The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1906-07-03

William Jennings Bryan.
share their daily life and aspirations.
1t is not necessary to review the
earlier rule under the East Iuuia COM
I2ny: that is sufficiently condemned
by public record. The was
chartered for commercial purposes,
and its rule had no other n q pc
cuniary aim. 1t secured control of
state after state by helping one IA
tive prince against another Where II
did not actually instigate war betWeen
princes. The English government
finally took the colony over. confessed
ly because Of the outrageous Onduc
Of the company's officials. No one now
defends the rule of the East India
company, although Warren Hastings
WAS nnally acquitted by the lious" Of
lords :nspite of his crimes. out Of con
sideration for his public service in eX-
tending English authority.
Is English rule in India just, as we
lind it today? Fortunately England
permits free speech in England, al
though she has sometimes restricted
it in her colonies and there has not
been a public question under consid-
Grafton in England for a century
which has not brough u Independent
opinion. 1t IS the glory Of England
that she Was an early champion of
freedom of speech, and it is the glory
of E~nglishmen that they criticise their
own government when they think it
wrong. During the American reyolu-
ton Burke numbered his defense of
the rights of the coloniStS, ana Walpole
warned his c~Ountrymen that they
could not destroy American liberty
without asserting principles which. if
carried out. would destroy English lib
erty as We'll.
During the recent war in South At
RIGA the British had no more sever
critics han We're to be found among
her own people and in her own parlia-
ment. And 50 today British rule in
India is as forcibly arraigned by Eng
lishmen as by the Indians themselves.
While Mr.. NaOrOji, an Indian, goes to
England and secures from "a meeting
of a radical club the adoption of IL
resolution r%eciting that as 'Britain
has appropriated thousands Of millions
of midas wealth for building up and
maintaining her British Indian em-
pire and for drawing directly vast
wealth to herseIf:" that as ''she is
continuing TO drain about $50, 600, 600
of midas wealth every year ~unceaSing-
ly in Il variety of ways" n that as
she has thereby reduced the bulk of
the Indian population to extreme pow
erty. restitution and degradation; it
is therefore her bounden duty in COM
mon justice and humanity to pay from
her own exchequer the costs of all
famines an diseases caused by such
impOVeriShment.' And further.
that it is most humiliating and dis
creditable to the British name that
other countries should be appealed to
or should have to come to Britain's
help for relief of BrItain'S own sub
jects, and after and by her un-British
rule of about $50 ears"
While. | repeat, Mr.. Naoroji was Sc
curing the unanimous adoption of the
above resolution i'll England, Sir Henry
Cotton. now & member of parliament,
but for 30 years a member of the IN
dian civil service, was preparing his
book, New India, iii which he courage
ously points out the injustice from
which India now suffers. Neither he
nor Mr.. Naoroji suggests indian indie
p~endence. Both believe that English
sovereignty should continue. but Mr..
Cotton shows the wrongs now inflicted
upO India and the necessity for re-
form.
Not only does he charge that the
promises of the queen have been ig-
nored. and Indians excluded from ser
vice for which they were fitted, but
he charges that the antagonism be
tween The officials and the people is
growing and that there is among civ
ilian magistrates IAN ~undoubted tend
ency to lnfllct severe sentences when
natives of India are concerned. and
TO impose light and sometimes made
quate punishment upon offenders of
IiAOii W 1otC, ana ltldl III utldlS III
which Englishmen are tried by Eng
liSh Juries' the result is sometimes "a
failure Of justice not falling short of
judicial scandal" If justice cannot
be found in the courts, where shall she
be sought?
After the Indian mutiny the queen in
a proclamation promised that natives
should be freely and impartially ad-
mitted to offices, " the duties of which
they might be qualified by their edu-
cation, ability and integrity to dis
charge Lord LyttOn. a Viceroy of IN
dia, in a charge Observation-Disclosures
dia. in a confidential document which
got in to print, speaking of the pledg-
es Of the sovereign and the parliament
of England, said: 1--WE all know
that these claims and expectations
never can or will be fulfilled. We
have had to choose between prohibit
ing them (the natives Of India) and
cheating them, and We have chosen
the observation-disclosures" and
again: Since | am writing CONN.,
dentially, do not hesitate to say that
both the governments of England and
of India appear to me. up to the
present moment. unable to answer
satisfactorily the charge of having
talk EN- every means in their power of
breaking to the heart the words or
promise they had uttered to the ear
The government of India is as arbl-
trary and despotic as he government
Of Russia ever was, and in two re
spects it is worse. First. it is admin
istered by an alien people. whereas the
officials Of Russia are Russians. Sec
ond, it drains a large part of the
taxes out of the n whereas the
Russian government spends at home
the money which it collects from tho
people. \ third disadvantage migh.
be named, since the car has already