INDIAN ASPIRATIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18025, 21 May 1930, Page 9

INDIAN ASPIRATIONS.

(To the Editor.) Sir. —Considering that your correspondent "Cosmopolitan” expresses such a decided disbelief ,in some o. my recent statements about India feel I am placed on my honour to make a further effort to convince him. -• am sure he has not disproved my assertion (which* should be taken m • general' sense) that the Governmen 'does not aim at fitting the Indians 1. rule themselves,. Theoretical opportunity is not necessarily worth its fan. , - value. Let us see what facts and n 0 . ures about Indian Civil Service meal Not long ago Dr. J. 1. Sunderkrts stated that 8000 European official, draw yearly salaries totalling £13,930,-, 554, while 130,000 Indian (sixteen . times as many) also in the Civil beivice, receive. £3,284,163, or one quaiter the nay. Thus we see that the ; average Indian in the service receives about one sixty-fourth of the average European salary. Therefore there mus either be very few highly-paid Indian billets available, or very few can get into the lucrative posts. And wny anyway, should there be a difference of 6400 per sent., between.two mens salaries?. It is revealed in a biography of Professor Sir J.. C. Bose, who has •„ been awarded King’s Honours, "and who in the Science of Physics has astounded the world, that in his struggling days he was, after much' opposition from 'British official circles, assisted by the Governor-General into the position ol professor in the Calcutta University—here, though working full time with full efficiency, his status as an Indian V caused him to receive only one third ■ the customary salary. Then he so distinguished himself that at last he revived full pay. What opportunity does the present educational system of India offer for the training of India s genius? - Let us first glance at what ii once was. Max Muller on the strength ■' of official documents and a missionary report concerning education in Benga prior to British occupation, asserts that there were. 80,000 native schools ! in Bengal, while Ludlow, in his History j of India, says that “in every Hindu j village which has retained its old form I I am assured that the children genei- 1 ally are able to read and write and ' cypher, but where we have swept away the village system, as in Bengal the village school has also disappeared.” It would need a new letter to traoe this fall from an .original state of literacy to the present state of illiteracy—l am, etc., R. E. HANSEN. Some excisions have been made in the foregoing letter. The writer will probably appreciate the reason.: —Ed W.T. . " .... ■■ ; ■*.