THE 'ENGLISH RAILWAY STAFF IN INDIA. [To THE 'EDITOR Or
THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Would you kindly allow me to say a few words on this euhject? The English railway staff in India contains many old soldiers, and is doing work of which the majority of people in England are profoundly ignorant. In the tour of the Prince of Wales mention was made of the fact that before the Prince of Wales reached Delhi there was a strike on the rail- way. The reason why he was able to get to Delhi was because there happened to be Englishmen working on the railway who did not go out on Gtrike. During the Punjab disorders Englishmen were not unnaturally glad that they were not murdered or burnt alive. One reason why this did not take place was that the trains were kept running, and the English railway staff had something to do with keeping the trains run- ning. Shortly afterwards there was a big strike on this rail- way—the North-Western Railway—which stretches right across Northern India. This railway is important not only for the purposes of :trade and commerce, but for military reasons as well. Troops are moved along this railway to ,protect the frontier. If the trains were not kept running the frontier tribes would come raiding down into India, and would loot the rich bazaars of the Punjab. It is also through the frontier that Bolshevists try to get their propaganda into India. The English railway staff had a good deal of sympathy with the Indian staff, bat it was their devotion to duty that kept the trains running and saved a difficult situation. If Englishmen are to go to India—and India will lapse into anarchy if they do not—then it is not too much to expect that England will be interested in them, not only in those Englishmen who can afford to send their sons 'home for education, but in all English- men in India, and not least in those Englishmen in railway service in India, who 'by their devotion to duty are 'doing their best to save India from anarchy and to safeguard the lives of Englishmen in that country.—I am, Sir, &c.,
OSWALD YOUNGHUSBAND.
-Mier& Imperial Club, 75 Victoria Street, S.W.
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