The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-07
WHITE FR0TH
 OF SEDITION England Faces Crisis in
 India. TIE CAUSES ARE. 0BScURED English Cannot Fathom the
 Unrest. Yet the British are Probably the Best Administrators in the World The Brahmins, However are
 InordinateIy Ambitious,
HE CAUSES ARE oBsCURED
ZY PERcTvAL LANDoE.

Simla. India, Dec. 6.-A crisis seems to be impending in India, and the ob : Ject of this article is to set forth some Of the causes thereof. Individual in- cidents can only be judged ip relation to the mass of evidence that lies ready to hand; 1t Is misleading. and prob ably harmful to attach sudden and almost certainly exaggerated impor- tance to any isolated event that hears, or seems to bear, upon the question. It Is no longer a problem to be ihuni- mated by this or that particular inci- dent. It is as useless to point com placently to this sucessful reform, or to that indisputable proof of local loy- alty, as 1t Is to point a moral by the results of this misadventure of that weakness. The time has come in the British administration of India when it is no longer necessary to watch the flight of individual' straws to be fn- formed of the winds direction. An outrage in Eastern Bengal, or the pub lication of Ia whitehot revolutionary pamphlet From P6onah, should be Fe- garded as of precisely the same im- portance as loyal demonstration in the Midnapore district or the offer of military assistance from soma such friend of the British Raj as the Ma haraja of Jaipur, orA his junior of Bi- kanir. Somewhere between these two the true, if unconscious. tendency of native thought isS to be found.
 Tn the same way the true causes of the present situation will be merely obscured if it is sought to attach the credit or the blame of its existence to individual oflciais however high, how ever influential. In the fact Of such a gigantic congeries of ill-assorted races. faiths and capabilities as makes up the population of India" today, 1t is idle to seek for the permanent impress of any man. It is Of the machine of government that the question should be asked-it Is in England's steady and unSarying general policy towards India that the inquirer must find the key to his research.
 The form and final aim of the British administration of, this, country has long been settled in aeordance with the inc tentions of England. ana 1t has received the sanction of generation after gen. eration of British statesmen. Not in it's main lines ohIy, but largely in de- tall also. the engine of government here has remained astonishingly un- changed during the last fifty years. Once laid down, British policy towards tbes- native suhseets has 1been adhered to. by the InaperiAi authorities with a steadiness that in itself .exonerates from blame and at the same time, dis qaalifies from excessive praise. the ef- forts of any individual. And let 1t be said at once that unswerving policy of England towards India Is probably the brightest jewel in her crown. The bnvy of the foreigner, the malice of the re- negade Of her own house has been equally silent before the manner of England's performance of her great stewardship. England has made life and property secure; has administere6 equal justice; has spread the benefits of education far and wide; has allowed freedom of speech and freedom of the press; has respected religion and res iigious prejudice with care: has up9 held a standard of serupulous purity and honesty in public affairs; has thrown open to the utmost possible ex- tent the service of India to the Indians: has run the road and bridged the river, and above all. perhaps, has made men of millions of down-trodden serfs. England has caused the native of India to respect himself. From that standard no oficial has derogated with out detection and dismissal; to that standard it would be hard fer a con- greas of philosophers to add. The in- dividual has counted for less In India during the past half century than any where else in the world. And now the great and splendid engine runs of itself. and to the lest day of British