INDIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 May 1916, Page 5

INDIA.

SPLENDID LOYALTY. territorials reinforcb ' ? GARRISON. GERMAN" MACHINATIONS. • t V London, May 21. The New. York Times publishes an intervie# LoM Hardinge, late Vice%sT. of tiidJM L6rd Hardinge said that for months In the early, part of the war only 10,000' to UjOCW- troops remained in control of <3lsmillion people. Guns and munitions were also gent away unstintedly. Only a few batteries remained on th£ fcorth-weßt frontier. : This was possible because of the nntfataljflntet of the British and Indians. At the outset of. tihe war he consulted the Indian'leaders, who assured him that Jritaiq &vould have 110 serious tVoubtes.; v therefore sent out BOO,<OOO men, including those who went ' "to France,, China, Mesopotamia, last ArriAa, Gallipoli, and the ■ CamerMne. It would Jiave been foolhardy, if India' had been dislpyal as Germany suggested, std would -hare been tantamount to the evacuation of India and equivalent tii condemning the remaining Whites to '"tfifWh.' The''gaffisbn has since been reinforced by territorials. The' revolt of seven thousand Sikshs from the United States and Canada was ft striking example. They had been imbued with" revolutionary ideaß, and comraitted murder and other excesses in the Punj&h in February, 1915, but they not only failed-'to subvert the Punjab, but the Sibil peasantry assisted in seizing and 'handing over the guilty. These Sikhs weWt undoubtedly parties to a conspiracy 'aiming at a rising and the seizure of Ferozpore arsenal, but the loyalty of * the natives to the British Raj brought the conspiracy to nought. Several villagers at Ballasore, who were Assisting the police in arresting tihe : volutionari'es were actually killed in the -iclee. Thero was ample evidence of German financial. asd other assistance, whose •gents supplied considerable funds. One ambitious plot in Bengal sought to create a general revolt on Christmas Day, 1915. The Government bad full information, and was able to render it abortiVfe. The. little disloyalty there is was anarchistic rather than revolutionary. •The Ghadr party were frankly anarchand they were encouraged by a few "crazies" in the United States and •in Western Canada. The greatest v strength of the Ghadr party was in I Bengal, where it seeks to reduce the province to chaos, murdering police offijcials. A gang of three was responsible , for the outrage on December 23, 1912. Two of them have since 'been executed. There were similar crimes elsewhere. There has -been a vast political development in India during the past five and a half years. Politicians whose aspirations were self government are now moderate and more sensible, and realise it is impossible for India to stand alone. This is due to Lord Morley's and Lord ffinto's reformation of the Council.