and leaves the field open to them to take, while we are making platform speeches or writing newspaper articles on the needs of protection.

In the same paragraph, I find the following, which should give food for thought to our captains of industry, and to all those who have the progress of industrialism here at heart. The para runs: "Complaints have often been heard that the Swadeshi goods are not found in the market. This is due to the fact that there is no proper carrier, or proper organisation. Swadeshi Committee should be found in each district town, and subdivision, and at least one Swadeshi Stores opened in each place." Now, Gentlemen, this is hitting at least one right nail on the head. It is a fact that we remain in ignorance of a great many things that are being now made in India as good as those imported, e g., the Tirhoot Buttons, and it is worth while seeing how the Japanese set about it in their own country.

Well, Gentleman, first of all they have industrial and commercial museums in all large cities where the consumer-i.e., the ordinary public has the opportunity of looking at different home-made articles at leisure. The articles have in most cases a tag attached giving details of name of maker, sizes, price, etc. This for the wholesale and retail trader. Outside many of such museums, they have sort of bazaars, or, a line of stalls in which a visitor may also roam at will, and gaze at the articles exposed, and, if he so wishes may actually buy any article that takes his fancy. These bazaars are not only attached to museums, but are also to be found in the business parts of the big cities. They are more or less arranged like the Crawford Market. Each stall belongs to the holder but the public can go through the main and bye lanes of such bazaars at will and only se things if they don't care to buy. Here, our Swadeshi stores are arranged more like shops, and the merely curious individual does not care to go into them, lest he be asked to buy. But, if he were allowed to roam through such bazaars at will, as is done in Europe and Japar, he would see and learn a great many things, and buy a great many things of Swadeshi make, that he does not

use now, because he docs not know of them. These bazaars are amongst us a very old institution. I mean our fairs on big public holidays and other occasions. What is wanted is to better organise them, and make them a permanent feature of every city. One great characteristic of our Indian population is their fondness for pilgrimages. This could be turned to valuable account. Let such bazaars be established in all important pilgrimage centres. They will be sure to be crowded by sight-seeing pilgrims, and they will carry the knowledge of Swadeshi articles to nooks and corners of the land as nothing else can.

This paper is already too long, and I will therefore conclude with the lesson I have tried to emphasize, viz: that we should go to the Japanese and see what they do, and why they succeeded, and not satisfied with tales of protection and bounties, and despair of achieving anything in India until we get fiscal autonomy. Let us rather study the question of each industry in detail, and try to make the most of our many natural advantages, and, twenty years hence we may hope to see glassware and matches and sugar as flourishing and firmly established industries in India as cotton and jute are to day. Let us remember also that the Japanese are to day able to step into the shoes of Germans and Austrians just because they were already equipped to do it. Opportunities always come to men and to nations, but only those can profit by it that have equipped themselves for it by previous preparation. This war has been Japan's opportunity. When it is over. there will be another great opportunity, as there is bound to be reconstruction all over Europe on an immense scale, which will very likely so take up the entire energies of the European nations that they may not be able to cater to cur require ment even to the partial extent that they do to day. Our Indian manufacturers will then be abl to step in and secure the home market for them selves, but only, if they are equipped to do so Industries cannot be built up in a day. Let u start right now so that when theopportunity come we may be there ready to take it.—(Paper submitte to the Lleventh Indian Industrial Conference, 1915

HERE can be no true sense of citizenship where there is no sense of responsibility for the defence of one's own country. "If there is trouble, others will quiet it down. If there is riot, others will subdue it. If there is danger, others will face it. If our country is in peril, others will defend it." When a people feel like this it indicates that they have got to a stage when all sense of civic responsibility has been crushed out of them, and the system which is responsible for this feeling is inconsistent with the self-respect of normal human beings.

I shall be the first to acknowledge that various steps have been and are being taken by the Government to promote the right spirit of selfhelp in the country, but I feel that hitherto the Government has not only ignored but has put positive obstacles in the way of the people acquiring or retaining a spirit of national self-help in this the most essential respect.

For what is the present condition of things in this respect? Except certain warlike races like the Sikhs and Rajputs, the people generally are debarred from receiving any kind of military training. Not only are they not allowed enlistment in the ranks of H. M.'s Army, but they are even precluded from joining any Volunteer Corps. Even with regard to the classes of men-Sikhs and Rajputs, Gurkhas and Pathans, etc.-who are taken into the regular army for the simple reason that the number of English troops is not in itself sufficient to maintain peace and order in this country-it is an inflexible rule that though they may now obtain the highest badge of valour, viz, the Victoria Cross, not one of them can receive a Commission in His Majesty's armyirrespective of birth or bravery, education or efficiency.

While the humblest European and Eurasian and even the West Indian Negro has the right to carry arms, the law of the land denies even to the most law-abiding and respectable Indian the privilege of possessing or carrying arms of any description except as a matter of special concession and indulgence, often depending on the whim and caprice of unsympathetic officials.

To my mind the mere statement of the present system ought to be sufficient to secure its condemnation.

Let me proceed to state shortly what changes we consider essential to remedy this state of things.

1st. We ask for the right to enlist in the regular army irrespective of race or province of origin, but subject only to prescribed tests of physical fitness.

2nd. We ask that the commissioned ranks of the Indian Army should be thrown open to all classes of His Majesty's subjects, subject to fair, reasonable and adequate physical and educational tests, and that a military college or colleges should be established in India where proper military training can be received by those of our countrymen who will have the good fortune to receive His Majesty's Commission.

3rd. We ask that all classes of His Majesty's subjects should be allowed to join as volunteers, subject of course to such rules and regulations as will ensure proper control and discipline, and

4th. That the invidious distinctions under the Arms Act should be removed. This has no real connection with the three previous claims, but I deal with it together with the others as all these disabilities are justified on the same ground of political expediency.

Let us pause for a moment and consider the objections that are generally brought forward against the first three proposals.

As to the right to join the ranks, irrespective of race or province of origin, objections are put forward, firstly, that not all the races of India provide good fighting material and that many of them lack the physical courage necessary for the army. And, secondly, that many of them are neither willing nor anxious to join the ranks or to enter the army in any capacity.

The last may be dealt with in a few words. We are asking for a right, and if it turns out that some of us are not willing to avail ourselves of that right-well, there will be no compulsion on them to do so, and nobody will be the worse off because of the right. On the contrary, it will remove a grievance bitterly felt and loudly complained of and will redom. to the credit of Government.

As regards the first objection, viz., the want of necessary martial spirit in certain classes or races, it requires more serious consideration. The country can afford to keep as a standing

army only a certain number of trained soldiers and officers, and it must get the best it can for the money it spends, and if certain races are unfit by reason of inherent want of courage for the profession of arms, the State would naturally select its soldiers from other classes.

Taking it at its full strength, this argument has its limitation. For you cannot govern a State on exactly the same principles as you manage a shop. You may get better value for your money by getting as your soldier an Afridi or a Pathan or any non-British subject, but by excluding the Bengali, the Parsi, or the Madrasi, you create a feeling of grievance, if not of actual resentment, which is certain to cause serious embarrassment in the work of general administration. render it impossible for the excluded classes to consider themselves as equal subjects and citizens responsible for the defence of the country, and you fail to foster that spirit of self-help and that sense of self-respect among these classes which is essential to attain the goal of imperial unity.

You

Hitherto I have proceeded upon the assumption that some of the races in India are lacking in the physical courage necessary for the profession of

arms.

But is it a correct hypothesis? Is it true that the Bengali-I am taking him as a type only --has not and will never have the requisite physical courage? The theory was started by Macaulay in his too sweeping condemnation of the people of the Gangetic delta, forgetting that the Bengal peasantry has always been a sturdy and virile class particularly in tracts not touched by malaria. But take even the professional or educated classes in Bengal. A good many of them, who enlisted under conditions of great personal sacrifice, are at the present moment working in Mesopotamia as an Ambulance Corps, and I am confident all British officers in that theatre of war from the General in Command downwards will tell you that not a single man in that Corps has proved himself deficient in physical courage and endurance.

Take another example nearer home. There is a body of public servants much misunderstood and hence much maligned. I refer to the Bengali officers of the C. I. D. of the Police. Ask any Englishman in Bengal you like from His Excellency the Governor downwards, and I am sure he will tell you there is not one among those officers who does not unflinchingly face death daily and hourly for the sake of duty and loyalty, and, let me add that he does. so often in spite of much obloquy and great discouragement.

I take leave to point out, therefore, that it is not correct, at any rate at the present time, to assert of any sections of the Indian people that they are wanting in such physical courage and manly virtues as to render them incapable of bearing arms. But even if it were so, is it not the obvious duty of England so to train them as to remove this incapacity, as they are trying to remove so many others, especially if it be the case, as there is some reason to believe it is, that it is English rule which has brought them to such a pass? England has ruled this country for considerably over 150 years now, and surely it cannot be a matter of pride to her at the end of this period that the withdrawal of her rule would mean chaos and anarchy and would leave the country an easy prey to any foreign adventurers. There are some of our critics who never fail to remind us that if the English were to leave the country to-day, we would have to wire to them to come back before they got to Aden. Some even enjoy the grim joke that were the English to withdraw now, there would be neither a rupee nor a virgin left in some parts of the country. I can conceive of no more scathing indictment of the results of British Rule. A superman might gloat over the spectacle of the conquest of might over justice and righteousness, but I am much mistaken if the British nation, fighting now as ever for the cause of justice and freedom and liberty, will consider it as other than discreditable to itself that after nearly two centuries of British Rule, India has been brought to-day to the same emasculated condition as the Britons were in the beginning of the 5th century when the Roman legions left the English shores in order to defend their own country against the Huns, Goths and other barbarian hordes.

In asking, therefore, for the right of military training, we are seeking to remedy the results above described. We are seeking to regain our lost self-respect, to strengthen our sense of civic responsibility, and to regain the right to defend our homes and hearths against possible invaders, should the strong protecting arm of England be ever withdrawn from our country. It is no mere sentiment that compels us to demand this inalienable right of all human beings, though sentiment has its undoubted place in the scheme of every government. Some day or other, our right arm may be called upon to defend all that man holds most precious. For who will venture to prophesy that sooner or later there may not be another such conflict as is now convulsing the

world, when there may be new alliances and fresh combinations and when England may not have the same allies and advantages as she has now?

I have endeavoured to prove that neither of the objections which are generally put forward against our claims to enlistment in the army is tenable. I have also tried to show the justice as well as the necessity of our demands.

In the face of what has happened in the present war, it is no longer correct to say as Lord Bryce said in 1912:—

To England, however, apart from the particular events which might have created the snapping of the tie and spart from the possible loss of a market, severance from India need involve no lasting injury. To be mistress of a vast country, whose resources for defence need to be supplemented by her own, adds indeed to her fame but does not add to her strength. (The italics are mine.) England was great and powerful before she owned a yard of land in Asia and might be great and powerful again with no more foothold in the East than would be needed for the naval prestige which protects her commerce.

The resources for defence which India possesses even now do add to the strength of England as has been so amply proved in the present war. This strength would be multiplied a hundred-fold were our claims ever conceded. For, if the people of India are allowed and trained to bear arms, what nation is there whose strength would compare with that of England? Nor is there any reason for apprehension that such concessions would be a source of internal danger. If the Sikhs, the Gurkhas, the Mahrattas and the Pathans-good and valiant soldiers as they are— are found to be loyal and law-abiding, there is no reason to think that the case would be otherwise with the other races when admitted to the same status and privileges. Besides, the privileges are to be granted subject only to such conditions "nd rules and regulations as to ensure proper discipline and control.

In the case of Volunteers also, they will be similarly subject to all proper safeguards and restrictions which will be for the Government to lay down.

Subject to such safeguards, the ranks of volunteer corps will afford, without any risk whatever to the Government or the people, an outlet for restless energies which now find doubtful and dangerous channels.

In making these demands, I know I raise as large a question as the formation of a National Militia. I desire frankly and freely to meet the criticism that such an army, with a preponderance of the Indian element, may be turned against the

British Government. I venture to submit in reply that anarchists and seditionists may succeed in winning over an ignorant and mercenary army, but they will never succeed in winning over a truly national army, drawn from a people made increasingly loyal by the spread of education and liberal self-governing institutions. Of course, I am not suggesting that the army should be nationalised in a day any more than that the government of the country should be nationalised by a stroke of the pen. But I urge in all humility that the time has come for making the beginning of a National Army in India. The tremendous shock with which every part of our world-wide Empire has realised the prime necessity of maintaining an army large enough for its defence and protection renders it imperative that a strong National Army should be raised and maintained in every part of India.

The opening of a military career will fire the imagination and stimulate the virility of India in a way that nothing else can do. And is it too much for India to expect to be treated in the same way as Russia treats her subject races-especially after the proof she has given of the prowess of her sons and their devotion and loyalty to the imperial standard?

Reason and convenience, justice and necessity, all support every one of the claims I have put forward; and if a definite advance is not made in these respects, it will be difficult to believe that the war has changed the angle of vision of our rulers. It will be impossible to retain faith in what was proclaimed by the present Premier, "that the Empire rests, not upon the predominance, artificial and superficial, of race or class, but upon the loyal affection of free communities built upon the basis of equal rights.

I now come to the last but not the least important of our claims, viz., that the invidious distinctions under the Arms Act should be abolished. Sentiment as well as reason alike recommends it. Not only will the galling sense of racial inferiority and the overt imputation of universal disloyalty be removed by such measure, but people will also get rid of onerous disabilities in the way of defending themselves against the attacks of wild animals as well as lawless human adversaries.- From the Congress Presidential Address.

a

II. MR. MAZAR-UL-HAQUE.

In spite of the numerous martial races who inhabit India in millions, no Indian can rise above the non-commissioned ranks. He cannot hope to gain a higher position than that of a Subadar-Major or a Risaldar-Major. Every position that would give them an independent command is closed to them. The regular army is limited in number, no volunteers are taken from our ranks and the general population is rigorously disarmed. The Arms Act perpetuates invidious distinctions on grounds of colour and creed-distinctions most humiliating to the people of the country. Going about their ordinary daily occupations our people may be attacked by dacoits and evillydisposed persons or even by wild beasts, but they cannot defend themselves. Even lathis have been held by some judicial authorities to be dangerous weapons. Newspapers and official communiques tell us that ordinary Naiks of our Indian Army have on the battle-field conducted themselves most bravely and have led their companies with conspicuous gallantry and ability at times when all the English officers were either killed or disabled. If our men are capable of such initiative and valiant deeds on the actual field of battle, why, Indians naturally ask, should they not be trusted in the piping times of peace? Had they been only trained and allowed to service, millions and millions would have sprung up by the side of England at her slightest call in this, the hour of her need. Indeed, no other nation of the world has such an inexhaustible source of strength as Great Britain has in the teeming masses of India, but India has been so maimed and crippled in her manhood that she can help neither herself nor Great Britain. The idea is galling and humiliating that, if a time came when India was in danger, her own sons would not be able to save their hearths and homes, the honour and lives of their wives and children but would have to look to foreign nations like Japan and Russia for help and succour. Peace and order are the first requisites of a settled Government and without them there would be mere chaos; unlimited and long continued peace has a tendency to enervate and emasculate people. To make a living nation higher qualities are required. A spirit which will not bow before any adverse wind, an internal strength which will brave every threatened danger, capacity which will bear all toils and troubles, a determination which will flinch from no task, however impossible it may appear, a discipline which will love and be happy in the service of

the country and the Empire, are qualities necessary for the attainment of that life which I call a full life. These moral forces can or.ly come into play when people are free and unrestricted in the exercise of all their faculties. The profession of arms is perhaps one which breeds this spirit and brings out these potential forces more than any other. To close it to any portion of humanity is to turn them into lifeless machines.

In the Navy, we cannot rise above the rank of a lascar. Attempts are often made to keep us out even of this lowly position. India has a vast sea-board peopled by sea-faring nations. To refuse them their birthright is to waste so much good material which would have gone to increase the strength of the Empire. Why not have a few Indian Dreadnoughts and Cruisers manned by Indians and commanded by their own countrymen ? It is said that the Indians are not fit for the Navy. Not having trained and tried them, it is not fair or just to say so. Try them first and, if found wanting, then you have a right to reject them. As yet Indians have never failed in offices of trust and responsibility where they have been tried. Open up new fields for them, put them in fresh positions and trust them, and I am sure that they will never be found wanting. The history of ancient India proves that naval capacity is there; but it lies dormant for want of sufficient opportunity.-From the Presidential Address to the All-India Moslem League.

INDIAN NATIONAL EVOLUTION.

A SURVEY OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, BY AMVIKA CHARAN MAZUMDAR. The basal principle underlying the last thirty years' work of the Congress has been one of nation-building and the evolution of a national life in India, and the writer with his intimate knowledge and personal experience of the movement almost ever since its inauguration has attempted to draw out this feature of the national organisation without bias or prejudice, In doing so he has traced the movement to its origin and followed its career in all the phases through which it has passed, the trials and tribulations it has undergone, the vicissitudes it has suffered, the defeats it has encountered and the successes it has achieved. The book also clearly defines the aims and objects of the Congress and shortly deals with some of the problems which must 800ner or later engage its attention for the fulfilment of its high mission. With Appendices and Illustrations.

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