5 FEBRUARY 1927, Page 18

DEMOCRACY AND MAD ELEPHANTS

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Fatehpur Sikri there is a great stone with a hole bored through it. The sides of the hole are worn by the tether of a mad elephant, that was chained to it at the foot of the Throne of Public Audience.

Daily before Akbar, wisest of the seed of Tamerlane, passed files of suppliants with wrongs to redress and petitions to make. The Great Moghul heard them all. He was a patient man, but his decisions were swift. If a witness prevaricated or a creditor was unduly harsh, the stamp of the must hathi, fretting at its chain, reminded him that the new ruler of the East was terrible in action as he was cautious in counsel.

Fatehpur Sikri is a haunted and a haunting place, teeming with quiet fun and lively ghosts. Would that our Government departments in Whitehall could summon something of the spirit of that whimsical city to assist them in their anxious deliberations with regard to the changing mentality of the East. For it is imagination above all that we lack in our official dealings with Egypt, India and the Far East. The Moghuls were full of imagination. They were cruel sometimes, but very kind as well. They identified themselves with the people they ruled. .So do the French. We, on the contrary, shut ourselves up in a cocoon of clubs and cliques.

What is happening in China, to tell the truth, may happen In other parts of the world. It would be idiotic to deny the great benefits we have conferred on that country, but it would be equally foolish to believe that we can make our claim to Chinese gratitude valid, in the face of a growing hatred of all things British. The Chinese have long asked for a revision of the Treaties : they have won their point at last, but only at the point of the bayonet. It is a sad fact, but one too obvious in the East to need any disguising here, that Western Govern- ments pay much more attention to a threat of violence than to the dictates of justice or even expediency. Shanghai is threatened.: so we hurriedly mobilize and move out a division to make peace with China, and at the same time formulate proposals which, had they been made a year ago, would. have saved all this sOspe. rise and uncertainty..

It is sad- to think hOw much more usefully employed our 20,000 soldiers would be had they travelled ,West instead of East, armed with ploughs instead of machine-guns,. to make fruitful the hungry lands ot Canada rather than to crowd the alieady Crowded cities of China. At :the moment, of course, the need is urgent. We must safeguard our fellow-countrymen. But surely the lesson the 'Cantonese have taught us will not

[rags Unheeded. . .

Nationalism' is at flood-tide from Cairo to Peking. What has happened in China will, inevitably, happen in India sooner 05 later. If we are too slow and too stupid to see the signs of the

times we shall have nobody but ourselves to thank. Nor are the signs hard to read, or the demands of the East impossible to fulfil. In Egypt, Iraq, India, China, we might easily regain our old prestige and popularity, if we recognized (as frankly as we finally did in Ireland) that, whatever the rights or wrongs of the case may be, a people that wants to govern itself had best be allowed to try.

We have every right to be in India and to remain in India for years to come, for we came there when the land was distracted by faction and have given her peace, order and material prosperity. No sensible Indian nowadays wants us to go, bag and baggage.' But we have promised India to the Indians, and almost all educated Indians want a change in the present system of administration. Let us make that change before it is too late to do it gracefully. The East doesn't want our childish experiments in democracy ; it needs a different method, swifter and suppler in action, and perhaps more dramatic.

The spirit of Fatehpur Sikri (but not the mad elephants) might find a place somewhere in the dreary wilderness of the India Office, before it is abolished, as it will be one day. Akbar dealt with realities and knew that a ruler must be popular first and just afterwards. Our first administrators in India were good men : their type was still surviving when I first served in that country. But it is rapidly vanishing there is too much office work, too little leisure to get to know the people. We have an amazing faculty for refusing to face facts in England. But one day we shall have to face the fact of an awakened India, and if public opinion on the subject is asleep, as it probably will be, the Government of the day will blunder about as it has had to do in China.

The East is not so impressed as we like to believe with our political and judicial systems. We like them, but the East doesn't and never will. The sooner we recognize this the better it will be for our trade and credit generally .—I am,