INDIA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—We much admire your invariable fairness, as exemplified in publishing the letter of Sir Ion Hamilton Benn. May I crave the same indulgence if I say that we here warmly agree with his letter in every particular ? Does not history endorse what he so aptly remarks, and further, does it not show that Great Britain had a Divine mandate to rule India ? India needed such a ruler and still does. Is this mandate of the highest source to be set aside, and cancelled at the beck of Mr. Gandhi ? Many thinking men here consider that the proper answer to the recent murders is to proclaim martial law in some form. The native mind reads what we mean for magnanimity as impotency and fear. Concession resulting
from terrorism earns his contempt, which is not tempered by Western talk and idealism.—I am, Sir, &e., [We fear the age has passed for governing alien peoples against their will. The British Commonwealth rests on the only sure foundation for a World State, the consent of the governed.—En. Spectator.]
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