SIR,—The scheme for the future administration of India outlined by
"Rusticus " in his letter (April 3crth) sounds very nice: unhappily, it is vitiated at the basis, in that it would involve a flagrant breach of the public faith. It presupposes a continued forcible control of India by the British, and we have promised that if, after the war, the principal elements in India frame by common agreement a constitution for their country we will immediately withdraw our control and allow India, if it chooses, to sever its connexion with the British Commonwealth of Nations. " Rusticus" expressly admits that we have made the promise ; but that does not matter ; it is quite simple: we just break our word. "If we adhere to the letter of our promise," he writes, gaily. A " scrap of paper ": what? Casting doubt on the good faith of the British Govern- ment is a stock part of Congress propaganda. Even Mr. Rajagopalachari indicated in a recently published utterance that the British would be quite likely after the war to find some excuse to wriggle out of their pledged word. Perhaps he had been meeting in India Englishmen whose standards of public conduct were similar to those of "Rusticus."
If we withdraw, " Rusticus " says, "civil war will be the result." It may, of course. But that possibility is so obvious that it must have been fully present to the mind of the Government when they gave the promise. They cannot therefore use it as a pretext for not keeping their promise. They must have held that the evils possibly consequent upon a British withdrawal were less than the evils which a continued forcible control of India by the British would entail under the conditions of the new age. Whether they were right or wrong in such an estimate this is not the occasion to argue: the point is that the promise was deliberately given. There is no reason to suppose (Indians may rest assured) that the British Government—or indeed the British people as a whole—take as jaunty a view as "Rusticus" does of the public faith of England.—Yours, &c.,
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