India’s future at stake

ONE of the misfortunes of a country in India’s position is that it never lacks disinterested advisers to counsel caution and patience to its long-suffering millions. Such advisers existed even before Lord Morley took it upon himself to rebuke the “impatient idealist” who, in his opinion, has been responsible for many a miscarriage in history, and against whom he seriously warned India. Their number has greatly increased since. These people never pause to ask or answer the question whether the impatient idealist has not prevented more miscarriages in history than he has caused and whether in almost every instance, as pointed out by Macaulay in a famous passage, he is not the direct product of the refusal of Conservatives, bigots and die-hards to move forward in time. The latest addition to the long list is Sir Wilfred Grenfell of Labrador (Canada), who is now on a world tour and who, on the strength of his six weeks’ knowledge and experience of India, considered himself competent, in a press interview at Madras, to warn India’s uneducated people of the danger of falling “an easy prey to grasping and garrulous politicians.” Let no one imagine that our learned doctor lacks sympathy with the mere desire for freedom. “Both in India and Egypt,” he said, “the impulse for new life is developing. At last, both countries are preparing themselves for self-government, which is the right aim of very nation.” Perhaps if the two countries could forever content themselves with the preparation and never aspire to the actual enjoyment of self-government, they would retain both the sympathy and the good opinion of this ardent lover of humanity and self-government.