The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1914. THE DANGER IN INDIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 280, 29 April 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1914. THE DANGER IN INDIA.

It is not in Ireland alone that Great Britain is faced with a Home Rule problem, for there are powerful Nationalist movements in Egypt and in India that may at any moment prove crises at least as serious as that which lias arisen in connection with the Government v. tile Emerald Isle. In India especially, the movement for self-government has produced a very threatening situation—all the more so because of British ignorance of Oriental modes of thought and incentives to action. It is dor M. fill whether, after fifty years of study, people have yet arrived at a complete understanding of the causes that led to the historic Indian Mutiny. It is oqually a matter of dubiety whether any Englishman has mastered the causes of Indian discontent, conspiracy and outrage to day. Recent cable messages, showing that a jury cannot be found to commit men who are presumably guilty of sedition and murder, disclose a situation closely analagous to that which prevailed in Ireland during the disturbed times of thirty to forty years ago. While the symptoms are similar, the primary causes are widely different. No one doubts that Ireland had suffered from long years of neglect and misgovernment. There was some ground for the Irish people's belief that self-government would provide a comprehensive remedy for all the ills of their unhappy country. There is no such ground for Indian discontent—no such justification for the demand for self-governing powers. So far as we are able to judge from conflicting statements, British rule in India has been altogether for the good of the people, who have been freed from tho tyrannies and exactions of native princes and delivered from the constant dread of war, plague and famine under which they formerly lived. It is true that famine and plague still claim many victims; but it is surely wrong to arraign British rule and condemn it because it has not yet fully accomplished the task of ridding the country of these evils. Yet that is precisely what the Indian Nationalists and their friends are doing. The Hindoos have received a sufficient smattering of 'education to let them know that conditions are not yet ideal, and that the people of India are treated as a subject race; Education has, as usual, only served at first to produce discontent; but in India that discontent is not always of the kind called "divine" which leads men on to higher things—it is more often of the opposite kind, which-has for its watchword: "Overturn, overturn!" Of the 300,000 inhabitants of India, there are 1,670.001) classed as "literate in English," of whom 3G5,01)0 are Christians. Many of these are men of whom any country might be proudreal Indian philanthropists and patriot.;, students of affairs, captains of commerce and industry, sound scholars, true reformers, loyal friends willing to help the Government with disinterested advice and perfectly cognisant of the fact that on the stability of British rule every hope for the future of India absolutely depends. Such men fear and deplore the tendencies which they plainly see, but their numbers do not increase and they are' sensitive to the attacks to which they are subjected. The class that does increase in number and influence embraces those who are returned as "literate" for census purposes, but who are not really learned, either in English or native languages. There may be about half a million of malcontents, including many who have failed in their examinations for the Civil Service and who cherish a grievance against the Government in consequence. Upon these the leaders of seditious agitation work. These semi-literate people have picked up the shibboleths of democracy and some of them can glibly use its formulas, hut of the existence of ,iny real democratic spirit it is difficult to find a trace among them. A body less representative of India as a whole cannot be imagined, and, as has been pointed out, they represent only one in 000 of the population. Yet this small minority has been able to create a dangerous condition of unrest and seditious conspiracy. Unfortunately for India, as a writer in the London Times recently pointed out, circumstances which the Government could not control have powerful!/ assisted the Nationalist movement. The Tripoli and Balkan wars naturally produced excitement among the Moslems of India. "There were sober and loyal Mahometans who strove to restrain the rising indignation; but the Nationalists duly exploited the alleged impotence, tnd ill-will of the British Government in the interests of swaraji, and the Moslem extremists, to the temporary satisfaction of their astute. Hindu allies, have risen to power in the counsels of the community." Hitherto the British Government has been able to rely on the Mahomedans, who are among the most virile and warlike of the people of India; but it would seem that it can no longer do so. The situation is one that demands the most careful handling, if Indian discontent is to he allayed and a second Mutiny averted. In a population so vast half a million of malcontents seem a mere handful; but if the rest of the populace cannot be relied upon, the half million may readily become a terrible menace to British rule in India.