The Government of India.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16259, 9 July 1918, Page 6

The Government of India.

For most people "Home Ilule" means the Irish question, but Ireland is not the only part of the Empire in which there is a Homo Rule movement fruitful of difficulty and trouble to the Bri- : tish Government, and not entirely without some danger to the Empire. The Home Rulo movement in India has not figured very largely in the news, but it is a serious movement, involving a problem which may in time become tho largost of all for Imporial statesmen. As in Ireland, the Nationalist movement has in India chosen this particular time, when the Empire is engaged in a life-and-death strugglo, to become aggressive. Genorally conducted on constitutional lines, tho agitation has in tho hands of somo of its leaders turnod into downright sedition. Following upon tho internment of Mrs Besant and other agitators, and their snbsoquont release on an understanding that they should abstain from further seditious propaganda, tho Secretary of State for India announced that he was commissioned by tho Government to visit India, and there discuss ways and moans of sottling a policy for the gradual development of self-govorn-ment. The report which has now been issued is tho result of Mr Montagu's investigations. The grievance of thoso who desire to sco India raised to the status of a Dominion is not that India is ill-governed, for the government of India is wiso and beneficial on the whole. What they complain of is that the people of India are not allowod to govern themselves, and they appear to hold that any kind of selfgovernment is better than even the wisest and most beneficial kind of government by an alien race. Thoy are not rising against an oppressor; they are merely asserting a principle, without much reference to tho surrounding facts. A well-known Indian journalist, Mr St. Nilial Singh, puts the case for "national self-exprossion" in a temperate article in the last "Fort- " nightly Reviow." He rules out, as antiquated by the unforeseen part of India in this war of liberation, the prewar declarations against Dominion selfgovernment for India which wero made by various British Ministers. The war, with its oifect .upon the Indian desire for self-exprossion, had intensified tho dissatisfaction of tho people of India with the existing system, which he re-

gards as based on ignorance and want of sympathy on the. part of British politicians. The Government of India is "dominated by permanent'officials," and, from the Executivo Council downwards, practically all the effective officials are non-Indians. "No matter "what Department of the Government "is examined," Mr Singh declares, "one finds that the direction of affairs "is not in Indian hands," and the number of Indians in the Legislative Councils is so small, and their rights are so restricted, that Indians have no effective voice in administration. "Thoughtful Indians," he says, are profoundly dissatisfied with this stato of things, and tho dissatisfaction increases as the educated cominunity grows in strength. Concrete demands were put forward by a joint committee appointed by tho Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. They proposed that of State should have the same relation to the Government of India as tho Secretary of State for the Colonics has to the Dominions; that all Executive Councils should be composed of men drawn from the public life of Britain and India, half at least being Indians elected by the Indian representatives in the Legislative Councils ; that Executive Councils be provided for the Provinces; that the Imperial Legislative Council of India should consist of 150 members, four-fifths of whom should bo elected; and that official control over institutions of local self-government be removed. The report now presented to Parliament goes a considerable distance towards accepting the Congress-League programme, and is a really substantial advance.

It must not be supposed that the Home Rule movoment has gono on unopposed. Its opponents iu India aro found in all classes and amongst all the different races of people. That tho Home Rule movemont is really expressive of the feelings of India's millions is stoutly donied by the Anglo-Indian Press, which was both amused and indignant at Mr Montagu's silent tour, '.luring which, instead of propounding any policy, he heard countloss deputations, ■ and filed a great number of patent constitutions. These journals contend that if the Homo Rule demand were granted, thoro would be substituted for the present Government a system of govemmout by the oligarchy of European-speaking natives. "We " admit," said the representatives of the European and Anglo-Indian Federation to Mr Montagu at Delhi last Novomber, "that thoro is a dosiro on "the part of an advanced section of "educated Indians to place the actual "government of the country largely in "Indian hands, but wo hold that this " desire is not shared by ali educated "sections, nor does it extend to the " vast majority of the Indian peoples, "who would prefer things to remain as "they aro." The Anglo-Indians generally look with dread upon any proposal which, by weakening the British rule, would givo full play to the conflict of interests of the different races, roligions, castes, and sects, and would moan government by a bureaucracy neither disinterested nor efficient. They are in favour of progress and reform, but they believo that reform should begin at the bottom and should for the present be ccnfincd to the field of local government, that education and experience and tho development of a national character should precede selfgovernment, and that as yet the Indian masses aro not fitted to undortake tho management of, or to givo any direction to, the affairs of tlile country.