[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I enclose a copy

of part of a letter just received from Ind•.a. The writer is agent (manager) of an important branch of a bank in India and has been there for the last five years.

I feel that such views, coming from an Englishman engaged in so cautious and conservative an occupation as banking, are important enough to be published for a more general consideration.—I aro, Sir, &c., GORDON EVANS.

3 Highbury, Jesmond, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

" The Simon Commission Report has met with practically universal condemnation in this country. I have hardly met, or

read of anyone, with a good word for it. The Times of India damns

it with faint praise and responsible European opinion in Bombay- is dead against it. Of course, Calcutta and a few die-hards there are in favour of it, but they live in the atmosphere of the last century. Every moderate Indian loader, Jinnah, Sastri, Thakerdas, Sellar, &c., condemns it unequivocally, and I am in entire agree- ment with them. It gives nothing—if anything it is reactionary, and India will have nothing to do with it. India has to have Dominion status with necessary safeguards for minorities and

control of the Army ; nothing less will satisfy them, and if English people think that the masses are not behind it then they ought to come and live in Gujrat for a bit and see what they think about it.

When men get to the state of delighting to go to prison for their convictions, then it is time something was done. If we are to

uphold the fair name of England as the giver of freedom, and if we want to retain India within the Empire, then we must state immediately that the Round Table Conference is to meet to discuss ' Dominion Home Rule.'

If we make India mistress in her own house she will remain a daughter in ours. I am deeply impressed by the sincerity of the

Indian leaders, and I am afraid people at home do not realize how strong feeling is—there is absolutely no antagonism to the English as such. My treatment by Indians of all schools here—even in a hot-bed of Gandhism—is perfect, but they claim the right to manage their own affairs. Every Hindu in Gujrat, from Gandhi down to the meanest members of the depressed classes, are solid in their demand ; and in the twentieth century wo cannot deny the right of self-determination to 300 million people.

As to the articles Lord Rothermero is writing in the Mail, ho says all Indians are corrupt and dishonest : that is not calcu-

lated to placate Indian moderate opinion, and I feel quite ashamed

when my Indian friends confront me with articles of this nature. Ho also says that if we give them Dominion Homo Rule we will lose our trade. I tell you that if we do not give them Home Rule

we will lose our trade. No Act of Parliament can force a country to trade with us. I tell you in all solemnity that Indians are prepared to ruin themselves if necessary, in the same spirit that the Dutch flooded their own land in the fight for freedom. I never realized that the Indians were capable of such an effort. Men are

not only cheerfully going to prison but are cheerfully allowing their lands to be confiscated in return for non-payment of taxes. When a country's spirit is like that, how can any real Englishman (who loves his own country and thinks what he would do if his own Motherland were in alien hands, however justly it were ruled) help but respect a people who are by nature pacific and non-violent.

As an Englishman I pray that we will rise—as we have risen on occasion to great heights and come forward with some mag- nanimous gesture—and save the situation. By giving South Africa Dominion Home Rule in 1910 we saved her for the Empire, and in fourteen years after the Boor War had her lined on our own side in the Great War. That was an act of statesmanship, and we need a similar act to-day."