult to. an ancient a»d cultured people— whose brainpower is "by no means despicable, and who possessed a-« civilisation when their present rulers were native savages whose bodies were stained with woad— is a perpetual irritant to the people of India, and most 'bitterly resented. . . ' * , * *. ' Thus it will be seen that the Pan-' glosslike Optimism of the C,B. capitalistic clutch is not by any means justified. The Boers have not been mollified by the concession of selfgovernment, and the English-speaking people pf South Africa are becoming- as discontented as— indeed evenmore discontented than— the Boers. In Ireland, the Liberal Government finds itself face to face with an even worse condition of things than existed m that country m the days of Grlajdstondan coercion. As for India, although the Morley talk about a possible outbreak of the Sikhs was simply a gross exaggeration, there is certainly more than a probability of an eventual revolt of the people of India that will be of so formidable a nature as to cause the Empire to collapse like a house of cards. Tyranny cannot endure for ever, and. British rule m India is tyranny. With the collapse of the British Empire, there may come a time of European cataclysm that may lead to the conquest of Europe, or a large portion -thereof, by the peoples of Asia, and perhaps a period of semi-barbarism such as followed the fall of the Roman Empire. We may hope that such, a catastrophe will not overwhelm the human race, but It will not ibe averted by the statesmanship of the Camp-bell-Bamierm^h. crowd of alleged atatesmen.