BRITISH PRESTIGE STILL HIGH IN INDIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 355, 16 May 1928, Page 11

BRITISH PRESTIGE STILL HIGH IN INDIA

NATIVES CONTENT MINISTER’S IMPRESSIONS At least 300,000,000 of India’s 320,000,000 of pepole were satisfied with British rule and appreciative of the benefits they receive under it.” This is the opinion of the Rev. E. Palgrave Davy, F.R.G.S., who returned to New Zealand by the Sussex this morning after spending four months in India. Mr. Davy, who came to New Zealand 15 years ago, was for 13 years engaged in missionary work near Simla, where Mrs. Davy was in charge of a dispensayr. Occupied in that work, Mr. and Mrs. Davy learned to appreciate the natives, and soon realised how well they responde to considerate treatment. “Many people,” said Mr. Davy, “dislike the natives intensely, but in most cases of that nature, the natives, not having been faithfully treated, concealed their many excellent qualities, returning dislike for dislike.” In its broader aspects, Mr. Davy found few changes in India since he lived there 15 years ago. His impressions are of a most optimistic nature, and he sees no decline in the British power. Alarmist reports that had been circulated by men of biassed opinion were entirely unfounded. It may have been true that they saw what they had said, but such spectacles had been arranged for them by those responsible for arranging their itinerary in India. Mr. Davy considered that most of the native reactionaries were university students, who, by driving out the British, wished to created for themselves lucrative posts in the Civil Service.

“If Great Britain were to withdraw from India to-day,” said Mr. Davy, “the result would be chaos!”