The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1907. SEDITIOUS INDIANS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13298, 29 May 1907, Page 4

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1907. SEDITIOUS INDIANS.

The prosecutions and convictions of natives implicated ; in the recent disturbances in . Eastern Bengal should act as a salutary warning that the Liberals in England, who are at titties identified with impracticable theories of self-government- for all parts of the Empire, will tolerate no practices that strike at the security of. India. , On a previous occasion wa: have drawn attention to the demand on the part of a section of the Indian for Home Rule, supported -by a quotation from a speech in which Sir Henry Campbill-Bannerman made the statement that " good government could never be a for government. by the people themselves.'' It will be remembered that in. the course''of his: address in Timaru, Mr Devlin made excellent use of this quotation in support of his plea for Irish autonomy, but we doubt whether the most ardent Nationalist would readily agree , to the extension of the argument to the" native races- of India. The remark is perfectly tome in the case of a people who have been trained to selfgovernment, biit it is quite inappropriate to a country like India inhabited by a population which is split up by racial, religious, and linguistic differences. India," says, a recent writer, " which is as large as all Europe with the exception of Russia, and equally varied in race, religion and language, could no more be ruled by a national parliament than could a Europe made up of such discordant" elements as Maygar Hungary, Latin France, Teutonic Germany, Ottoman Turkey, and Slavonic ' Servia." Yet a national parliament is what the leaders of the recent political movements in India have set before themselves and before the mass of the people, who have been thrown into a ferment of by their agitation. Prominent amongst these leaders is the president of the "National Congress," a Parsee who ".has occupied a seat in the House of Commons, and who ha>s taken back to India with him a desire to establish representative institutions iri his own country. Taking as his text the sentence we have quoted from 'Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman s speech, this Indian Nationalist inferred that the present system on which- India is /-governed is " a barbarous despotism, unworthy of British instincts, principles and 'civilisation." No doubt to an educated and enlightened Indian who .has -had the ability to effect an entrance into die -Imperial legislature, the bureaucratic system on which India is controlled must appear an anachronism and a gross injustice, and it may be taken for granted that as his own type becomes more numerous among his countrymen, the political work of government will have to be made over to them in a greater and greater degree. But in tlie meantime the majority of the people are not ready to exercise the responsibilities of self-goveriunent, or to promote the economic reforms of which the

country, with its congested and rapidly increasing population, stands in urgent need. There are educated Indians—some of them members of the .Supreme Court Bench—who have • assimilated European ideas so thoroughly as to realise their ability to the present conditions of the country, but there are others who see in misguided political , agitations the opportunity for securing offices from which they are debarred under the 'present regime. It is to this unscrupulous class that the recent disturbances have been principally due, and it is satisfactory to find that its members are being treated irf a prompt and effective manner.