15 JUNE 1907, Page 15

UNREST IN INDIA.

[To THE EDITOR OP THE .SPROTATOR.1 Snt,—The importance of the subject must be my excuse for addressing you again. You remarked that unhappily it is not the case that those natives who are trained in the science and literature of the West honestly accept the leadership of the British Government as essential to the progress of civilisation in the great peninsula for at least a long period of time. To Mr. Whitworth this statement seemed too absolute, and he deprecated "the spread in England of any feeling that educated Indians are generally inappreciative of the English connexion," and "as some evidence to the contrary" he quoted a few passages from native newspapers. He now writes that it is not accurate to say that he "quoted a few native papers as evidence that educated Indians are generally appreciative of the English connexion," and he says that the numbers of the papers are not the test, because "some editors publish what they believe to be true, others what they think will sell" (Spectator, June 86). Then why quote the papers at all ? This, however, is a small matter compared with "the infinitely more important point" on which I laid stress—that the programme of the so-called " moderate " party, though often paraded in contrast with the views of the "extremists," must lead eventually to a practical breach with England. Mr. Whitworth says that the more that important point is overlooked the better. Mr. Morley does not think so. He said in the House on Thursday week that any one who wants to take a fruitful part in discussions as to the course of the future in India must "found himself on the assumption that the British rule will continue, ought to con- tinue, and must continue." The object of my letter in your issue of the let inst, was to point out that in the absence of the British Army in India (which is one of the planks of the "moderates "), there would cease to be any Ei;glish con- nexion. To quote Mr. Morley again, the administration, without the British hand to work the State-machine, would not last a week, and the result would be anarchy and bloody chaos. To grasp that point is by no means to deny the necessity for reform in the British administration of India, or that each question must be dealt with on its own merits; but when the " moderates " appeal to the British public on the ground that they are opposed to anything in the nature of "extremism," it is necessary to realise that their goal is really the same as that of the " extremiets."—I am, Sir, &c.,