"Comradeship."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7902, 18 August 1905, Page 3

"Comradeship."

1 .spirit of immsii hixk ININDIA. >'Our relationship with India cannot be that of conqueror and conquered ; and it cannot be strictlv',>aternal or fraternal ; but it can and should be that of manly comradeship." Such were the sentiments of Cotoi'•l I-rancis Younjrhusband, who li>d the recent expedition to Thibet, in a striking address which he delivered as Kedo Lecturer at Cambridge Lmversity last month. He deprecated the idea, held by many of the great founders of the Indian F.mpire, that our part was to train and educate the j-eople 0 f ] n _ dia s„ that they would eventually be utile In rule themselves WithMhe increasing pressure «>l Kurope upon Asia, and the competition for its markets, it s vine:! impossible to look forward to a time when Indib. could with advantage to the Indians or anyone else be left to govern itself. If it were so left, the result would inevitably ' be conflict between the Hindu and Mohammedan nations, and until one of them had conquered the other peace could not reign in the land. '

Supposing tile «l-.ol" of India were at lost combined, (lid. M. .seem likely i-liat people so tola My unaccustomed 1.0 such a life would lie able to organise such a navy as would he reiruircd to defend their coasts against the'preat se a forces of other Furopran and Asiatic nations, who would l«! pressing against it ? He thought that to train to stand l,y themselves a people who would almost certainly fall to pieces directly they wore left alone was an altojrether unreasonable procvedinfl. Then; seemed little prospect of our voluntarily leaving India and little wisdom : in contemplatiming such a step.| lIF.VKUM'MEXT ()[■' MANKIND. However, there were among llrosa who had most profoundly studied Asiatic problems some who held that as we wvin India in a day so we would lose it in a night ; thiit. there would J«i some kind of combination among Asiatics generally to throw ; Europeans out of Asia. In his opinion, this was inappliable to India. His belief was that India and Englaifd would no bound together for many days to come, so : long as we did not hold India simply from pride of possession, but with the strong faith that it was our ' appointed task in the development of mankind to preserve peace where we hud found anarchy, to tone the eternal principles of justice, to help forward those primitive races w'ho were still far behind, and to quicken into new life thone, highly cultured people who for long centuries had been mmiljod in sleep. Loyalty towards the Sovereign was he believed, the' strongest tie by which we held India,*and the suprant influence which would always preserve the country from drifting fHoin us. Nevertheless there were some who dreamt of, a .Yellow Peril that might sweep us front the country, ("hinli.it was imagined, might lie regenerated as Japan had. bean, and tlv Chinese millions, led on Iby Japanese generals, might come surging on Inclia and bear British v,ule away. .1 l*v however, did not dread the Yellow Peril. The Japanese had probably coninemsense enough to know thut_they had much, to gain iby keepinn on good terms with V 6, and rjsked' losing much by any rash enterprise as tilting against us in India wiould be However, if we were to retain our connection 1 wiuh: India 'we must regard not merely our selfish interests, but the good of the people as wcVt. The main service we could do I hem plight, after all, )>r,ove to lie not so much in training them for Government ofliccH and fitting tjheni to take part in political life, as In affording them, by the peace andr order we preserved, the opportunity for developing 1 fllonf? those spiritual lines to which by nature they were best nd- | apted. What, then,' was the relationship with the iieoplc of India? No one jn this day would like It to lie tl\;\l of conqueror and conquered. A more evident wish was that ia parental relationship should exist between them, bin however appropriate this relationship might be in the case of young colonies, which really were the sons of the fatherland, it scarcely titty-d' to tfie case of India. Our relationship win India should be thai ol nmnly comradeship.