The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1932. INDIAN UNREST.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1932, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1932. INDIAN UNREST.

In the course of an article, on Indian unrest, a we'd known writer says that naturally the policy of the Government of l.ndila is to preserve Jaw and order and at the same time to further the process of constitution making. The policy of Lord Willingdon was hailed as a wel'Oine change, but Lord Irwin has declared that there has been no change: that the present policy would have keen his in present conditions. Those conditions have very sensibly changed; the Round-Table Conference has sat in London; special committees have just toured India; conciliation has been tried and bias failed after reopens ion had been tried and had jil »o failed. It is true that the polio;, of lofty contempt of Gandhi when lie inarched to the sea did not kill the movenn v, as was expected, with ridicule, and i i that there was a gross miscalculation of the Indian character; but it i"' more than doubtful

whether the arrest of Gandhi when he set out from A limed a bad, or, as has been suggested, the arrest of the Congress leaders when they proclaimed independence at Lahore, would have seriously checked the movement. Storms have arisen and have subsided; but the Nationalist movement has advanced like the advancing tide. No amount of elaborate reasoning by Moderates, no “rallying to the Government:”; no a endemic exhortation to non-violence, no ordinances combined with the stern rigour of the law, no conciliations or pacts, will put an end to the movement of the Congress. To imagine otherwise is to misread the Indian people. One thing and one.thing only will achieve that desirable end and bring peace to India. The waning of popular enthusiasm, which may no doubt he furthered by the removal of the ablest and most influential of the leaders,, the disillusionment of self-deceived boys and girls, inflamed by what they read and what they hear, the disappointment of the innumerable villagers at the non-realisation of golden hopes—these are the things which will in the end bring about peace. There are signs that the height of the curve has been reached and that it is now on the downward grade; and itl that Lord Willingdon is more fortunate than was Lord Irwin. But we must expect to bear of fresh outbreaks and even of new murders, even if the storm be recoding. In all probability, the last twitterings will not die away until an Act of Parliament establishes an Indian Government in being on the lines that have been and are being worked out now from the time of the Simon Commission to the present moment.