INDIA’S GRIEVANCES

Hokitika Guardian, 18 November 1930, Page 8

INDIA’S GRIEVANCES

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.

BRITISH PRESTIGE DIMINISHED

VANCOUVER, October 11

Enlightening comment on the historical background of India’s present unrest was given to the Canadian Club here by Rev. Charles D. Donald, a Canadian.missionary, who has lived in Central India for the past 15 years.

The complex difficulties which must >e overcome before a solution is found can best be faced around the conference table said Mr Donald. For that reason lie expressed the hope that enough men of reasonable outlook and common sense would assemble at the round table conference in London to arrive at conclusions acceptable to all. Air Donald told how India had been a nation of. successive changes of government until the British came, frankly not to govern or to do good, hut to trade .“In the days of James I. it would have seemed absurd to. any Englishman to imagine that the people of that little isle could conquer the domains of the Groat Alogu!,’ he sad. ‘Nevertheless, by force of eircumstan•c.s, often reluctantly, tin; East India Company found its authority extend;ng until the, mutiny upset everything. BENEFITS OF BRITISH RULE. “Britain has brought peace to India he sad. “Peafe had not been known for hundreds of years. When the Nationalists now talk of the days of a ontury ago as the golden age, they lo not paint .a true picturp. India has ieue.fi.ted from Britain, in peace, in mity, in a common language, m educat on.”

There was room for criticism in edu-

•ational policy, he said, as perhaps there was in .British Cwlunibia, but on -he whole it had resuited in good. Some t me ago many educated Indians had ifleeted not to, know their own language but that was an evil conditio;n. To-day •'t was unpopular to weaij European :!otlies. Eyen in the Christian 'churches the Indians ,wished to ,s‘ng Indian ■lymng to Indian instrumental music. I’his outburst of nationalism was part's- due to personal treatment. Gandhi a university graduate and an em ent barrister, had been treated as a coolie in South Africa. Patronising of Indians by merchants and officials was even worse than oppression. Ibe ift tilde of British Dominions to Lilians had affected the situation. Gandli said the reason Canada excluded Indians hut had a “gentlemen’s agreement” with Japan was that Japan had in armv and navy. PLEA. FOR CONSIDER ATTON. Applause greeted Mr Donald’s plea for diplomatic and considerable statement of Canada’s exclusion policy. A reasonable statement would be respected |,y Indians, he said. Education had also wrought a change .The missions were blamed for this, hut Air Donald observed that the Britsh Government had spent much more on education that the missions. It was the Government that had placed in the hands of Indian students the speeches of Burke, Pitt and others on the American Revolution, and had led Indians to consider there position as analogous to that of the American colonists .The fact that Europeans had the right to be tried by Europeans instead of Indian magistrates was a source of friction .

On top of this had come the war. The army of India, the best-trained force in the war, had been removed, •md India had loyally remained calm without the pressure of military force. India had sent more men to the war than Canada. Australia and New Zealand combined. Then, in a time of war weariness, had come the story of Russian gold plotting disturbances, and the introduction of the drastic defence of the Realm Act. “ft may have boon necessary,’ he -said, “hut it came at an unfortunate time, and was eontmrv to the wishes of India’s political classes. It seemed to them to he what lnd : a was getting for her devotion during the war.”

SIMON COAIAIISSTON RESENTED

He recalled the rioting, and .the Armitsar massacre, which, although it was effective in quelling the d'stnrbanoe, was subsequently condemned by the British Government as an exercise of excessive force. Then had come the Simon Commission, which was resented by the Indians. They pointed to the fact, that Canadians had drafted the

R.N.A. Act, that Australians had drawn up the Commonwealth Act, and asked why a British Parliamentary; commission should settle Indian atrans.

. . men l nail been slow in meeting this criticism. The Government bad also lost prestige through imposition of the increased land tax and. the subsequent findings by a commission tnat the policy was not justified.