In this context the writer quotes at length from the
striking speech delivered last year by the Gaekwar of Baroda, denouncing the evils of the existing system and urging not only upon all Hindus, but on the Government, the duty of educating and elevating the depressed classes. The writer strongly supports this appeal, and sees in a "great and combined effort" on the part of the Christian missions the best way of securing the end desired. While admitting the dangers of an official countenance of proselytising among the higher classes, he maintains that none of these objections can reasonably be urged against " co-operating in the reclamation of whole classes which the orthodox Hindu regards as beyond the pale of human inter- course." The question is " whether we shall ourselves take a hand in the elevation of the depressed castes, or whether we shall leave it to others, many of whom would exploit them for their own purposes."
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