INDIA'S LOYALTY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 121, 23 May 1916, Page 5

INDIA'S LOYALTY.

UNITED IN FACE OF DANG El?

300,000 TROOPS SENT OUT

THE SIKH REVOLT

EVIDENCES OF GERMAN ORGANISATION.

LONDON May 21

The "Now York Times'' publishes an interview with Lord Harding ■?, aalio stated that for raoiic'is early in the Avar only 10,000 or 15 C:')0 Drifish :.ro< ps :e mained to control the ol5,0')0.000 people of India, duns and munitions wore also sent unstintedly, and only a few batteries remained oil the north-west frontier. Tins was possible because of the mutual trust between ;li<> British and the Indians. At the •■utset of the Avar he consulted with the Indian leaders, and assured that we would have no serious troubles. We therefore sent out 300,000 men to France, Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, East Africa, Gallipoli, and the Cameroons.

It AA T ould have been foolhardy if India Avere disloyal, as Germany suggested, to have practically evacuated India, for that would have been .equivalent to condemning the remaining Avhitcs to death. The garrison had yiiuje been reinforced by territorials.

The revolt, of seven ;hous<.\nd Sikhs from the United States ;md CV.nada was a striking example. They were imbued With revolutionary ideas, and committed murder and other excesses in the Punjab in. February. 1915, Thev not only failed to subvert the Punjab, but. the Sikh peasantry assisted in seizing and handing over the guilty Sikhs. Undoubtedly the parties to the eons spiracy were aiming at a general rising and the seizure of the Ferozpore Arsenal but the loyalty of the natives to the British Raj brought the conspiracy to nought. Several villagers at Balasore assisting the police arresting the revolutionaries were actually killed in a melee.

There was ample evidence of German financial and other assistance, wlics? agents supplied considerable funds. One ambitious plot in Bengal sought to create a general revolt on Christmas Day, 1015. but the Government had full information and was able to render itabortive. r^T ;v -