THE ENGLISH IN INDIA [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—I have just had an invitation to subscribe to the Spectator, and one thing I like about the Spectator is that it is fair-minded. It is not High Church, but it allows High Churchmen to express their opinions. It is not Socialist, but it allows Socialists to express their opinions.
Would you, then, allow me to express an opinion different from that of a reviewer of a book on India which was noticed in the Spectator of November 7th ? The reviewer thinks that English people in England should study the wrong things done by English people in India in the year 1857. My own opinion is that it is more important for the English people in England to study the wrong things they are themselves doing in not understanding the English people who are alive in India in the year 1925. It is so much easier for the English people in England to study the shortcomings of other people than their own shortcOmings. A retired governor of one of the Indian Provinces told me that he did not suppose that one per cent. of people in England knew who the English in India were. I mentioned that to an Editor, and he asked me who they were. When I told him he replied that he had no idea of that before, and that he did not suppose one person in a thousand in the
town in which he lived would know who the English in India
. were.—I am, Sir, &c., OSWALD YOUNGBUSBAND.
Church Imperial Club, 75 Victoria Street, S.W.1.
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