THE UNREST IN INDIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 20 May 1907, Page 2

THE UNREST IN INDIA.

HOW JT HAS AKISEX. fcl/Kl'Ll'S OF EDUCATED BJELETIll'NTEliS. Colonel .Morris, who spent twenty-live, veins in India, including sixteen us superintendent of the native police, contributes ;!n article to the Dunedin {Star concerning the unrest in that country. Jle

sav s: '-Alter putting on one side the native states and the army, the rest of ! lie inhabitants of India may be divided into two great classes, the educated and the unrducated, the hitter being in the proportion of at least ten to one. If, say. -100 millions, then .'UHM/o millions i may lie reckoned as uneducated, that is j although some few may be aoie to write their names and keep their account* they are ignorant of all else, Thev are happy and contented, having by experience learned the justice and probity of their English rulers. The bad old times of a in?mired years ago are not forgotten by them. The traditions of the extortion whit h was practised upon them by their native rulers, the IS'awabs and iuijahs, I who extorted rents perhaps two or three 1 times every year, and also when they lay under the feet of the oucar, or money-lender, is by no mean* forgotten in (he village.* of Hindustan, and ihoy accordingly love and reverence the great and just English Government of India. "We now come to the last class, the educated native. Forty-nine years ago. when Hie Home Government took over the government of India from the Honorable East India Company there was but little done for the education of the native. This was at once altered. Perfect freedom of trade was instituted, and a system of free education established. It took some time before the people understood what was intnded; then scholars began to pour in from the pyal, or village school to the district high schools, and from them to the university, and year by year the roll of graduates and great M.A.'s and li.A.'s (winch means first artsmen) began to ask the Government what they were to do. The fathers were, in many eases, but poor men, ryots who tilled their little three or four acres with a yoke of bullocks. These poor scholars cried out that they had been educated out of their class.

•The Government saw that something must be (lone. They instructed the heads of departments to fill nil vacancies with these educated natives. Billets that till then had been filled by uncovenanted Europeans and curassiers were filled by natives; still as year by year more native graduates were turned out by the universities, the Government found itself unable to'give them all situations. I I have myself, as superintendent of police, had to refuse many M.A.'s and B.A.'s who craved for the post of third-class constables, with the pay of eight rupees a month (less than 15s), and lind themselves. I. am now speaking of the case 22 years ago, when L left India. What must be the state of affairs now, when 1 suppose the number of native graduates must have doubled, if not trebled'/

"What is now to be done for the poor educated natives? They have but on* course open to them. If tliey fail in obtaining Government service, they become vakils or small petty-fogging lawyers. They go from neighbor to neighbor, and foment any trouble they may hear of so as to earn a small pittance for a livelihood. They are moody, discontented men, and bear a grudge against the Government which educated them free, it is true, but out of their class, and then fails to support them. These are the contributors to the seditious, vernacular papers. They write the most outrageous I stuff, treasonable in every line. This state of affaire was existent, and when I I was in India more than 20 years ago t found it necessary to bring many such articles to the notice of the Government, but was directed to take no notice of them. The Government of India seemed to think them a sort of safety-valve to work off the angry passions of the disaffected. "During all these years the Government lias' treated these seditious articles with silent disdain, but at last these students and native barristers have aroused the British lion, and a cable informs us that two of the agitators have been deported. We see at last where the 'unrest in India' lies. The native states, the Indian army, and .the vast horde of ryots and petty tradesmen are all contented, happy and loyal, while the unemployed educated class are disloyal and troublesome. What these babus and students want is, so they give out, a

share in the Government of the country. They do not waut the British to give up the country to them; tiiey want not only to be placed in the Government, but to he supported in their positions by British bayonets 'They know these Bengali balms.' as Froude says, 'with heads of philosophers but hearts of hares/ that if Great Britain, believing them capable of governing their own country, wre to leave it to them, within a year, a mouth, or even a week, the Mussulmans would take the State from them, and relegate the balm to his place as a clerk. It will be seen from the cables that the Mussulman is on the side of the Government, and has no sympathy with the Hindoo. This is not because he does not avail himself of the free education offered to all, but although without the brain power, as a rule, of the Brahmin, still the educated Mussulman is not the helpless individual the Brahmin is, but can turn liis hand to any kind of work. ]-le sees, of course, what the Hindoo is'trying for, and lie knows that if the Hindoo gets into power that the Mussulman will be left out- in the cold.

''To sum up, then, 'the unrest in fndia' is caused by a large body of educated natives, clever but helpless. These men are incapable of any trade, handicraft, or manual labor. They are only lit for literary work or a Government oDice. As the Government cannot thus provide for more than a small fraction of them they are making their own voices heard, not only in India, but in England, and all over the world. It is self-evident that they can never be a real danger to the State. They may and do create riots, but nothing that cannot be easily put. down. The millions of India are happy and contented, and consequently their voice is not heard. These few discontented babus, however, through their literary powers, are capable of making noise enough to be heard over the wide world; but, as ! have said, there is no fight in them. If the Government: of India will but mete out exemplary punishment to a few, I'm sure the rest will hold their peace. ''ln conclusion, it might be thought

from the cry of these natives for a share in the Government that they were absolutely excluded from ill voice in the matter. The Governor-General. Council, and the Councils of all the LieutenantGovernors have native members. There are native pusine judges in all the High ; Courts, while every district has several fuJS-power, first-class magistrates, and evfn in the covenanted Civil Service there are a proportion, rapidly increasing. of native civilians who'have been brought into the service without having to pass the competitive examinations like their European brothers. The natives can, therefore, hardly say they are unrepresented in the Government of India.''