New Britain herald., 1922-07-11
GANDH| WOULD HAVE
 OLD CIVILIZATION
Says Salvation Lies in Return to
 Ancient Habits

Ahmedabad, India, July ll-Mahat-
 ma Gandhi, in prison here for sedi.
 ton, declares his loss of liberty can.
 not materially affect the progress of India nationalism, and urges his ! friends to carry on the work in which
 he had so large a part He has nc complaint. to make regarding his treat
 ment by prison officials
 Gandhi remains loyal to the princi-
 pie of Swadeshi. which he defines as that spirit in us which restricts us to
 the use and service of our immediate surroundings. to the exclusion of the more remote In religion he would follow only the forms of worship used by his ancestors; in politics, he would make use only Of indigenous institu- tions; in economic life, he would use only things produced by his immediate neighbors, and would serve only those industries which are native to his own country. He Is at ennity with mod : ern civilization.
 Writing to a friend in India. Gan-- dhi explains his beliefs and aims in these words:
 There Is no impossible barrier be- tween East and West. There is no such thing as Western or European civilization. but there is modern civilization which is purely material. The people of Europe, before they were touched by modern civilization, of the East.
 Tt is not the British people who are ruling India. but it is modern civil ization through its railways, tele- graphs, telephones. and almost every invention which has been claimed to be a triumph of civilization. Bombay Calcutta and the other chief cities of India are the real plague spots. If British rule were replaced to- morrow by Indian rule based on mod ern methods, India would be no better, except that she would be able then to retain some of the money that is drained away to England; but then India would become only a second or fifth nation of Europe or America East and West can only really meet when the West has thrown overheard modern civilization, almost In it's en- tirety. They can also seemingly meet when the East has also adopted mod ern civilization, but that meeting would be an armed truce.
 Medical science is the concentrat- ed essence of black magic. Quackery is infinitely preferable to what passes for high medical skill. Hospitals are the instruments that the devil has been using for his own purpose, in order to keep his hold on his king dom. They perpetuate vice. misery. degradation and real slavery. If there were no hospitals for venereal diseases, or even for consumptives, we should have less consumption, and less sexual vice among us.
 India should wear no machine made clothing. whether it comes out of European mills or Indian mills.
 "Ind1a's salvation consists in un- learning what she has learned during the past 50 years. The railways. tele- graphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors and such like have all to go, and the so- called upper classes have to learn to live religiously and deliberately the simple peasant life, knowing it to be a life giving true happiness.
 There was true wisdom in the sages of old having so regulated sc ciety as to limit the material condi- ton of the people; the rude blow of perhaps 5000 years ago is the blow of the husbandman today. Therein lies salvation. People live long under such | in comparative peace much greater than Europe has enjoyed af- ter having taken up modern activity"