Communal Electorates.

NOW that the question of communal electorates has again assumed practical importance owing to the presence of the Reforms Committees, it is worth while drawing attention to the noble words in which the authors of the joint report exhort several communities in India to rise above communal feeling, words which have been quoted more than once. “Self-government for India within the Empire,” they say, “ is the highest aim which her people can set before themselves or which we, as trustees for her, can help her to attain. Without it there can be no fullness of civic life, no satisfaction of the natural aspirations which fill the soul of every self-respecting man. The vision is one that may well lift men up to resolve on things that seemed impossible before. Is it too much to hope that the desire of the people of India to govern themselves, and the conviction that they can never do so otherwise in any real sense, may prove eventually to be the solvent of these difficulties of race and creed?”

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