Personal.

THE ALL-INDIA MOSLEM LEAGUE.

The All-India Moslem League has elected the Hon'ble the Raja of Mahmudabad as its President in the place of H. H. the Aga Khan and re-elected Mr. Wazir Hasan as its secretary. Both of them have distinguished themselves by eminent public services, and the members of the League could not hope to have a worthier president and secretary. Their great merit is that neither of them is a reactionary or a bigot. They stand for the best interests of their own community but also for the cultivation of harmonious relations with other communities. They stand for progress and reform. They have done good work in the past and may be trusted to do even better in future under more favourable conditions.

THE GURKHA.

A very human picture of the Gurkha is given in the current Bystander ::

A strange little fellow, Johnny Gurkha. I have seen him receive the medaille militaire without a smile, and I have heard him roar with laughter while two of his subaltern sahibs indulged in a 66 He rough-and-tumble" outside the mess. has fought the Hun without the slightest idea of the reason for such fighting. In "Johnny's " eyes his sahib can make no mistake. He adores him. For the French he has merely a tolerant regard. He is mildly amused at the enormous value they set upon a chicken or an egg, and he pities them deeply for being compelled to live in so poisonous a climate. Indeed, his attitude towards our Allies has in it not a little of patronage. For what sort of a Mem Sahib was this who would ask 5 frs. for a chicken and three annas for an egg? His only amusements in Northern France consist in kicking about a football and conversing at infinite length. A Gurkha's conversational powers are absolutely inexhaustible. He will begin to chat at 5 a.m., and at 9 p.m. he will still be found in deep converse with the same friend. He seldom-happily for his sahibs-indulges in song, but he has a passion for a gramophone, and if presented with one will only cease working it when there is a breakdown in the machinery.

THE LATE PROFESSOR FAWCETT.

The following interesting reference to the late Professor Fawcett's work for India occurs at the

end of a review in the Nation of a new biography by Miss Winifred Holt:

"Fawcett belonged to a school which was confidently sure of its conclusions, because in a world where most politicians never wished to go below the surface they thought they had reached the foundations...... He used his great powers not to pursue his own ends, but to get rid of definite wrongs...... He saw that a thing was wrong and he attacked it, whether his conduct was convenient to his political friends or not......Take his record as "Member for India." Sir William Lee-Warner said truly of him that the poverty of the ryot affected him as if he suffered himself. It was a characteristic incident that first brought him out as Indian champion. He found that India was going to be made to pay for a ball which the British Government was giving in honour of a foreign visitor. Mill urged him not to protest, as there were other and graver abuses; but Fawcett insisted. From that time he was always on the look-out for injustice to India, and the impression he made can be judged by the fact that whereas the Indian Budget used to be discussed at the end of the session, when it occupied a few hours, in 1879 it was discussed in May, and the debate lasted three days. In this respect, unhappily, Parliament has reverted to its earlier ways."

THE LATE MR. U. RAY.

The late Mr. U. Ray was a well-known pioneer among Indians of three-colour and process printing. Mr. Ray was a careful craftsman and possessed in addition a wide knowledge of the theory of photography and colour printing. He was a frequent contributor to the technical journals of England and America on questions connected with reproduction and the work of his press in Gurpar road is a well-known feature of the periodical press of Bengal. Mr. Ray, who was fifty-two at the time of death, was a member of the Brahmo community. The late Mr. Ray was a man of cultured tastes and was known as artist, writer and musician. For many years he was editor of Mukul, a magazine for young people, and he was until his illness much interested in the similar publication Sandesh, while his articles in Prabashi and elsewhere were read with attention. Mr. Ray had also written on musical topics and was himself a capable violinist.

Political

SIR HARCOURT BUTLER.

Sir Harcourt Butler, Lieutenant-Governor of Burma, made a notable speech in reply to an address that was presented to him by the municipality of Mandalay. He said :

"Do you fully realise the great opportunity which you have under British rule of conserving and developing your national life within the circuit of the British Empire, the greatest and truest the world has ever known? Do you realize the significance of the acceptance by the Viceroy of the resolution that India should be represented in the Conferences of the Empire with the assurance from his Majesty's Government that this resolution should have 'sympathetic consideration?' To my mind this is the most pregnant political event since the Government of India passed under the Crown in 1858. From the day when India was left out of the benefit of the scholarship scheme provided by the will of that grand imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, I have steadily set before me as the ultimate object of our policy that India should in time and by careful process be admitted into free partnership in the Empire. Imagine my delight when Lord Hardinge, by his influence and love of India, was able to take the first step towards the realization of this ideal."

THE I. C. S. BILL.

The English Mail wrote the following on the I. C. S. Bill:

"Appointments made by influence or patronage would work indescribable harm, and the prestige of the service would suffer materially by an invasion of this kind into its ranks to the detriment of India. The Indian Civil Service examination is, of course, by no means the only educative test, our university degrees affording ample security on this point. If, however, competition is abolished, even as a temporary measure, the whole fabric of this much-honoured Indian service will be undermined, as sheer merit has hitherto been the foundation of its pre-eminence-a distinction which will soon be dissipated if even the shadow of jobbery is once introduced into the proceedings. It is to be hoped, therefore, that Lord Islington's Bill will receive its quietus in the Commons, and that no such drastic expedient will be found necessary for the recruitment of the service."

THE HON. MR. P. C. LYON ON SELF-GOVERNMENT,

The Hon. Mr. P. C. Lyon delivered an interesting lecture to students, at Calcutta, on the evening of January 17, on the aspirations of a country for self-government. Referring to national development the speaker said that for real progress they must look to the nation and not to Government. Government could only help; but motive power must come from themselves. As an illustration of what he meant he referred to the great speech of Sir S. P. Sinha as President of the Congress. Delegates at one time thought they were fortunate in capturing Sir Satyendra but they all realised that Sir Satyendra had captured Congress. That meant a great deal. That meant that this great Bengali gentleman had persuaded Congress and made them understand what his patriotism meant and what a great thing it was. Sir Satyendra asked in his speech for a declaration of the policy of Government. What Sir Satyendra meant was that there was a tendency among some Government officials to consider, like Germans, that a machine was the whole thing, that it never had a soul or spirit, and that it was enough to se that machine worked properly, and that they should go on seeing that routine work went on for ever. What Sir Satyendra wanted to say was that there should be a declaration from Government that this machine was really to help some thing far greater, to help in the development of the nation, to help it in its throes. The declaration asked for was that Government was to help fully in the development of the country and the forward policy which would end in the goal of national development, and that was self-government.

National development in politics was summed up in one word, self-government. It must begin low down and grow. They did not want to substitute one government for another by conquest, but to govern by themselves. They had a task to perform before they arrived at the goal. What they wanted was to take up the work already started of training and educating the people in the villages. They should teach the people in the villages co-operation. What was wanted was to restore the ancient bonds of cooperation and love, to train the nation to know and understand its own interests, to care for its neighbour, not to hate the law and tranquillity which were its salvation, but to co-operate for the public good, and to base public action on the love of humanity.

General.

THE CENTRAL UNITY OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT.

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Under the peculiar conditions of Indian social questions offer perhaps greater difficulties and complexities than political or other questions. To all appearances Indian society is a glomeration of races or communities and it is often deemed impossible to speak on a common platform of the various needs of the various members of Indian social polity. To my mind that aspect is rather an apparent one. At bottom the cause of social reform, or for that matter all reform, is one and the same whatever the community or country. The principles and processes of reform movement have a central unity that unfolds and sustains the various forms they assume under different conditions.

Human nature is one all over the world and social matters so far as they are human, cannot but present a certain community of character. Hindus, Mahomedans, Parsees and other peoples of whom Indian Society is composed, have therefore to tackle fundamentally the same problems as regards social life.

Reform is nothing but a conscious and deliberate endeavour to change, to throw off the dead crust of use and wont and to put on a new and living coat of health. We cannot help changing. In spite of ourselves we are not to-day what we have been. "Why not then change intelligently," asks the reformer. It is the privilege of man alone to consciously adjust himself with his surroundings, and all that the reformer does in the case of social life is to consciously probe social evils and devise, as an intelligent being, means to remove them. This is a phase of the movement that is not confined to any single community. It is among all the same.

I may go still further and say that everywhere the reform movement has to deal with the same set of conditions. It has to deal with open and positive opposition, with stealthy but cowardly bitterness, with cold contempt, with stolid indifference, with passive sympathy, with active co-operation, with violent revolution, and in some exceptional cases with the rage of despair. This is the common experience of the reformer, be he Parsee, Hindu or any other. We may, nay, we ought, therefore, to join hands and correlate our deliberations and our activities.

To me all methods of reform are welcome, all attitudes that are vitally independent, are helpful.

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Why, I would welcome even active opposition. For those who go away from us will meet us in the end. I would not dogmatise in the matter. I know opposition, hatred, bitterness have sincerity of life about them, and if Life is one in the main, they must ultimately subserve the ends of life and turn into love. I therefore welcome all methods of reform and all workers in the cause from the old cautious orthodox to the go-ahead heterodox. Every one of them can, according to his lights, help the cause onwards. All that I would insist upon is thorough sincerity. With that stamped upon us, we may go forward each one in his own way.

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There is one prejudice against reform, however, that is very hard to die, and I cannot pass on without clearly stating our, at any rate, my position with regard to that. When we ask our brethren and sisters to overhaul social customs and institutions, we are accused of irreverence, of an irreligious spirit. Let me give a flat and emphatic denial to the charge. Far be it from me and from us to lay sacrilegious hands upon the teachings and precepts that are still pulsating with a spiritual life, and that are a perennial source of guidance to frail, tottering man. not there that the iconoclastic axe of the reformer is ever laid. He is impatient, as all nature is, of the dead and the effete, which, he, as the representative of the living principle of the race, cannot rest till he has done away with, lest it should rot and putrify and give rise to fatal pestilence. no one therefore labour under the misconception that reform is an undermining of faith and a violence to the susceptibilities of the religious and righteous. On the other hand faith in the ultimate triumph of Good is the very essence of the spirit of Reform. The reform movement, therefore, would not seek to undo that which is the very source of all life and health. It would only seek to bury the dead and clear the ground for all healthy and vital operations of social life. Let us all serve the cause of social reform in that spirit--in the spirit of one to whom righting social wrong and injustice is a sacred mission, and we need not fear the results. Fired as if with a call from on high, let us seek to do our share in the work; let us, as brothers, bound by love and sympathy, compare notes and learn and teach, teach and learn, so that even if we fail in the immediate future, our very failures will be as good as successes.-From the Presidential Address of Prof. D. K. Karve, B.A., to the Indian Social Conference,