12 JUNE 1936, Page 22

Sin—The latest of Mr. Jenkins' illusionary essays almost makes one

despair. India's need is not additional arma- ments—not even the imaginary enemy Mr. Jenkins fears but modestly does not name—but simply rapid reforms in the matter of extended social services.

During the years 1930-1935, I travelled extensively in India—from Comorin to the Khyber and from Karachi to Calcutta ; and the memory of the poverty, malnutrition, and disease I witnessed everywhere has made me wonder ever since where—with our Imperial possessions—bene- volence ends and exploitation begins. Life, to millions of Indians, is literally not worth living. Mother India is on the rack : and her people (as Mr. Jenkins says of the Abys- sinians) are relatively defenceless against attacks from Since the War, with the rise of bigoted Nationalism on the Continent and in Great Britain, India's struggle for her promised freedom has been delayed and evaded. Personally, I am for Swaraj, and for men like the Mahatma and Srinivasa Sastri ; and although Liberals throughout the world are down for the moment, we are assuredly not out of the reckon- ing. Our day will come. And then, as Mr. Wells •has so finely described the new order of Liberals, " On occasion they will kilt They must not hesitate to kill, without trial or ceremony, any mad dog that raids the world: Patience with legal forms when they are perverted or abused, patience with all usurpation, is the supreme surrender of life."—Yours