TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FIRST STAGE TOWARDS INDIAN ANARCHY. THE Indian Bill is perhaps the most fateful enactment that Par lament has ever passed. It affects the interests of nearly one-fifth of the human race. It not only passed the House of Lords practically without comment, but passed it without creating more than a ripple upon the surface of public opinion in Britain. Yet the Bill is, we are convinced, only the first stage on a road the goal of which is Indian anarchy. Mr. Meredith Townsend, one of the brilliant journalists of a former generation and for thirty-five years the joint- editor of this paper, a man of wide Indian experience, used to say that our Indian Empire had come like a dream and would pass like a dream. It is difficult at this moment not to feel the force of his words. We may be wrong, and we hope devoutly that we are wrong, in our view of Mr. Montagu's Bill, but at any rate what is being done, for good or evil, is being done by the British nation as by men in a dream. Neither the Houses of Parliament nor the nation as a whole have paid any real attention to the tremendous revolution which it is proposed to make in the government of India. True, the Bill has received an almost unanimous assent, but it cannot be said to be the assent of conviction. Rather it is like the assent of a busy man to some quack remedy suggested or forced upon him by a persistent relative—" All right ; don't bother me any more. I'll take it. I only hope it's all right." That is as near as we can get to the attitude of the British people. We must give reason for our profound misgivings in regard to the Bill. We are not opposed either in principle or in practice to associating representatives of the natives of India in ample numbers with the government of the country which they inhabit. On the contrary, we strongly desire so to associate them. We also look forward to some system of self-government as the ultimate destiny of India. But that does not quiet our fears in regard to the Bill. The Bill is not the first step to self-government, but, as we have said, the first step on the road towards anarchy. As Lord Sydenham said in his admirable speech in the House of Lords on Friday, December 12th, ` the Bill will endanger the peace of India, and may delay the progress of India towards self-government." Lord Sydenham went on to say that in his opinion the measure was the most dangerous, and possibly also the most complicated, Bill that had ever been presented to Parliament. We wish we could find ,pace to reprint Lord Sydenham's speech. Unfortunately we cannot do more than put up a signpost to it, and beg our readers to study it in the full report in Hansard's Parlia- mentary. Debates. Any one can obtain it from the Sta- tionery Office, Imperial House, Kingsway, London, W.C. 3 (Vol. XXXVII., No. 109, price 3d.). Such study will make readers understand what we are doing, and that is something, even though the knowledge will come too late. If our Indian Empire is to perish, at any rate it is better that it should perish in the light of day than in darkness.
Why do we say that the result of the Bill must in the end be anarchy ? We say it because the Bill does not propose, as many people imagine it does, to share the work of government with the people of India, but only to hand over to a minute and selfish minority, chiefly composed of an arrogant priestly caste, the right to clog the wheels of government, and to interfere with our trustee- ship, which no one can deny has been beneficent and uncorrupt. Under the new Bill we get that greatest of all political and Constitutional evils, an indeterminate sovereignty. No one will clearly know where power exists in the Indian Constitution, or who is to say the last word in regard to Executive or even legislative projects. Lord Selborne, though he supports the Bill, pointed out the immense danger of leaving to the Provincial Legisla- tures and to the so-called Parliament of India " concurrent jurisdiction," by which is meant that in the case of conflict the latest-dated enactment shall prevail, whether it comes from the province or the central manufactory of laws ! Imagine such a principle applied to India. That is bad enough ; but what is even worse is the establishment of something like concurrent jurisdiction in the administrative sphere, which is impaled on the two horns of the Diarchy. We are well aware that there is provided in the Bill an intricate system of determining whose voice is to prevail, and also a Tribunal to interpret the legisla- tion -of the Indian representatives—we dare not call them of the people, but of the sacerdotal o'igarchy to whom we are going to hand over the essentials of power. Will these persons, who will of course claim to be the true spokesmen of Indian democracy, consent to obey any rules in regard to their authority which eeem disagreeable to them ? If not, there will soon be conflict, deadlock, and confusion of the direst kind. Remember, the marvellous results of our Constitution have been due not to a legal, though there may have been a moral, balance of power ie our Constitution, but to the fact that the complete sover- eignty of the nation was lodged in Parliament and not in any paper Constitution. Parliament can always say the last word on any dispute, and say it with absolute authority. In other words, whether right or wrong, you can always get a clear and a rapid decision under our Constitution, and one which cannot be challenged by any power in the State. When a Bill becomes an Act Britain has spoken and the cause is finished. It is true of coarse that Parliament is to remain nominally supreme in regard to India, but that supremacy will very soon be only a theoretic and paper supremacy.
Once more, the Bill is bound to lead to Constitutional anarchy, and Constitutional anarchy will lead to social and political anarchy. But this ,means restoring the old curse of India. India throughout her history has been cursed by the demon of anarchy except during the period of our rule. It is our greatest claim to the gratitude of mankind that we stopped anarchy among the vast populations of India. Before we came one generation had been almost the longest span of just and settled government. Why was this so ? In the last resort it cannot be doubted that the inability of the Indian natives to get just and settled rule was due to the rigid system of caste of which India has the terrible monopoly. Except through government imposed by some external force, you cannot have- anything but anarchy in a State in which the ethos is broken up and destroyed by caste. But it is by these means that the ethos of the Indian community is destroyed.
The ultimate reason why the handful of white men of British race are governing India is to be found in the fact that their rule is an absolute necessity for India. Our rule exists because it is the sine qua son of just and settled government. But for caste it would have passed away long ago. A breath would have destroyed it. And now we are going voluntarily and unnecessarily to restore anarchy to India by reimposing the old conditions and placing Indian government in hands not able to hold it justly—in the hands, that is. of the Brahminical caste ! But if what we have said is true, is there no hope of our being able to lay down out trusteeship ? There was hope. We believe that if a different method had been pursued, a system of education and enlightenment and of the association of natives in the administration might have been accomplished. Caste would have gradually disappeared, and with its disappearance we might have founded a true system of self-government, and obtained the opportunity of being relieved of our trusteeship with safety and honour for all concerned.
Alas ! we have not had the patience to wait for this liberating and enlightening process. Instead we have adopted a system which we believe can only intensify the caste system of India, and add to the cruelty and arrogance of the dominant theocracy—a theocracy which has hitherto been kept in check by British rule.
Before we leave the Indian Bill we must revert to Lord Sydenham's speech. At the end of it he used these words " There is only one way to rule in the Bast and to teach Indian people to love your rule, and that is by a strong Execu- tive, by which I do not in the least mean a purely British Executive, but an Executive so strong that it is able to do what is right and to fear nothing." These are wise words, and they carry with them a great truth which we may expand. People who do not know the East will probably find some- thing strange, and even selfish, in Lord Sydenham's dictum, and will ask why we assume that Asian peoples prefer to be governed to governing themselves. We Anglo-Saxons like to rule ourselves. Why assume that our desire is not shared by men of a darker complexion ! The answer is to be found in the Oriental temperament and in Oriental history. Rightly or wrongly, Orientals value security and tranquillity more than anything else in the political sphere. Whether they in fact go the right way about obtaining these good things does not matter for the moment. What does matter is that the majority of them earnestly desire above all things firm government and expect their desire to be fulfilled from above, and, further and most strangely, will neverthe ess make very little personal effort or sacrifice to secure the thing for which they hunger. A very curious proof of this fact is to be found in a document recently put forward by representatives of the people of Mesopotamia, a document the translation of which is given in a most impressive article in the Times of Tuesday. We learn from this paper that in 1918 three questions were addressed to the people of "the Land of Irak "—the Land between the Rivers. They were asked whether they were in favour of an Arab State under British tutelage, and if so did they consider that the new State should be placed under a titular Arab head—i.e., an Emir—and lastly whom did they suggest as Emir of the future Irak State. By an overwhelming majority the persons consulted declared that no Arab Emir was possible, and that what they wanted was British trusteeship. We must give their reasons in their own words, but before we do so we must ask our readers to remember that there is nothing special or excep- tional in the frank way in which the respondents, in reply to the questions put by the Mesopotamian Government, criticize themselves and admit their own political dis- abilities. Here is an extract from the reply of the Nasiriyah district, which was signed by 271 tribal Sheikhs and other notables in assembly (the italics are ours) :— " Regarding the appointment of an Arab Emir for the Irak, we all, the undersigned, feel highly honoured at this act of humanity, and deeply grateful and indebted to you for this idea. But this does not coincide with the interests of the country of Irak in general, because we see not a single man in Irak free from partiality and passion. We could have found a man for this post had civilization been rooted in us for a long period. Alas! Ignorance is prevalent among us, and if a man of us were made Emir he would make his Emtrate a toy in his hands. . . . We therefore do not want an Emir, because we are people of Irak, who are known as the most faithless and hypocritical nation. If you are bent upon appointing an Arab Emir, we would request you not to do it now, but after some years. When you have handled and administered the Irak and El Jezireh you will then be able to decide whence an Emir should be selected, whether from Mecca, the Yemen, or Syria. It can be taken for granted that if the Emir were selected from among the nobility of El Sa'dun, the Sadat of Basra would say that they were more qualified for the post. Similarly, the people of Baghdad would grumble at the appointment, and the same applies to the people of Mosul and all the Arabs of El Jezireh. We should thus remain disputing with each other until we died. So it is better for us that this question should be left aside for some time. We request the honour of Great Britain to make other arrangements for the Irak. You are known for kindness to your subjects, particu- larly to the Arabs, of whose present and past situation you are aware. Our last request, which is the most important one, is that the affairs of the Irak may kindly be managed by His Honour Sir Percy Cox, whom we love from the bottom of our hearts, and from whom during this war we have experienced nothing but justice, kindness, benevolence, and perfect goodness, which, of course, are the essential requisites of good and sound administration. We request the British Government to return him to us and to our brethren of Irak. We cannot adequately express our appreciation for his love and sympathy for the Arab nation. We rely, in this matter, upon the justice of the British Government."
We may add that the writer in the Times states that the document " may seemunusual," but it is not. " It is typical of many, and there is a printed volume of them showing that the opinion of the country is essentially unanimous." We do not doubt that, if it were possible, as of course it is not, to get the views of the ninety per cent. of the people of India who are in future largely to be ruled not by British trustees but by a select minority of natives, they would speak very much in the same voice as the people of Mesopotamia. The only difference is that they would speak with a far greater sense of dread, and make a far more passionate appeal to us to administer their country for them, and so preserve justice and tranquillity, than do even the people of Mesopotamia. And for this reason— the dreadful shadow of unrelieved caste oppression, a tyranny far worse than that of any personal tyrant, how- ever cruel, does not overshadow a purely Mohammedan community such as exists in Mesopotamia. In many ways a homogeneous Mohammedan community has already learnt the first lesson of democracy. Mohammedans, though they seem always to have preferred living under monarchies, believe ail men equal in the sight of God. That the Hindu has never yet believed, and we fear will not believe for many generations to come. Ile is either frozen with spiritual arrogance, or else shiver; before the threats of a religious code from which he strives to escape even though it is impious for him to do so. Among the majority of Hindus the British Raj may be unpopular, but in the last resort it is the Raj who protects the Hindu from himself, protects him from being absolutely at the mercy of his spiritual superiors. At present the ordinary Hindu feels that the lawmakers and the Law Court are not in league with theocracy. How long will he feel this after Mr. Montagu's Bill has come into operation and has linked up the theocracy and the civil Government ? But what avail such regret; ? " The lot is cast in' o the lap." The Bill is passed. Our Indian trusteeship is tottering to its fall.
How, we wonder, does the author of this unwanted revo- lution contemplate his handiwork ? Unless we are greatly mistaken, he now stands aghast at the thought of the monster he has called into existence by his wilidness, his fears, and his substitution of a tortuous diplomacy for the straightforward statesmanship of English tin- dition. If he trembles like Felix when his opponents speak of righ,eousse3s, temperance, and judgment to come, who shall wonder ? Before him is the desperate, the hope.es1 task of trying to steer the barque he has already dismantled through the terrible tornado of fierce passions and rival interests, a task which might well appal a braver man. And, remember, he must face it alone, for, though he may have won the assent of his colleagues, it is the assent of despair, not of the willing mind. In such circumstancas who would be surprised if Mr. Montagu were to try to find an excuse for leaving it to others to save the ship, if that l e still possible, from the peril into which he has brought her ?
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