Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-15
BRITAIN'S INDIA PROBLEM
SEEMS TO BE UJNSOLVABLE
Two Centuries of UpbuiIding and Vast
Fortune Invested Ignored by Natives
in Drive for Freedom.

admit defeat and permit the creation
Of the Irish Free State.
Moreover, this latest disorder is begin
ming to shake British belief in the ex-
lsting program, the program of or
DERBY and progressive transfer of power
as India by stages acquires the ca
pacity for self-government. When
blood begins to flow and mobs shout
the war cries of independence, the
chances OF compromise rapidly lessen.
After Easter Monday, 1916, in Dublin,
the possibility of settlement of the
Irish dispute by home rule of the older
sort vanished
Again, the worst phase of the present
unrest lies in the fact that the men
who are subjected to the penalties of
British law are precisely the men whose
character and qualities make them
leaders and give to their present pun
ishment the color of martyrdom. 1t is
the pest OF the older generation and the
most promising of the new who are in
the forefront of the battle. The very
men who should serve as leaders in the
great task Of training the Indian people
Tor dominion status are now being
swept into jail or falling under rifle fire.
1t IS difficult to see what, short of
complete withdrawal-and that is OBJ
VlouSly 1mpoSSible-is left for British
statesmen. All the fruits of more than
TWO centuries Of patient and, on the
whole, enlightened activity would be
swept away. Britain's vast investment
In India might be destroyed. The finest
imperial achievement since the Romans
might be condemned to the fate which
overlook the earlier empire when the
leg1ons at last left the Rhine and Dam
ube. If British troops no longer held
the gate of Khyber. how long would it
be before the Red army arrived by the
road along which the troops of the Gar
we're expected in the now forgotten
days when Kipling wrote of the Bear
that walks like a man?
Loss Would BE Severe Blow.
For Britain the loss OF India would
be blow of almost incalculable pro-
portions Then the part of the British
Empire actually administered from Lon
don would be reduced to a broad band
OF naval bases extending right around |
the globe and to certain colonies in |
Africa hardly more extensive or more |
than the French.
Yet If to go at once and utterly is |
patiently impossible. even with a Labor |
government in power, to stay may easily |
put strain Of intolerable severity upon |
British finances. Today there are but |
SO, 1000 British troops in India, but if
revolt became general it would require
or 10 times as many troops to hold a .
country which Is continental in its di-
mansions.
With two millions unemployed, with |
last years budget yielding a deficit, |
with taxation at well nigh astronomical |
how could Britain carry on |
q great colonial war? OF course any,
thing like a general and concerted re-
volt, extending to militry operations, is
not now on the horizon and is contrary
10 the whole Gandhi conception. More
over, machine guns, tanks and air.
planes have given the occupying power
Tar better chance than in the earlier
days Of less efficacious weapons.
Yet in the long run passive resistance
might prove an unbeatable policy. Pas /
stve resistance to all taxation would |
soon bring administration TO q halt |
while imprisonment for the millions |
would be out of the question.
Man1festly, events in India have not |
yet reached this supreme crisis Com
promise may yet be possible, the round |
table conference later in the year may
bring adjustment, but already on all
sizes one hears the ominous threat that |
The leaders of the various Indian
parties will not participate. And as
blood flows passions are inevitably /
Dominion status of any sort |
Is becoming small concession to peo-
pies demanding independence.
At bottom British rule In India can,
In the light OF modern conceptions,
only be justified upon the ground that |
the peoples of India are as yet incapa-
BILE OF ruling themselves; that they
have still to serve long apprenticeship
and acquire power in their own home
only by degrees. But will young In
dia" accept any such contention? Will
It admit that the British are a "supe-
rior people? Will it confess inferior
ity, even temporary inferiority? Or
Will 1t press forward, following the ex-
ample Of all other national movements?
In any event it must be clear that
Britain IS facing in India the gravest
problem OF an imperial order since the
American Revolution. She is meeting
the present acute crisis in a spirit OF
and OF compromise, but.
lnhappily, liberty, like chastity, is not
q question of fractions, and limited
dominion status is hardly an acceptable
substitute for independence in the eyes
Of peoples who are equally sure of their
right TO and their capacity for self
government.
(copyriEht. 1900