The Washington times., 1921-03-21

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This is an astounding statement in
view of the recent massacre by Brit
ish troops of unarmed Indians,
peaceably, quietly in attendance at a
great mass meeting.
This incident is one of the most
sickening in modern history. The
victims were in the midst of quiet
open-air discussion of public ques-
tions and were conducting them
selves in an orderly manner when
British troops, commanded by a
British general of supposed response
bility, marched up within point
blank range and before the as
tonished Indians knew what was
going to happen began to pour their
fire into the crowded assemblage.
Not in modern history has there been
massacre like it, not even in Ire
land when the British troops fred
promiscuously into great crowds at
tending the sports.
The editor of the Christian Science
Monitor must have forgotten his
British history. He must have for
gotten the impeachment of Warren
Hastings for his brutality in India.
He must have forgotten the char
acter of the evidence which the
greatest intellects and the best
statesmen of England to their honor
produced against Hastings. He
must have forgotten that this evil
dence was so overwhelming that the
House of Lords, representing the
ruling classes in England which were
profting directly by the East Indian
Companies exploitation of India,
dared not acouit him, but dangled
the case along for seven years until
everybody had forgotten it.
We call to the attention of the
Christian Science Monitor the twelve
charges made by the people in India
against the British conduct there,
and we ask the Christian Science
Monitor if, in the whole world ex-
cept Belgium's conduct in the Con-
90, there is anything equal to the
atrocities against three hundred mil
Ion people described in these twelve
charges; and. we also ask the
Christian Science Monitor if every
one of them is not true7 The charges
are as follows:
81. We charge that, for $50 years, the Of.
ficial oliearchy of Great Britain has ruled
and dominated India in the exclusive interest
of the British Empire and that such rule has
been opposed to the welfare of all the Indian
people.
"2. We charge that, as direct result OF
British exploitation, the native industrial
system has broken down and has almEst
wholly disappeared. so that workers IN the
native crafts have been forced to abandon
their accustomed and preferred callings to
work on the land and in factories IN order
TO provide such foodstuffs and other products
as British imperial necessities demand.
"3. We charge that, as general Ignorance
and iliteracy were necessary condition to
the successful exploitation of the resources
and people of India, Great Britain has stead
ily and persistently cut off the means OF edu-
cation, as is evidenced by the educational ap..
preparation of 81, 1,338,338 out of an annual
budget of about $600,0O0,000. AS result,
the Indian people of today have not oppor-
.unities equal to those which existed prior
10 the time that Britain seized India.
"a. We charge that through carefully
fostered system of scanty credit, excessive
taxation, enforced expectation and beggarly
pay Great Britain has literally starved the
people of India by the million, in spite OF
The fact that India, left to herself, would
be able to raise sufficient food to nourish her
entire population.
"5. We charge that under British rule, ma
tive women have been drawn into the hor-
rors of prostitution in order to satisfy the
lust of the soldiery who, for the purpose of
supporting the mastery of the foreign rule,
have been maintained under unnatural con-
dtions in tremendous numbers and at the
expense of the Indian people.
'6. We charge that, with the double object
of financial extortion and of drugging the
free spirit Of India, Great Britain has de-
vised system of opium monopoly and traf-
fic which not only deliberately seeks to cor
rupt the body and mind of the Indian people.
but to extract the last penny from those
whom it succeeds in corrupting and, fur
ther, that the responsible managers of this
system have sought to create new drug vic