It would be unnecessary to read further to learn the degradation of Indian character under British rule. Although debarred of all promotion and compelled to serve in the lowest rank against their own countrymen, against their own flesh and blood, they obey. True to their salt, less manly and chivalrous than common mercenaries or bandits, they slaughter fathers, brothers, sons at the command of foreigners. They are proud of it. The fashion of their grievance is that they want a share of the military offices. And on the other hand the civilizing English cannot spare them-they want all good things for themselves. And yet the British people through acts of Parliament and other means 'had often pledged themselves to treat Indians exactly as British subjects in England.'

Seconding the resolution, Mr. Mahtab Singh said that 'as loyal subjects they wanted to warn the British Government of the danger of its present policy, which if not altered would turn a nation of patriotic and loyal subjects into rebels, whose aim would be to destroy the British rule. (Cheers.)'

The resolution was carried unanimously.

Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt moved a resolution 'deploring all legislation restricting self-government in India." Under Northbrook's vice-royalty, he said, 'representative government was first introduced into India, which conferred upon the rate payers of Calcutta the right to select two-thirds of their municipal councillors. Since then this measure has worked extremely well, and the new municipal council had transformed Calcutta into one of the healthiest places in India. The time had now come for the extension of municipal government to other municipalities, but the present Government was no friend of municipal government. It had been striving to curtail the powers of the London County Council, and therefore there was no wonder that it was trying to abrogate Lord Northbrook's valuable measure. (Shame.) Never within his memory had there been such a state of alarm through

ure.

out the whole of Bengal as had been caused by this measThe impression was spreading that it was not possible to obtain any new rights by constitutional methods. There had been forty years of peace and loyalty, and now the Government by its action was teaching a very dangerous lesson to the people of India. (Cheers.)'

Mr. R. C. Sen said it was a mistake to trust too much to the generosity of the English people.'

Mr. Bipin Chunder Pal moved: "That this meeting condemns the new. Sedition Law of India, (1) which makes invidious distinctions between different classes of her Majesty's subjects; (2) which seeks to restrict the free discussion of Indian measures by her Majesty's Indian subjects in England, by threats of prosecution on their return to India; (3) which takes away the liberty of the press that has been enjoyed in India for over half a century, and substitutes a method of repression, unworthy of the British government; (4) which empowers magistrates in India, who are heads of the police, to demand security for good behavior from editors of newspapers, to refuse such security when offered, and to send the editors to jail with hard labor without trial for any specific offense; . . .'

No people in the world have said more in censure of the French methods of justice exposed by the case of Dreyfus, or of the German gag laws and Imperial prosecutions for the terrible crime of speaking as you think, called lese majestat, than the English, yet here is England jailing Indian editors without trial, through her Dogberry police magistrates and depriving her Indian subjects of the right of free speech. This is the England that, as Mr. Asquith says, makes the ideas of order, justice and humanity, 'solid, vivid realities' in the minds and lives of the people dependent on her.

Mr. Pal enforced his resolution by declaring that 'those who had drawn it up had committed sedition under the new law over and over again. (Laughter and cheers.) Further the people who had been speaking that afternoon

could be prosecuted in India for their speeches-that is, if they were Indian natives. If they were English-born they could say what they liked. The freedom of the Press had been the bulwark of English rule in India for the past forty years. The speech of the previous speaker was only an indication of the spirit which was growing up amongst the young men in India. There was a spirit of unrest and discontent which was spreading in quarters of which Government knew little. Sedition was pres

ent in India, and if the Government shut up the mouths of the educated Indians, who alone could explain to their fellow-countrymen what British rule meant to India, and how necessary it was that it should continue, it must be prepared for an outburst which would shake the British Empire to its foundations. (Cheers.)'

It would plainly seem that England has brought herself to a grave dilemma. She is convinced that if she does not enforce harsh sedition laws which shut the mouths of the educated Indians and prevent them from 'explaining to their fellow-countrymen what British rule means in India,' there will be a sedition, and here is a body of highly intelligent Indians assuring her that if she does not repeal those obnoxious laws and give the educated a chance to smooth the situation over to the masses of their countrymen there will be 'an outburst that will shake the British Empire to its foundations.' In other words British rule is neither safe if it is explained nor if it is not explained: it will not bear investigation and it will not bear not being investigated.

Having this expression of opinion from the Hindus, let us consider the words of a candid Englishman, Mr. Goldwin Smith. He believes that India “has been steadily administered in the interest of the Hindu." Granting for a moment only that this is so we do not grant it any longer-the incapacity of England to civilize is even more shown by the results, for her efforts to help have 'reduced the population to human sheep, without aspirations, without spur to self-improvement of any kind.' This climax

of seventy-five years of civilizing effort thoroughly discredits the principle of Imperialism. "If," Mr. Smith says, "empire is to be regarded as a field for philanthropic effort and the advancement of civilization, it may safely be said that nothing in that way equals, or ever has equalled, the British Empire in India. For the last threequarters of a century at all events, the Empire has been steadily administered in the interest of the Hindu. Yet what is the result? Two hundred millions of human sheep, without native leadership, without patriotism, without aspirations, without spur to self-improvement of any kind; multiplying, too many of them, in abject poverty and in infantile dependence on a government which their numbers and necessity will too probably in the end overwhelm. Great Britain has deserved and won the respect of the Hindu; but she has never won, and is perhaps now less likely than ever to win, his love. The two races remain perfectly alien to each other. Lord Elgin sorrowfully observes, that there is more of a bond between man and dog than between Englishman and Hindu. natives generally, having been disarmed, cannot rise against the conqueror; and their disaffection is shown only in occasional and local outbreaks, chiefly of a religious character, or in the impotent utterances of the native press."*

The

Of such periodic phenomena as Indian plagues and famines, their conduciveness to Hindu happiness, and British responsibility for them, I shall say but little. Julian Hawthorne and Lee Merewether, after personal. investigations in India during the famine plague of 1897, agreed that not less than "eight million persons had already died of famine and disease directly caused thereby 'eight times the population of New York; nearly twice that of London," and the famine had not then run its course. Mr. Hawthorne tried lamely to exculpate the English government and then said: "It is true that at

"The Moral of the Cuban War," in the Forum, Nov. 1898. †The Cosmopolitan Magazine, 1897, pp. 372-3, and 658.

the moment when millions of Indians were starving, there was paid in London for seats to see the Jubilee money enough to avert all that inconceivable suffering-yes, and much of it was paid by Americans; and the rest was paid by other foreigners and by the English themselves. It was a vain and selfish expenditure no doubt; but it was spent, not by the Government, but by private persons. They were like other persons all over the world." As if the waste of these resources at such a time by private persons in the slightest degree mitigated the responsibility and crime of the English nation! And that these vain and selfish spenders, ourselves included, 'were like other persons all over the world,' is the very thing that shows. conclusively that these civilized people all over the world' cannot rule a subject race unselfishly.

6. British Humanity in the Soudan.

The facts, we believe, warrant this statement : That lower races under Imperial rule are dealt with on a code of principles specially framed for them, and differing widely from the principles that white races observe toward one another. The codes for the lesser races vary. Take as instance the Belgian code toward the Congo Free State. This Free State "is not," says the Saturday Review,* "free in any sense of the word. The Belgians have replaced the slavery they found by a system of servitude at least as objectionable. Of what certain Belgians can do in the way of barbarity Englishmen are painfully aware. Mr.. Courtney [in the address already quoted] mentions an instance of a Captain Rom who ornamented his flower-beds with the heads of twenty-one natives killed in a punitive expedition. This is the Belgian idea of the most effectual method of promoting the civilization of the Congo. Exports from the State fall seriously short of the imports; such as they are, they are maintained not by legitimate commerce, but by raids made on the ivory stores of luckless native chiefs where

*December 17, 1898.