THE UNREST IN INDIA

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8469, 21 June 1907, Page 3

THE UNREST IN INDIA

, WHAT THE NATIVES ASK. * There are signs not a few which suggest that before long progressive policy will focus on a demand for the elementary education of the whole of the people of Indi j. In the Asiatic Quarterly Review is published a paper by the Hon. G. R." Gokhale on •'Self-government for India." Mr Gokhale insists that any further alienation of the educated classes in India would be supremely unwise, and that this alienation cannot be prevented unless the policy of equal rights promised in 1833 aiid 1858 is carried out. In the expectancy of this promise India hag patiently waited, receiving and learning much from her conquerors. But now Lord , Curzon has practically declared thaf "as long as British rule lasted there could be no real equality between Englishmen and Indians in India." One result of the present arrangement is, says Mr Gokhale, that "the true well-being of the people is systematically subordinated to militarism, service interests,. and the interests of English mercantile classes." Now, the educated classes of India, "want their country to be a prosper-' ous, self-governing, integral part of the Empire like the colonies, and not a mere poverty-stricken, bureau-cratically-held possession of that Empire." He shrewdly points, out that while the officials ask us to wait till the mass of the people have been quali- *■ fied by education to take an intelligent part in public affairs, they have never seriously undertaken the problem of educating the people. He say**':— , ; "After more or less a century 6f British rule, and forty years after England herself woke up to the responsibilities of Governments in regard to mass education, seven children out of eight in India are growing up to-day in ignorance and darkness, and four villages out of five are as yet without a schoolhouse I" Surely, Mr Gokhale adds,' what Japan has' been able to achieve in forty years. India should certainly have accomplished in a century. He utters the emphatic warning— "Unless the old faith of the educated classes in the character and ideals of > British rule is brought back, England will find on her hands before long another Ireland, only many times bigger, in India. The younger generations ,; are growing up full of what may be called Irish bitterness." To prevent this menace, and to approach self-government, Indians must, he urges, be admitted to the higher branches of ths public service, to the Executive Councils of the Viceroy, and Governors, and to the Secretary of State's Council in London. Competitive examinations for recruitment to Indian services should be held simultaneously in India and in England. District administration should be decentralised and entrusted more and more to boards of leading men elected by the people. Local self-government shoul'd be increasingly entrusted to *he people. Legislative Councils should admit elected members up to the point at which the officials have a small standing major- , ity. Commission ranks in the army should be thrown open to carefully .selected Indians.' . -,, i His most important plea is:—"Side by side with these reforms, mass education must be taken vigorously in hand, so that in twenty years from now, if not earlier, there should be > . free and compulsory, education in the country for both boys and girls." In the discussion following this paper, Mr Thorburn, in a trenchant speech, declared that free and compulsory education for both boys and girls would cost fifteen millions sterling, 1 " which may strike the reader as a very small sum indeed to pay for so colossal a revolution in the life of India. Mr Gokhale replied that he had carefully gone into the matter, and estimated that no more than five or six millions would be required—a still more astounding figure. Lord Reay emphatically declared that self-government was an experiment which could not be made until the masefls had been educated. The claim that India should be governed as a self-governed colony was a claim which seemed to him unreasonable. He entirely agreed that we must not alienate the educated classes in India, and that more scope should be given to native talent in other than judicial appointments. He would also separ- ' ate the judicial and administrative functions. If tor six millions, or fifteen millions, all the children of India could be educated, the sooner we launch on the undertaking the better. It is certainly one of the cheapest bargains ever offered to one of the wealthiest of empires.