INDIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13937, 24 June 1909, Page 7

INDIA.

In an article in the National Review 011 "The New Spirit in India," Mr H. W. Nevinson expresses the conviction that India is 011 the verge of a national renaissance. Tlie long peace, easy communication, wide distribution of newspapers, the common use of English among the educated, close stuuy ol the lives and deeds of the leaders of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons —these all imply a new spirit which would have been wholly admirable had the English bureaucracy been able to appreciate it at its true worth, and guide it into the right channels. Unfortunately this has not been the case and the result is the widespread disloyalty that we see. It is impossible for one race to deny freedom to-an-otlier and rule it-to the true advantage of either. The worst is we are losing our reputation for justice. On every side societies are growing up for the promotion of Indian character quite independently of our influence. Mr Nevinson would meet all this with a sweet "reasonableuess and more primary schools. At present there are not one iu ten literate males. Also, there must be a ""change of heart" in the governing official class. But for India herself the present unrest holds out a promise of the highest possibilities, 110 matter how she may suffer in realising them. Are we then to sink from suppression into persecution and from persecution into atrocities? Or are we to welcome the spirit of freedom and nationality we have done so much to create? Such is the drift of the argument. As the converse of a sane Imperialism it is almost a clastic of mistaken political faith.