[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

SIR,—Your correspondent, Sir Charles Spencer, asks :—" Is there any evidence of the peasantry of India having been more virile at any previous time in history ? "

There is certainly no scrap of evidence to show that they have been less virile than they are to-day as the following very appalling figures prove.

Take Bengal : Dr. C. A. Bentley, the Director of Health, states in his report for 1927-28 :-

" 1,500,000 people are dying every year in Bengal alone. On an average 750,000 children under fifteen years of age die every year— about fifty per cent. of the total deaths. Twenty-five per cent. of the mortality is due to preventible diseases. The present peasantry of Bengal are in a very large proportion taking to a dietary on which even rats could not live for more than five weeks. Their vitality is now so undermined by inadequate diet they cannot stand the infection of foul diseases. Last year 120,000 people died of cholera ; 350,000 of malaria ; 350,000 from tuber- culosis ; 100,000 of enteric. On an average 55,000 new born infants die every year of tetanus."

" Throughout the Province, no less than 500,000 are now suffering from tuberculosis." Dr. Bentley calculates the net annual loss to Bengal from the deaths of her boys and girls, to be Rs. three crores (say £2,250,000). The Director further states :

" If I can only induce the leaders of the people to realize how urgent is the need of the people of improving their physical well- being, I am sure they will drop everything else and put the health of the people above all considerations, &c., &c."

Precisely the same is the dreadful story in all the other Provinces of India.

Because of the people's incapacity to withstand infection, no fewer than eleven and a half million perished in India in 1918, in the brief period of six months. In 1916, Nesfield estimated the total deaths in India from " fevers," exclusive of plague and smallpox, at five and a half millions annually, and half a million from cholera as far only as it is known. Indeed, cholera is always epidemic in certain parts, and about once in five years it is pandemic (consider what all this means in funeral expenses alone). The land of India has to support to-day a population which, according to Sir William Vincent, exceeds that of China. It is over three times as great as in the days of Elphinstone. Ninety per cent. of the people live on the land, and the Ryot's method of cultivating his land is about the sane to-day as it was in the days of Chandra-gupta, and thereby loses 500 crores annually. I would like to know at what period in India's history her children were less virile than they are to-day. I do not think Sir Charles Spencer can produce a scrap of evidence, having regard to the above facts and figures.

To turn to another subject, I have recently received a letter from Mahatma Gandhi whieh may interest readers of the Spectator. I wrote to him about a statement made in the Assembly some time ago by Pundit Motilal Nehru in reply to a question put by Sir George Rainy: The Pundit said that under the Nehru Constitution only " nationalists could do business lawfully in India." I asked the Mahatma to tell me how to reconcile the words used by the Pundit in his " Report " with those in his reply in " the Assembly." Mr. Gandhi wrote to me " as a friend to a friend " —from his ashram at Sabarmati : -

" I have not seen the full text of Pundit Motilal Nehru's reply in the Assembly, and I think that the enquiry should be addressed to the Pundit himself and not to me. But I can give you my own opinion upon the question for whatever it may be worth. In any constitution that I could endorse, I should certainly be against the confiscation of the legitimate rights of any community. " I would, however, put stress upon the word legitimate.' There are many privileges enjoyed by those who belong to the ruling race which have not been legitimately earned. If, therefore, I had my way, I should most decidedly examine every such privilege and those which are discovered not to have been legitimately obtained should be taken away."

That was the Mahatma's " reply " and it was not satis• factory, and I told him so. He has since declared that in any " constitution " that he could endorse there would have to be the power " to repudiate debt." In the Spectator's words :

" the British Government . . . have announced . . . that they have no intention of allowing a situation to arise in India in which repudiation of debt would be possible."

A word more ttbout the Mahatma's " plan of campaign."

He believes that, because his efforts at " civil disobedience " were crowned with success in South Africa first, and then in Champaran, Motihari, and Bardoli in India—they arc bound to prove effective on this occasion also.

It is conveniently forgotten that the object with which " civil disobedience " was practised in these places was the removal of certain definite grievances, and all these were removed by the constituted government of the land.

The aim of the present " campaign," is not the removal of any particular grievance, but that of the Government itself— a different proposition altogether. Meanwhile, thanks to the Mahatma's passion to have everything under his own thumb, his " guns " have been spiked already. Thus Mr. S. C. Bose's organ Liberty angrily declares :

"the war of Independence should not be undertaken by a few scattered groups of old-no-changers, who, whatever be their qualifications, cannot certainly claim to represent the entire nation."

Which I am sure our faint hearts at home will agree is an unkind reference to the Congress Working Committee which has just vested Mr. Gandhi with full " dictatorial powers."