INDEANS PART IN THE WAR.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 July 1918, Page 4

INDEANS PART IN THE WAR.

(Contributed.)

For over thirty yeurs the Indian National Congress as passed resolutions in favour of a national militia, so that India could, if Britain were involved in a European war be of material help t » the Motherland, throwing its very considerable weight into the scales, but up to the present time nothing has eventuated as the outcome of these resolutions, which is a matter for regret today.

When England entered the great war her self-governed eoloies responded nobly to the call, and South Africa proved a source of help, rather than disintegrating factor. Had India and Ireland been self-governed countries, what might have been the outcome of their being allowed to serve in the same wav and to the some extent as other colonies have done.

The Indian peoples responded splendidly, claiming the right to volunteer for Imperial service abroad during the war; although much to England’s regret. the Indians have suffered under an extremely repressive heauerc.tlc .government-, under which they are not allowed to carry arms, although negroes and Malays may do so, and are not eligible for commissions' in the Armv.

According, to Airs Besant, President of the Tlieosopltical Society, and one of the greatest powers in India to-day. there are as many educated, cultc-red Indians, as there are people throughout Australasia,. yet they have no voice in the government of their own beloved country. AVliat does this mean?

Is our principal aim in India the promotion of the, welfare of the Indian peoples ? After one hundred years of British rule, the poverty of the people is appalling. According to Sir Charles Elliot seventy millions of (lie population of India do not know what- it is to have, hunger fully satisfied, and in 1903 (I. R. Gokhale, the great Indian patriot stated that forty millions of the population of India live on one meal a dnv.

Notwithstanding German plots, and the severe repression, as expressed by the administration of the Press Act ■uid the internment of the leaders of the “ Home Rule Movement ’’ (since released-, India remains loyal to the core. Recently at the Indian National Congress, the President, Airs Annie Besant. stated that ten million volunteers could he obtained in India, providing an opportunity. The campaigns in .Mesopotamia, Palestine and East Africa are being mainly carried oil by Indians, and ten millions are waiting to .serve the Imperial Government. Why are their services not accepted ? A large Indian Army could not be officered by Britishers, . therefore it would necessitate the granting of commissions to Indians.

One thing is certain —the greater service India renders, the more difficult will it he to with-hold measures for the immediate development of selfgovernment. Lot us look at the matter from a common sense standpoint.

Can New Z itlMl.-l afford to sond one tontli or nioro of her population. Britaiu having one-eighth-under arms, ami I Oil vo T rid in and her millions out of the question, four or five Indians can boi supported on what it costs to keep one married Now Zealander.

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