The Dominion SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1921. THE ROYAL VISIT TO INDIA

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 30, 29 October 1921, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1921. THE ROYAL VISIT TO INDIA

4 In the visit he is about to make to India the Prince of Wales has undertaken a very important Imperial mission, and one from which there is every reason to anticipate good results.. It has been suggested in some quarters that a Royal visit to India is inexpedient at this time on account of the unsettled state of the country, but these opinions are not held generally in India, . or amongst those in touch with Indian affairs. Recent cablegrams have statcd'that the threatened boycott of the Prince’s visit by the non-co-operators is not taken seriously, and that the newspapers, with the exception of a couple of non-co-opeia-tion organs, indicate that the Prince is assured of a hearty welcome. There does not seem to be any doubt that these favourable anticipations will be realised. Except in the region of the Moplah insurrection, which is a localised though intense outburst of fanaticism, the country appears to be in a quieter state now than at the beginning of this year, when the Duke of Connaught made an extended tour through the principal Provinces. Great efforts were made by the extremists to organise a boycott of the Duke’s visit, but although some isolated disturbances occurred, these efforts resulted on the whole in a complete fiasco. The Duke was everywhere well received. At Madras, for instance, as reports told at the time, he "was loyally welcomed by great crowds of Indians from all parts of Southern India,” and at Delhi, where he performed th? ceremony of inaugurating the Council of State and Legislative Assembly, he had a brilliant reception. The extremists had declared a state of deep mourning, but their efforts to create disaffection had no apparent effect, “the whole city being, in joyous mcod.”

Bearing these events in mind it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the extremists will again find themselves discomfited in their attempts to boycott the visit about to be made by the Prince oe Wales. The appearance of the Heir Apparent on Indian soil may be expected to appeal to a vast body of popular sentiment in India which is to all intents and purposes untouched by the non-co-operation agitation. The fact is sometimes overlooked that this agitation, at its maximum intensity, is a comparatively slight effervescence on the surface of Indian national life. It has no bearing on conditions in the various Native .States, whose rulers are much less tolerant of extremist agitation than the British Raj, and those who fake part in it constitute a very small part of the population of the Provinces which are under direct British rule. The loyalty of the Indian Princes and people was demonstrated unmistakably when His Majesty King George and Queen Mary visited India in 1912 and held the Coronation Durbar at Delhi, and there is every likelihood that in spite of all the non-co-oper-ators may do, Prince Edward will be received with similar demonstrations of loyalty. The Prince’s visit is the greatest event of its kind, since the Coronation Durbar, and may be expected to appeal with corresponding force to the imagination of the Indian people. The loyalty of the Indian masses, if it is partly instinctive, is in every way warranted by the substantial benefits of British rule. The standard by which these benefits ought to be measured was fairly indicated some time ago by Sir Michael O’Dwyer, a former Lieu-tenant-Governor of the Punjab, in an article in the Fortnightly Review. Writing as one who had served in Native States over an extended period, and in various capacities, Sir Michael O’Dwyer observed that, “A comparison of conditions in British India with those of Native States and of adjoining Oriental countries is particularly instructive; for our civilising work among an Oriental population, by tradition naturally conservative, often caste-ridden and usually-suspi-cious of change, should ba judged, not by Western, standards, but by those of indigenous Oriental Governments, whether dependent or independent.” He wonti on to show in detail that in regard to local selfgovernment, taxation, and other mktters, conditions in British India are invariably very much better than those which obtain in the Native States. For instance, “The writer’s personal experience of some 150 Native States, with a population of 35,000,000, is that the standard ot taxation in them ranges from 50 to 200 per cent, above, while the standard of comfort is much below that of adjoining British territories.” Sin Michael O’Dwyer further observed that several times, for reasons of administrative convenience, he endeavoured to effect exchanges of villages between British India and the adjoining Native States.

As a rule he found no objection, and in most cayes a strong desire, on the part of State villages, to comq under tho British flag; but he invariably found British villagers most strongly opposed to transfer to a Native State, even when the State was well governed, and the villages in question had been subject to it prior to British rule. Eventually it was accepted as a working pfTilciple that no British subjects should be transferred to State jurisdiction without their own consent. If it be argued that this steadfast determination to remain under the British flag is the crude view of ignoralft peasants devoid of political aspirations, the obvious rejoinder is that this class represents over 90 per cent, of the total population [i.e., 226,000,000 out of tho 241,000,000 people in British India]

As regards the “jiolitically mintted,” Sin Michael O’Dwyer pertinently remarked that some of these, who were untiring in their denunciations of British rule, might be expected to shake off alien domination by the simple expedient fc>f settling in a Native State and thus attaining the benefits of “Swaraj.” “But,” he added, “while subjects of Native States take the fullest advantage of and sometimes abuse the hospitality of British India, the converse is practically unknown. The chief reason is that Native States have a settled policy, and a speedy and effective way of dealing with dangerous agitators.” The three authors and chief promoters of the non-co-operation movement— Messrs. Gandhi, Mohamed Alt, and Shaukat Ali—are by birth subjects not of British India, but of Native States. These are facts which assist to set the conditions now ruling in India in their true perspective, and very definitely support a belief that the Prince of Wales will not lack a loyal welcome from the vast majority of the Indian people.