LORD READING’S OPPORTUNITY

IF Lord Reading is as open-minded as a statesman as Mahatma Gandhi is as a saint, he will see in the Mahatma’s illness, coming on top of several other events of tremendous importance, a God-given opportunity for himself and his government, just as the Mahatma saw nature’s unmistakable warning in the Chauri Chaura tragedy. The conjunction of circumstances is, indeed, unique. In Great Britain, a new party is coming to power, a party which has for its watchword the “holding out of its hand of friendship and goodwill to the struggling peoples everywhere who want freedom, security and a happier life,” and which in the case of India is definitely pledged to the policy of the early introduction of self-government and self-determination. In our own country, the Swarajists, in spite of their late appearance in the field, have achieved such signal success at the polls that in two provinces they have actually had the offer of office made to them, which they have refused only because they have pledged not to accept office until the country is self-governing, while in several other cases, including that of the Assembly, they constitute the largest single party. Nor are the Liberals, the only other party in India that counts politically, backward in demanding Swaraj. One need not go beyond their deliberations at the last meeting of their federation to see that they are as strongly in favour of immediate self-government as any other party.

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