INDIA & SELF GOVERNMENT

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14769, 7 October 1921, Page 3

INDIA & SELF GOVERNMENT

BISHOP WELDON AND BRITISH RULE In the course of an interview recently, the Hean of Durham (Bishop Weldon) 1 remarked that it bad been Hie n'ustom of statesmen to contrast Hie success of Die British Government in India with Hie failure in Ireland, but the cry of self-government or selfdetermination was beginning to be heard in India as well as in IrelandIndia comprised not one nation, but many nations, and if the British Baj were done away with, the Pax-Brilan-nica would be lost to India. India could not afford to dispense with the protective authority of Great Britain, tut the greater the share which the natives of India could exercise in the government of their own country, uie stronger and surer would be the peace which reigned. It would not ultimately matter how frail might he the formal bond of union between Great Britain so long as the spirit of India was loyal lo Hie British Baj. It was not, in Iris judgment, impossible to persuade Hie leaders of native opinion in India that the prosperity of their country was bound up with Hie British Baj. High-minded an I instructed Indan gentlemen realised, he thought, that it was Hie British Government of India which gave India the best chance of development. The participation in the citizenship of the British Empire, a participation, as he hoped,, on equal terms, was a guarantee of the thousand opportunities from which Indians would be shut out if they were not citizens of the Empire. If (ircat Britain would not he as powerful as she was without India, Inch i would be far less powerful without Great Britain. In Hie task of drawing together the British and Indian people ho. looked to the princes of India to play a conspicuous part. j