. ty INVINCIBLE INDIA WRITTEN BY ED GAMMONS for the Hindustan Gadar Party. ed THEY MIGHT HAVE LAUGHED AT A BRITISH GENERAL! “‘To secure good administration is one thing, but good government can never be a sub- stitute for government by the people themselves.” The late Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- man, British Prime Minister, at Stirling, Scotland, November 23, 1905. Two thousand unarmed and unresisting Indians, holding a public meeting to discuss their grievances, were shot down in less than twenty minutes in Amritsar, India, on Sunday, April 13th, 1919, by fifty riflemen com- manded by Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer of the British army. ““They would have all come back and laughed at me if I had not shot. It was a merciful act and the people ought to be thankful to me for it,’’ explained Dyer nine months later, when he was testifying before the Hunter Commission, which has now censured the doughty general and asked his resignation. Temporarily the ‘‘goat,’’ he will doubtless be recompensed by appointment to some less prominent position. Between 5000 and 7000 people were assembled at Amritsar to protest against the enactment of the Rowlatt Bills the continuation of restrictive war legislation, the deportation of their local leaders and other features of misgovernment. General Dyer marched to the meeting and without a single word of warning killed 500 people and wounded 1500. The casualties were limited to this number because General Dyer could not get his armored cars, with their machine guns, into the meeting square and his ammunition was limited to 1650 rounds of ball cartridge. After every bullet found its billet, the gallant general marched off leaving his victims to suffer in the blazing sun for twenty-seven hours! Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, and General Benyon, Dyer’s immediate superior, heartily approved of the ‘‘merciful act.’’ So did the London Morning Post. ‘‘General Dyer has done the highest credit to the British Empire,’’ it commented admiringly. But there was some dissent. ‘“General Dyer’s conduct appears to be indefensible,’’ said the London Times. ‘*No blacker or fouler story has ever been told,’’ proclaimed the London Daily Herald, the official organ of British Labor. The House of Commons loudly cheered Mr. Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, when he announced on December 19th, 1919, that General Dyer had not been relieved of his command following the massacre! As a matter of fact he had been promoted. Suppressed for nine months, the story of Amritsar recoiled on its suppressors'and now the whole world is demanding the truth about India. “One people may keep another for its use,’’ said John Stuart Mill, ‘‘a place to make money in, a human cattle farm for the profit of its inhabitants. But such a thing as the government of one people by another can- not exist.’’ Does England regard India as a ‘‘huge cattle farm’’? Or does she govern India cleanly, disinterestedly ? GOVERNMENT — AUTOCRATIC, ALIEN AND IRRESPONSIBLE The doctrine of the responsibility of the Government of India to the British Parliament, sitting in West- minster, is farcical. The Viceroys of India are still the ‘‘despotic kings’’ described by Lord Salisbury. Their power is unchanged. Last December it was announced, with a flourish of trumpets, that England, in consonance with her war promises, had conceded ‘‘Home Rule’’ to India. Many people were deceived by the glamor of the title—‘‘ Home Rule!’’ It suggested what the title implies. They for- vot that the measures, blessed with that cognomen and doled out by England to subject peoples, merely allow them to patch roads and play with toy parliaments, possessed of none of the powers exercised by even semi-independent countries. The Montagu Act answers that description. It makes some technical changes in the Government of India. It makes no real ones. It does not detract from its despotism. The Viceroy, or Governor-General, of India is chosen by the British Government. India has no voice in his selection. ; His Executive Council, on which a few soulless In- dians are permitted to sit, is also selected by the British Government. Again India is ignored. The Secretary of State for India is appointed by the British Government. India has no voice in_ his selection. The Indian Council of State consists of a majority of appointed members and a minority of elected mem- bers. It can pass legislation rejected by the Legisla- tive Assembly. Its term is limited to five years. The Legislative Assembly consists of a majority of elected members and a minority of appointed members. It cannot pass legislation rejected or disapproved of by the Council of State. Its term is lhmited to three years. The masses are not permitted to have any representation in either body. The elected members are returned on a property fran- chise exercised by two and a-half per cent. of the people of India. What a queer brand of democracy. POWER OF LEGISLATURES EXTREMELY LIMITED The governmental power rested in the hands of this small privileged class is so meagre and restricted as to be almost negligible. It is forbidden to legislate on local self-gov- ernment, medical administration, public health, education, agriculture, development of indus- tries, excise, public works and many other sub- jects of the most vital interest. The Governor-General and a few hand-picked officials have absolute control of these matters. Whilst the reservation of this important power de- prives the legislatures of every chance of ameliorating the condition of India, there are other restrictions which make the Montagu Act a hollow mockery. “British rule in India is the despotism of a line of Kings whose reigns are limited by climatic causes to five years.”—The late Marquis of Salisbury. 1. The financial budget can be discussed, but not amended, by the legislatures. No revenue can be ap- propriated except on the recommendation of the Gov- ernor-General. 2. The Governor-General can veto any laws passed. He can stop and even prevent the discussion of any bill ‘“af it affects the safety or tranquility of any part of a province.’’ He ean enact laws despite the oppo- sition of either legislature, and he can dissolve them, or prolong their terms, just as he pleases. 3. Except permitted by the Governor-General the Assembly cannot vote-on (@) appropriations for in- terest and sinking fund charges on loans; (0b) expendi- ture, the amount of which is prescribed under any law; (c) salaries and pensions of chief commissioners, judicial commissioners and persons appointed by the King or Secretary of State in Council, and (d) expen- diture classified by the Government as ecclesiastical, political or for defense. If the Assembly refuses the demand of the Governor-General for money for any of these purposes, or reduces the amount, he can ignore their action and order the original amount expended. 4. Rules governing the procédure of business by the Council of State and Legislative Assembly are made by the Governor-General and the Executive Assembly and cannot be changed without the sanction of the Gov- ernor-General. ‘“‘The Government of India is an indefensible system,’’ said Secretary of State Montagu, when he was a candid eritic of the bureaucracy he now belongs to himself. Today, with the possible exception of the two and a-half per cent, the people of India tell Mr. Montagu: ‘““Your scheme is indefensible. It does not give us the slightest voice in our government. Our determination to win Indian independence is unaltered.”’ How does this government govern? “THE TERROR OF THE ENGLISH NAME!” “Clive left no government in Bengal, but merely the tradition that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from the natives by the terror of the English name.” Sir Wm. Hunter, British-Indian official. We have seen the autocratic nature of the Indian Government. So it is no surprise to find an English- man tell us that it is founded on a heritage of terrorism handed down to his successors by the infamous Lord Clive. Clive’s administration of Indian affairs in his day was denounced by the directors of the British East India Company as ‘‘the most tyrannic and oppressive conduct ever known in any age or country.”’ He and the horde of empire-builders imported from England looted the country of all the physical wealth they could lay their hands on. Gold, diamonds, rubies and other valuable metals and stones were shipped in a steady stream to England and the ‘‘ Bengal plunder,’’ as it was termed, is estimated at a value of from $2,500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000! England’s great industrial impetus towards the close of the eighteenth century was only possible because of this vast inflow of treasure. The practice of openly looting a subject country has been discarded. It is done more scientifically these days. In the case of India it is done, as Adam Brooks says, ‘‘by indirect methods under forms of law.’’ One-third of the revenue of India goes to England. It goes in many forms: the upkeep of the Indian Office in London; pensions to Englishmen who have helped in the exploitation of India; interest on the Indian National Debt incurred by England masquerading as the Government of India, and scores of other ways. Thus is India looted now. Most of the remaining two-thirds is spent, not on improving the condition of the Indian people, but on ensuring their permanent subjugation. Education is neglected. Public health is neglected. Industrial development is neglected. Scientific research is neglected. Most of the revenue is spent on militarism and railroads. Railroads have been built steadily until the British military strategists and traders were satisfied that they had as perfect a system as they could wish. Though the military establishment comes first in point of ex- penditure, the railroads are of prior importance. They have a triple value: (a) they afford means of instantly rushing troops to any disaffected district; (6) they convey British goods to the formerly in- accessible interior in competition with the few re- maining Indian industries, and (c) they are indis- pensable in stripping India of the raw materials and foodstuffs England needs for her factories and people. In the fiscal year, 1919-20, 48% of the estimated revenue was spent on the military machine, 28% on the railroad system, and less than 2% on the combined subjects of education, public health, sanitation, agricul- ture, wrigation, scientific research and industrial de- velopment. The significance of these figures lies in the fact that 32,000,000 Indians perished from preventable famine and plague in less than one year, whilst the British bureaucrats were yet allotting these expenditures. A GOVERNMENT OF ALIENS “Tt is our will that our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially ad- mitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their educa- tion, ability and integrity, duly to perform.” From Queen Victoria’s proclamation to India, LBov: Of the many solemn pledges made to the Indian people by British monarchs and statesmen, and after- wards glibly broken, the most solemn and binding was that given the Indian people by Queen Victoria when she ascended the British tbrone. “All Indians are disqualified by reason of their race,’’ said Lord Curzon fifty years afterwards whilst he was Viceroy of India. In no country on earth are the people so much ex- cluded from responsible office in government as in India. The current edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica states in its section on India that, at the time the in- formation was compiled, out of 1355 positions in the higher Indian Civil Service, 1263 were held by Brit- ishers and 92 by Indians. When William Archer was in India, getting material for his book ‘‘India and the Future,’’ he asked why there was discrimination in this regard. He pointed out that the holding of the examinations in England automatically excluded almost every Indian. The reply of his British friends was: ‘‘The Hindu has such a prodigious memory and is so clever at examinations that the Englishman cannot stand up against him.’’ Another alibi was the alleged superior administrative eapacity of the Englishman! As Mr. Archer believes the British Empire ‘‘the most: beneficent fact in his- tory,’’ he cannot be accused of any bias in setting down the incapacity of the Englishman to compete with the Hindu on even terms. The Indian Year Book for 1916, compiled from official sources, states that only 5% of the positions in the Indian Medical Service were held by Indians. Of 115 appointments made in the Indian Educational Service, during the period 1911-16, 108 were Britishers and 7 were Indians. The following figures are from British Blue Books and show how the higher appointments in the different gov- ernmental departments are made: British. Indian. Aeoricnliurale ser vane i ccs. t oii ee eres 38 5) Botanicale Survey seete st eee ie ea 2 0 EM GivcationaléSerywiges Bees cls ne. 3 3 Horest@ Service ae 2 (wake. £03 lo ee a 1 Geological @ourvey inc chelates 2 1 diame ariktione 8 Oa rd oe cetaceans 56: 11 u Indian Trigonometrical Survey .................. 46 0) Medical and Bacteriological Service.......... 24 5) Meteorological Department ........................ 10 2 Veterinary Départimentr oe = a 2 0 ZOOLO SICA SUT VEY meee ee eee Tee 3 ] Ninety per cent of the positions are held by Britishers. The Indian officers receive about half the salary Brit- ishers are paid for the same work. Only in the degrading, least-paid branches of ad- ministration are Indians admitted in any number. “The Commission regrets to report that they have the strongest evidence of the corruption and inefficiency of the great mass of investi- gating officers of the higher grades. . . De- liberate association with criminals in _ their . Deliberately false charges against . Deliberate torture of Extract from Lord Cur- report on corruption of gains. . innocent persons. . suspected persons.” zons Commission Indian police system, 1905. The police system, so scathingly denounced by the Indian Government, is largely composed of Indians, commanded, of course, by Britishers. It is one of the main props of the invader. It is to India what the Royal Irish Constabulary is to Ireland. Corrupt and inefficient in police duties, it is highly efficient in its work of terrorizing India. In return for their poorly paid treachery the Indian police seem to have unofficial permission to prey relentlessly on the unfortunate people. Of course inquiries from time to time repro- bate their crimes, and hundreds, too calloused in crime to be careful in its practice, are dismissed and punished, but the system goes on. Jt is, from the British view- point, a political necessity. In Bengal, according to Commissioner of Police Halli- day of Caleutta, 569 inspectors, sub-inspectors, ser- geants, head-constables and constables were dismissed (Continued on Page 11) RESTRICTIVE LAWS FORCED ON PEOPLE. “I am bound to say that nothing was ever worse done in disregard to the feeling and opinion of the majority of the people con- Lord Morley, cerned.” then Secretary of State for India, discussing the partition of Bengal in House of Commons, February 26, 1906. The Government of India, autocratic, systematically plundering ‘‘by indirect methods under forms of law,’’ and mainly manned by aliens, pays little heed to the wishes of the people. The Indian members of the Legislative Assembly are permitted to protest all they like. The appointed mem- bers yawn and smoke and vote the Indians down. Under the Montagu Act it is remotely possible that remedial legislation on some petty subject may be passed by the majority, representing the propertied class. But the Council of State is ready to kick them back into line and, failing that, the Governor-General is always ready with his veto. The partition of Bengal, so unsparingly denounced by the then Secretary of State for India, was forced through by Lord Curzon. He considered it a brilliant tactic in the task of insuring the perpetuation of Hindu- Mohammedan discord. Setting up a purely Moham- medan state did appeal to a few, but the vast majority saw through the dishonesty of the scheme and made a memorable protest. But it went through. The latest proof of the absolute irresponsibility of Simla is contained in the recent statement by Secretary of State Montagu that he first read the details of the Amritsar massacre, nine months later, in the columns of a London morning newspaper. We are assuming, of course, that Mr. Montagu told the truth. The Arms Act, the Defense of India Acts, the Press Act, the Official Secrets Act and the Rowlatt Acts were enacted, like the partition of Bengal, against the wishes ' of the overwhelming majority of the Indian people. The Arms Act denies Indians the right of possessing firearms or weapons. Framed to protect British rule from the slightest possibility of revolt, it leaves the helpless peasantry at the mercy of the hordes of wild animals which roam the country and the deaths from this cause are increasing every year. But the Gov- ernment refuses to even consider any modification of the law. The Press Act has almost wiped out the freedom of the press in India. Three hundred and fifty printing presses have been penalized since 1910, 500 publications have been pro- scribed, and hundreds of enterprises have been aban- doned because of the restrictions imposed by the Press Act. Before any publication may be issued a large money deposit must be made with the Government, and this is confiscated the moment anything appears in print which is considered obnoxious to the bureaucracy. Editors and publishers have been imprisoned under the Press Act, and their deposits forfeited, because they published: (a) translations of articles on India written by William Jennings Bryan after he toured India in 1906; (b) extracts from Sind Law Reports stating that the practice of reserving railway compartments for Europeans was illegal; (c) quotations from the liberal press of England, and (d) opinions of English liberals on Indian affairs. Imagine the dilemma of an Indian editor, who must conform to the Official Secrets Act, forbidding ‘‘news- paper criticisms likely to bring the Government, or constituted authority, into suspicion or contempt!’’ The Rowlatt Acts and the Defense of India Acts completely abrogate the liberties of the people. Ac- cording to the provisions of the Rowlatt Acts, which were passed against the unanimous opposition of the Indian members of the Legislatwe Council,— 1. Any Indian is subject to arrest without warrant and is subject to unlimited detention without trial. 2. The burthen of proof rests upon the accused. 3. Trial by jury is denied. Right of appeal is de- nied. ‘‘No order under this act shall be called into question in any court and no swt or other legal pro- ceeding shall be against any person for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done under this Acts 4. The accused may be convicted of an offense with which he is not charged. 5. The prosecution ‘‘shall not be bound to observe the rules of the law of evidence.’’ In other words the testi- mony of dead, absent and non-existent ‘‘witnesses’’ can be used against a suspect. 6. The accused is denied the right of employing a lawyer or producing witnesses. 7. The authorities are empowered to use ‘‘any and every means’’ in carrying out the law and obtaining confessions. This undoubtedly means torture. 8. The accused is given a secret trial. The method of the procedure and the findings of the trial may not be made public. 9. The accused is kept ignorant of the names and is not confronted with his accusers. 10. Any person (even his or her own family) volun- tarily associating with an ex-political prisoner may be arrested and imprisoned. 11. Any place or home can be’ searched without warrant. % INDIAN INDUSTRIES KILLED TO BENEFIT BRITAIN “‘The fiscal policy of India, during the past thirty or forty years, has been shaped far more in Man- chester than in Calcutta.’,—Lord Curzon, former Viceroy of India. “British, policy in India is British trade.’’ William Pitt, British Prime Minister. India was the greatest trading nation of the Kast as early as 3,000 B. C. With 4,000 miles of seabeard, the best-built ships in the world and unexeelled textile prod- ucts, she did a gigantic business with China, Babylon and other Eastern nations. Marco Polo, the famous explorer of the thirteenth century, wrote: “‘The Coast of Coromandel produces the finest and most beautiful cottons to be found in any part of the world.”’ Baine, in his ‘‘History of Cotton Manufacture.’’ states: ‘‘India is the birthplace of cotton manufacture, where it probably flourished long before the dawn of authentic history. The Indians have in all ages main- tained an unapproached and almost incredible perfec- tion in their fabrics of cotton—some of their muslins might be thought the work of fairies or insects, rather than of men.’’ Up to the year 1813 Indian silk and eotton goods sold in England at a profit of from 50 to 60%, a fact which was bitterly resented by English traders and man- ufacturers. As early as 1678 they angrily protested against the admission of Indian goods, which, they con- tended, are ruining our ancient woolen manufactures.’’ About 1814 England levied a prohibitive import duty against Indian cotton and textile products. Jt was the death stroke. In 1831 the merchants of Bengal protested to His Majesty’s Privy Council for Trade that their business was ‘‘nearly superseded by the introduction of the fab- ric of Great Britain into Bengal, the importation of which augments every year to the great prejudice of native manufacturers.’’ They asked, as British subjects, for fair play. Their plea was ignored. A select Committee of the British House of Commons examined further Indian complaints in 1840 and found that ‘‘the displacement of Indian manufacturers is such that India is now dependent upon British manufacturers for its supply of those articles.’’ They also published these eloquent figures: Cotton Piece Goods Imported into Great Britain from the East Indies. TRAE Fi Eee Jee See ote bat CeCe 1,266,608 pieces. 1835 306,086 pieces. British Cotton Manufactures Exported to India. 1814 818,208 yards. 1835 DI et oe (eyards: Thus was the cotton industry of India killed. Sir Charles Trevelyan, British-Indian official, testi- fied that the ruin of the cotton industry in India had re- sulted in the reduction of the population of Dacca, the great cotton manufacturing center, from 150,000 to 30,- 000. He said that Dacca was rapidly becoming a jungle. According to other witnesses before this Select Com- mittee, the Indians turned to agriculture, chiefly. The story of their fate on the soil of India is told in a later chapter. SHIPBUILDING DESTROYED, TOO An English naval expert stated in 1911 that Indian- built ships lasted fifty years or more and that those built in Europe for Indian trade could not make more than six voyages with safety. Due to this superiority of con- struction ships were rapidly built on the banks of almost every navigable river in India. English shipbuilders borrowed many improvements from their Indian rivals. In 1857, 34,286 Indian-built ships entered and sailed from Indian ports. In April, 1863, the Indian Marine was abolished. It was reasoned that Indian-built ships would have to be manned by Indians and that this was ‘‘wndesirable,’’ ‘“unadvisable’’ and ‘‘unpatriotic.’’ England’s policy has ever been, not the freedom of the seas, but a monopoly of the seas, and, wherever possible, a monopoly of the building and manning of every ship that sails the seas. Mark Sullivan, noted political writer, recited a remarkable instance of this spirit in ‘“Collier’s Weekly,’’ of which he is a former editor. He told how a member of the House of Commons bitterly arraigned the Lloyd George Administration during the war because ships, carrying American goods from New York to South American ports, flew the Stars and Stripes! The indignant Briton grew blue in the face de- manding an explanation of this terrible outrage. Where was the good old Union Jack which always flew over these cargo ships freighting American goods in American waters? It did not occur to this gentleman that America had a right to build ships to carry her own products to a neighbouring nation. All he saw was, as he considered, the ill-mannered act of a formerly ignored eompetitor daring to carry his own goods under his own flag, instead of under the piratical Union Jack. In 1898, the number of Indian-bailt ships in commis- sion was 2,302. A year later they further decreased to 1,776. The English shipbwitders thus wiped out their rivals, DEVELOPMENT OF OTHER INDUSTRIES PREVENTED England permits India to grow jute because British capital controls that industry; to grow wheat because England depends for its food-stuffs on the outside world; to grow cotton.so that the mills of Lancashire may have the raw material they need and she encourages the growth of opium, because it is the most insidious and efficient weapon she has for stupifying the Orient in preparation for its commercial exploitation. On the other hand England sees to it that the tre- mendous industrial possibilities of India are not realized. As early as 1500 B. C. India was noted for its iron and steel products. Its smelters turned out the finest steel in the world and it found ready sale from Persia to London. Now, despite the fact that India has unlimited ore, the raw metal is shipped to England, manufactured there and sold back to India at twenty times the cost of the raw material. Hides, to the annual value of $50,000,000, are ex- ported. Shoes, saddles and all kinds of leather goods are imported. There are unlimited resources for manufacturing salt. Yet a large amount is annually imported. (On April 26, 1906, Mohormulla, a merchant of Rajbarighat, was fined 50 rupees by Subdivisional Magistrate Holmwood for not selling Liverpool salt.) India has the best soil in the world for sugar cane. Six million. pounds are imported. Almost every kind of dye material is found in India. 400,000 pounds are imported. Oil seeds are exported.in huge quantity. The manu- factured oil is imported. So with their only large industries killed by England, and facing the embargo against further industrial devel- opment, the people of India are compelled to take up agriculture. They have no other choice. ) AGRICULTURE HANDICAPPED—MILLIONS PERISH “The Government land tax does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year.’”—Sir Wm. Hunter, British-Indian official. “In the eleven years ending 1890 there were 840,713 peasants dispossessed of their land in the presidency of Bombay, because they could not pay the ‘Goverment land tax.’’—Hon. G. Rogers ue Indian Civil Service. Having destroyed the principal industries of India and prevented the development of others, England made little or no effort to see that the displaced scores of mil- lions of workers found a decent livelihood elsewhere. They turned to agriculture, as the English witnesses boil} testified before the House of Commons’ Committee, which held the inquest on the cotton industry. 80 to 95% of the Indian people are now dependent on agriculture. The agricultural industry of India does not give these hundreds of millions even a bare existence. It is an abso- lute failure in this regard because of, (a) the intoler- able and ines. eee vovernment land tax; (b) the lack of capital; (c) the lack of education in improved means of pr A and (d) the lack of modern implements and fertilizers. The land tax provides one-third of the annual revenue of the country. It is levied, not on the actual produce, but on the area of the land. It is not reduced in years of famine. It increases with the value of the land. It is computed, not every year, but every ten or twenty years. It is confiscatory and wrong in the opinion of many Anglo-Indian officials, themselves. ‘“‘The Government demands press so heavily on the people that all enterprise has been crushed,’’ said Colonel MacLean, Anglo-Indian official, 1867. ‘‘I have person- ally satisfied myself that i¢many instances the Govern- ment demand exceeds the gros8»rental assets of some villages.’ The only alibi adduced by Englishmen for the land tax is that it was bequeathed them by the old native rulers of India. They forget that then it was the only tax. They have imposed many other taxes. The com- bined burden is what is decimating India. The statement that the tillers of the soil lack capital needs no elaboration. The poverty of India is proverbial. Lacking capital, they can obtain’ neither: agoRELD, imple- ments nor the proper fertilizers. The Government, not content with éxtracting. the last penny from the unfortunaté agriculturist’'through the iniquitous land tax, has also\ deliberately neglected: its duty of educating him in the latest methods of farming and: other essentials. Lord Curzon, when he was Vice- roy, talked a lot about this matter, but we must, in this as in all other things, judge the Government of India, not by its roseate promises, but by its performances. The land is getting less productive every year. The Government seemingly does nothing to avert the result- ing and inevitable effect. In the seventeenth century, 223 pounds of cotton were grown to the acre in India. Today the yield is but 52 pounds. Egypt grows 400 pounds to the acre, whilst Imperial Valley, California, grew 430 pounds to the acre in 1912. The Indian rice crop averages 800 pounds per acre. Europe grows 2,500 pounds to the acre, whilst California, in 1910 and 1911, averaged 2,500 to 9,000 pounds, ac- cording to the variety of seed sown. The wheat crop of India runs 11.44 bushels to an acre. The farmers of England and Ireland produce 32.41 bushels from the same area. Java produces 8,000 pounds of sugar per acre as com- pared with India’s yield of 600 pounds. Whilst the exactions of the Government of India are primarily responsible for the dire poverty and chronic famines of India, conditions might be improved by spend- ing large sums of money on irrigation. Very little at- tention is paid, however, to irrigation and when money is expended on irrigation projects dividends of from 15 to 30% are exacted. -How different from the native state of Baroda, where the Ghakwar limits the interest on irrigation loans and enterprises to 314¢%. It is the difference between the scientific extermination of a race and the rule of a‘wise leader, who loves his people and always has their mterest.at heart. ~The famine question is inextricably woven with the agricultural problem. We will discuss it now. FOOD EXPORTED WHILST MILLIONS DIE OF STARVATION “Indian famines are famines of money, not of food.’”?—The late Lord George Hamilton, Under Secretary of State for India, 1901. ‘Famine is a providential remedy for over-population.’ ’—Statement of Anglo-Indian official to Wm. Jennings Bryan. ‘Half the agricultural population do not know from one year’s end to another what it is to have a square meal.’’—Sir Charles Elliot, Chief Commissioner of Assam. The largest quantity of wheat ever exported from This was in the India in one year was 2,150,000 tons. Millions per- year 1904-5. It was also a famine year. ished for want of a crust of bread. Cereals valued at $45,000,000, including 1,500 000. tons of wheat, were exported in ‘the year 1918-19. That was also a faminé year. Thirty-two millions of ie Indian people per Cited from preventable famine and plague that, year. Lord George Hamilton was right. There is plenty of food in India. But England ships it home and the Indi- ans starve to death. The rice crop of the year, 1917-18, erown on an area of 80,141,000 acres, was 36, 236, 000 tons. The rice crop of the year, 1918-19, grown on an area of 75,864,000 acres, was 23,670,000 tons. The decrease in production in one year was 12,566,000 tons. The decrease in the yield per acre was more than 300 pounds. * With India facing this shortage in the main food of her people, and scores of millions dying of starvation, a large part of the crop was shipped to Europe for the manufacture of liquor and starch. British apologists argue that; (a) famines are always occurring in India; (b) that they are due to insufficient rainfall; (c) that the mortality would be slight if the people would only produce more food to tide them over famine years, and (d) that they are due to the density of population. Sir Wilham Digby states from the eleventh century down to the year 1800 there were 22 famines, many of them local famines with light mortality. From the year 1800 to 1900, according to this official, there were 31 famines, all of them causing millions of deaths. The worst in the history of India was that of 1918-19, which swept off 32,000,000 people. India has the heaviest rainfall in the world. But it is not stored by the administrators, who believe that ‘‘famine is a providential remedy for over-population.’’ Carnegie Ross, the British Consul in San Francisco, in an argument with Arthur Thomson, author of ‘‘The Con- spiracy against Mexico,’’ urged that ‘‘the main cause of famine in india is the earlier or later breaking of the Monsoon.’’ Thomson floored the Britisher by quoting a score of official authorities and figures which directly contradicted the consul’s ridiculous assertion. The rain- fall is not stored. So it doesn’t matter if it falls Monday morning or Saturday night, March or December. The year of the great Madras famine, 1877, sixty-six inches of rain fell. The Bombay famine of the previous year occurred when the rainfall was fifty inches. Fifty-two inches of rain fell in 1896 and forty-two inches in 1897, yet both were famine years. Increased production of food-stuffs is impossible with the Government of India paying no attention to agricul- ture. India produces enough food right now to tide her over famine years, but England grabs it. It is proved by official records that more food is shipped out of the coun- try in famine years than in non-famine years. The argument as to the density of the population is false, yet ingenious. People are apt to think of the huge population of India without regard to its area and so arrive at a false conclusion. India has 211 people to the square mile, Italy 294, China 266, Japan 317, Holland 454 and Belgium 589. It has just now occurred to us that famine has also been attributed to the improvidence of the Indian people. The average annual income is about $10 a year. One meal of rice a day costs at least $11 a year. How could they be improvident? Famine is a weapon of Government in India. England cannot escape its blood guilt. EDUCATION OF INDIAN PEOPLE OBSTRUCTED It has been truly said that the wealth of a nation lies, not in its gold and diamonds and lke valuables, but in the minds and bodies of its people. A people alert, physically and mentally, can conquer oigantic obstacles. The reverse is equally true. A people of poor physique with no education are overwhelmingly handicapped in the battle of life. The theft of India’s physical wealth by England would not have hurt India, if the peculation stopped there. In addition to robbing them England disarmed them, starved their bodies and robbed them of any chance of education. In brief, she devoted her whole energy to the assassination of the country! India has been so consistently lied about that it is al- most impossible to counteract the idea that England has conferred a great boon on India by taking over the country. ‘‘Just think of all the splendid schools Eng- land establishes in India,’’ said a lady who had just heard an English propagandist lecture... A friend, who knew something of the subject, replied: ‘‘I am think- ing of the splendid culture England has almost destroyed there.’’ India was highly civilized five thousand years ago. A Hindu invented the decimal system. A Hindu, Arya Bhatta, discovered the rotation of the earth on its own axis. Copernicus afterwards reaped the credit. Scien- tifie grammars were known in India as early as 1400 B. C. The first medical and surgery schools were es- tablished in India. physicians back to Greece with him because they were the most skilled physicians he met in any of the coun- tries he conquered. ‘‘We owe our first system of medi- cine to the Hindus,’’ admitted Dr. Royle, noted physician of King’s College, London, when he reviewed the his- tory of his profession. An educated people will not submit to slavery. Lord Ellenborough saw that if the people were properly edu- cated England would have to get out. The directors of the East India Company promulgated a similar doc- trine almost a century before. ‘‘We have lost America from our folly in allowing the establishment of schools. Ii would not do for us to repeat the same act of folly in regard to India.’’ And as late as August 7th, 1915, Mr. Watson of the Senate of the University of Cal- eutta moved the following resolution: ‘‘That the Senate views with alarm the rapid increase in the percentage of passes in the university examinations, and desires an immediate inquiry to be held as to its causes and sig- nificance.’’ India is about the only country in the world where the spread of education is ‘‘viewed with alarm !’’ “The political ruin of England would be the inevitable consequence of the education of the Hindu.”?—Lord Ellenborough, Viceroy of India, in 1842. ‘Anything less Machiavellian than our conduct in this whole matter of education it would be hard to conceive.”—William Archer in his “India and the Future.”’ ‘The Hindus were Darwinians many centuries before Darwin, and evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the scientists of our times, and before any word like ‘evolution’ existed in any language of the world.””—Sir Monier Williams. Alexander the Great brought Hindu | The following statistics will explain the educational situation in India today: Expenditure per Head. Literacy. United@states: 2y..ame.o- a. $4.00 92.0: England and Wales ......-....- 3.20 Oe Ue nace: wy SE 2 CARN LO; 92.5 el AD Ieee aes eae nee OED op 90.0 TN Dia gies hen eee tas 2s! 0214 8.0 What a change from the days when India’s philoso- phers, divines, poets and scientists were noted all over the world for their achievements! After 150 years of British rule India is only 8% literate. After twenty years of American rule, the Philippines are 60% lter- ate. And Iceland, which nobody covets, is 100% literate! The United States has 300,000 schools. India, with three times the population of the United States, has 180,000 schools. India has 218 technical institutions. fifth of India’s population, has 846. The native state of Baroda spends 13¢ per head on education. British India spends 214¢; 79% of the boys of Baroda go to school; 21.5% of the boys of British India go to school; 81.6% of the girls of Baroda at- tended school in 1914-15; 4% of the girls of British India attended school. Education is compulsory in Ba- roda. It is not compulsory in British: India. This comparison holds good for the rest of the native states. India has made many unsuccessful fights for the institution of free and compulsory education. The last one was in 1911, when Mr. Gokhale introduced a bill in the Imperial Legislative Council. It was killed by the vote of the appointed members. J. N. Tata, the Bombay industrial magnate, made a bequest of $1,000,000 in 1901 for the establishment of an educational institute. The project was scientifically sabotaged by the Government of India. It took them ten years to consider how the money could best be used. Finally the institute opened with seventeen students! ‘‘Publie opinion holds that the teaching is incompetent, and that no education worthy the name is being im- parted,’’ says Lajpat Rai in ‘‘ England’s Debt to India.’’ The question of free and compulsory education is still to the front in India. The people realize that it is tre- mendously vital to the nation. The London Times’ plea that ‘‘Edueation will only accentuate trouble, for edu- cated men and women will not suffer the conditions now imposed on the Bombay working classes,’’ is a correct resume of the situation. An educated people will not submit to slavery. There- fore England dreads the education of the Indian. Japan, with one- SUBJECT PEOPLES RAPED, TORTURED AND MURDERED ‘‘What happened to the young Corporal, who, in a fit of excitement, shot the first native he met? Was he put on trial? Was he hanged ? If we are not strong enough to prevent murder, then our Pharisaic glorification of the stern justice of the British Raj is nonsense.””—Lord Morley, then Secretary of State for India, in letter to Lord Minto, who was Viceroy of India, August 19, 1908. England has always sought to impress her rule on subject peoples through the assassination and deportation of na- tional leaders, the rape of their women and the wholesale murder of masses of defenseless men, women and children. British rule in India possesses these character- istics and many others. The Indian has absolutely no rights in his own land. ‘*British blood has con- quered India and rules it, and respect and defer- ence must be shown to it at all times and in all places,’’ declared ‘‘The Civil and Military Gazette’’ of the Punjab on September 5, 1906. ce BANTA SINGH Indian Nationalist, crushed to death between two wheels for the alleged murder of a police spy at Lahore a few years ago. The official sentence was ‘‘hanging.’’ The British enforce this ‘‘respect and deference’’ in many ways. An Indian must step off the sidewalk if he sees a Britisher coming. He must travel in a ‘‘Jim Crow’’ railway coach and never dare to enter a coach ‘‘Reserved for Europeans.’’ This ‘‘Jim Crow’’ law is so strictly enforeed that even Indians who have at- tained high rank in the Government and are obse- quiously servile to the enslavers of their country, are often kicked bodily out of coaches reserved for Brit- ishers. Indian judges, often of the higher courts, are the victims of some young British leutenant. If any Indians resist invasion of their rights and bring their assailants into court the latter demand to be tried as ‘‘Kuropean subjects.’’ This means that they are tried, not by a jury of Indians but by a jury on which a majority of Englishmen sit. For the sake of effect now and then a few petty Indian officials are also im- panelled. ‘‘In trials in which Englishmen are tried by English juries the result 1s sometimes a faalure of jus- tice not falling short of judicial scandal,’’? says Sir Henry Cotton, a former Anglo-Indian official. If the superior Briton kills the offending Indian the result is about the same. If he is not openly acquitted he pays a small fine or serves a short jail sentence. Superintendent Henderson of the Telinpara Jute Mill, near Bombay, kicked a native to death. He was fined the equivalent of $32. MeGee, an overseer of the Howrah Jute Mill, on the outskirts of Caleutta, shot a native dead. He was fined the equivalent of $48. Note the fine distinction. McGee was penalized $16 more than Henderson. The judge perhaps thought that Henderson was the more brutal terrorist and made a more lasting impression on the natives who saw him kicking his victim into eternity. In the fall of 1907 a British journalist, resident in Lahore, shot his Indian servant dead. He got six months’ simple imprisonment. Lieutenant H. R. Plunkett, without cause, shot a fruit seller dead in Lahore. Judge Broadway eulogized the defendant to the jury and urged his youth and inex- perience as the cause of his murdering the Indian. The jury, needless to say composed of Englishmen and a few safe Indians, promptly acquitted the murderer. Lieutenant C. M. Maclorron of Allahabad suspected two native servants of theft. He bound and gagged both of them and burned the soles off their feet with a redhot poker. He was sentenced to six months’ simple imprisonment. It should be mentioned that these sentences are sel- dom served. They are on a par with the case of Captain Colthurst, who shot Sheehy-Skeffington in Ireland with- out trial or the opportunity of bidding farewell to his devoted wife. This gallant Briton, who learned his barbarism whilst serving in India, spent a few weeks in an alleged lunatic asylum and was then returned to duty ‘‘perfectly cured.’’ AN IRISH AMRITSAR. In a thrilling speech, delivered in Chicago, IIl- inois, toward the end of March, 1920, Eamon De Valera, President of Ire- land, gave a graphie in- stance of English hatred of Ireland: ‘‘There was fell pur- pose in the ordering of Irish divisions to (Gal- lipoli and the murderous deserts of Mesopotamia, after they had _ volun- teered to fight, because they considered they were fighting for the freedom not only of others, but of their own : small nation. « - 20REES EAMON DE VALERA President of Ireland, ‘‘Let me give you an instance. In Mesopo- tamia the barracks of the British forces were plastered with notices which read: ‘Do not leave this room for any purpose between 8 a. m. and 5 p.m.’ and ‘If Turks are seen in the distance during the day hours, do not fire or move.’ Jt was death to move im that heat. But one day 1100 Irish were ordered to march at midday to a point forty miles distant. They went. ‘‘No Turks were there. Four hundred died on the march, The next morning they were ordered back. Of the 1100 not one lived to see the post they left. And not a shot had been fired. It is not our hatred of Eng- land that breeds this strife. It is England’s hatred Onmusi Those uninformed Americans who wonder why Ire- land did not put her manhood at the service of Eng- land in the late war should ponder over this massacre of 1100 young Irishmen. STUDENTS FLOGGED AT RANDOM. At Kasur and many other places parties of students were flogged. They were not individually guilty of any crime. They were picked at random and flogged, because the authorities considered the atmosphere of the colleges as ‘‘seditious,’? and the students took part in nationalist demonstrations. _ Professor Rai, Vice-President of the Lahore Sanatan Dharma College, testified before the Hunter Com- mission that the Publicity Board of the Government of India posted bulletins at the college containing the fol- lowing statements: ‘People should take no interest in politics. It is the rulers who know the art of government. You should all live a life of seclusion and not dabble in polities. “Those who criticise the government wash their hands in their own blood.”’ 9 SHAMELESS VIOLATION OF WOMEN “WE REGARD WOMEN AS SACRED.” —General Dyer, testifying before the Hunter Commission. Where do Englishmen really regard women as sacred? They certainly don’t regard the women of India, Egypt, Africa or Ireland as sacred. After reading the Kng- lish press for thirty years we cannot see that they re- gard even their own women as sacred. The women of India have been sacrificed wholesale to the lust of the British army of occupation. Moore, British Station-master at Rawalpindi, was found guilty of raping a young Indian girl. He was nominally dis- missed from the service. The unfortunate girl com- mitted suicide. Six British soldiers outraged a little cirl at Jhalkati. They were reduced in rank. The great mass of the culprits go free. Where Indian men have been active in defending the honor of their women, they have been victimized by officials. Two privates belong- ing to the Ninth Lancers beat a native to death for re- fusing to ensnare Indian women to cater to the lust of the regiment. This occurred whilst Lord Curzon was Viceroy. The murder got such publicity that the Viceroy was compelled by public opinion to discipline the regi- ment. The actual murderers, well known to the entire regiment, were shielded. The English in India have set a very low standard of morals in the treatment of their own women. Mrs. Alice Kees was recently convicted in Caleutta of leasing her fourteen-year-old sister, Adelaide Philben, to a Mrs. Mitchell, who ran a house of prostitution patronized by officials. She was sentenced to three months’ simple imprisonment and a fine of $60. W. J. Brewin was sentenced to tivo months’ simple imprisonment for erim- inally assaulting Dorothy Evans, a little nine-year-old girl. K. Morgan was fined $30, with the alternative of one month’s imprisonment, for the same offense. His victim, however, was a matured woman. Indian women are not the only victims of the armies of Britain. AFRICA The girls of Nigeria, a British protectorate in Africa, are so abused by British officials and others of that na- tionality, that mulatto children are being born whole- sale. If a black man resents the seizure of his wife. daughter or sweetheart by a Britisher he is got out of the way often by unscrupulous means. If the victim appeals to the British Commissioner he is often subjected to arbitrary punishment for his pains. The practice of flogging native women naked was brought out in a libel suit against John Eldred Taylor, editor of the ‘‘ African Telegraph,’’ last December. Mr. Taylor published an account of the flogging of two na- tive women found on the premises of a British officer. They were, after being divested of every stitch of cloth- ing, flogged in publi at the instigation of the officer. ‘“Why didn’t you complain of this to Governor-Gen- eral Sir Frederick* Lugard?’’ demanded the government counsel of Mr. Taylor. ‘Because the Governor-General, himself, stated in an article he wrote for the Edinburgh Review that ‘the only way to subjugate and tame the African native is Ly flogging him,’ ’’ replied the African editor. EGYPT Every reader of this pamphlet should procure or borrow a copy of the Egyptian White Book. The office of the Egyptian Commission is 420 Southern Building, Washington, D. C. 10 The atrocities committed on the women of Egypt by the British army of occupation make heartrending read- ing. Affidavits by mayors of Egyptian cities, respcnsi- ble police officials and school teachers relate details of British rapine and murder which baffle description. Mayor Mansour El D’Ali of the city of Bedrechein tells how he was knocked unconscious by a stroke of the butt of a rifle, when he attempted to go to the assistance of his wife, his daughters and daughters-in-law who were being raped by a gang of British soldiers. Hussein el Mohr, married man, stated in the course of his affdavit: ‘‘Fifteen British soldiers entered my house and looted the jewelry and money. The women, panic stricken, ran upstairs and we went also. The sol- diers followed us. They indecently assaulted one of the women and one of them committed rape on her. I attempted to enter the room, but was threatened by the soldiers with their rifles. My brother cried out, saying: ‘We have endured everything, but we cannot see our women raped. This is insupportable!’ He rushed into the room and was instantly shot. He died the next day. The soldiers stayed with the women a long time. J, with my very eyes saw my own wife, Aisha, being raped. I think no woman eseaped that disgrace.’”’ Mahmud Abdel Hadi was held by four soldiers whilst two others raped his sister. When they satisfied their lust they shot her and set the house on fire. The be- reaved brother escaped and saved his life by jumping from the roof of one house to another till morning. .TRELAND The Republican government of Ireland is so well or- ganized that Irish women are comparatively safe. How- ever, when the British soldiers have the opportunity they violate unguarded women. Two httle Irish girls were recently admitted to the Curragh Family Hospital, County Kildare, in a dying condition, the result of being criminally assaulted by Privates Neill and Rutherford of the Scottish Rifles. The English courts, as in India and elsewhere, are very lenient with these brutes. The ‘‘Dublin Independ- ent’’ of January 16th, 1920, states that Private William Roberts of the Royal Field Artillery was fined but $25 for indecently assaulting a little Irish boy. Such decisions are a semi-approval of the commission of these dastardly offenses. GOVERNMENT DRUGS PEOPLE WITH OPIUM AND LIQUOR “‘The Government is driving the liquor trade as hard as it can in India. If the Government continues its present policy of doubling. its revenue every ten years, in thirty years India will be one of the most drunken and degraded nations on the face of the earth.”—wW. S. Caine, M. P., in speech in the House of Com- mons in 1888. The Indian nation is not a ‘‘drunken and degraded’’ one today. India has bitterly fought the liquor traffic since England instituted it to steal the senses of the Indian. And though Archbishop Jefferies, who did missionary work in India for 31 years, states that: ‘‘The drinking practices of England have made a thousand drunkards for every Indian converted to Christianity,’’ India has not accepted the vice to a serious extent. Thirty years ago a prohibition movement was started in Bombay. The Government immediately imprisoned eight leaders. In informing London of this drastic ae- tion the Bombay authorities said: ‘‘The question for decision is, shall we sit quiet and allow the temperance movement to continue and to spread, and thereby for- feit a large amount of revenue, or are measures to be adopted which shall bring the people to their senses ?’’ Despite this unprecedented action the Indian people continued to fight the liquor traffic with the result that - the people did not succumb to the extent the Government expected. OPIUM IS THE REAL CURSE OF INDIA The Indian opium traffic is not only the curse of India, but the curse of the whole world! For opium, grown in India, is smuggled into the United States to devour thousands of our own flesh and blood, who are every day falling victims to this official product of the Government of India. The British Blue Funnel Liner, ‘‘The Cyclops,’’ was raided last summer in Seattle and found to contain 778 tins of opium, 670 ounces of cocaine and 16 ounces of cocaine not listed in the ship’s mamfest. On June 24th, 1919, according to the ‘‘Seattle Union Record,’’ the ship was fined $49,265, How many British liners of the ‘‘Cyclops’’ brand entered our ports for the past ten years? Can it be that Britain, who carefully safeguards herself against the drug, has no compunction about smuggling it in here? The rapid increase in the number of drug addicts in this country provides food for reflection. Is the Government of India the real culprit? India realizes, and has always realized, the deadliness of the opium menace. Her incessant opposition to the growth of opium in India at the instigation of England, masquerading as the Government of India, resulted in an investigation of the traffic by a Royal Commission in 1893. But eight out of nine of the members saw noth- ing but merit in opium! The receipts from the traffic increased 44%. in the year 1916-17. The receipts from liquor and other drugs increased 48%. Ellen N. La Motte, in her impressive book ‘‘The Opium Monopoly,’’ seathingly criticises the English Gov- ernment for its forcing this deadly drug on the Indian people in these terms: ‘‘A nation that can subjugate 300,000,000 helpless people, and then turn them into drug addicts—for the sake of revenue—is a nation which commits a cold-blooded atrocity unparalleled by any atrocities committed in the rage and heat of war. The Blue Book shows no horror at the increase of 44% in opium consumption, and the increase of 67% in the use of other habit-forming drugs. Approval, and a shrewd appreciation of the possibilities for more revenue from ‘progressively higher rates of duty,’ knowing well that drug addicts will sell body and soul in order to procure their daily supply.’’ This treatment of a so-called ‘‘heathen’’ nation by one which aspires to lead the Christian white civiliza- tion of the world, must provide food for the grave thought of those who treasure the olden ideals and his- tory of the Anglo-Saxon race. GOVERNMENT OF ALIENS or punished in the course of one year for different crimes ranging from torture to common assault. Promotion is gained by a maximum of convictions. Consequently the police have a habit of torturing inno- cent people into confessions of gilt. In the Punjab in March, 1909, three men accused of the murder of a woman pleaded guilty under police pressure. Just as their trial started the woman walked into the courtroom alive and well. On December 5, 1911, it was officially stated in the British House of Commons that 57 Indian police officers had been convicted of ill-treating prisoners during the previous few years and that death had ensued in 17 cases. (Continued from Page 3) Police frame-ups are common in India. Hundreds of Indian patriots are rotting in Andaman Island dun- geons from this cause. Some, of course, fail. The per- jury, or some other mechanism of the frame-up machine, jams. The machine jammed in the famous Midnapur case in the Province of Bengal in 1909. Three men were convicted of a conspiracy to use bombs, which were found in their possession. The British High Court of Calcutta reversed the conviction on the ground that the confessions, on which the convictions were based, had been extorted by torture and that the defense charge that the police, themselves, had manufactured and placed the bombs was not unlikely. THE INDIAN LABOR AND SWADESHI MOVEMENTS But a short while ago the Indian factory worker worked for from seventeen to twenty-two hours a day! The report of the Indian Factory Labor Commission in 1911 resulted in a reduction of the hours to twelve. Dr. Nair filed a dissenting opinion and condemned the sug- gestions of the majority as temporizing and inadequate to meet the situation. Today Indian labor does not wait for governmental action to alleviate the intolerable industrial situation. Three hundred thousand Indian workers recently struck in Bombay for better conditions. They won after many of the strikers were killed by the British army which was at the beck and call of the employers. The strikers demanded a nine-hour workday, a large increase in wages, a full hour instead of a half-hour for lunch, the limiting of the age of child workers to 12 years, full pay for disabled workers during the period of their disablement, the early closing of the liquor shops which are considered detrimental to the interest of labor and many other important things. Because the dread cholera was slowly creeping from the workers’ district toward 11 ““A system more likely to bring about degradation of labor is impossible to conceive.”’—Dr. Sev. Nair of the Indian Factory Labor Commission on the factory system. the rich residential district, the employers suddenly made important concessions. The workers were granted a ten- hour day, a 40% increase in wages, full pay for disabled workers and many other demands. This is the first big victory of the Organized Labor movement of India. The next strike will be for the introduction of the co-operative system in the ownership and management of Bombay mills and factories. Before Labor organized industrial conditions in India were deplorable. In some districts they still exist. The workers had to leave home at 4:30 o’clock in the morning and did not return till 8 o’clock at night. They worked seventeen to twenty-two hours a day. The mortality in the one-room industrial tenements of Bombay was 675 per 1000 in 1916. The physique of the industrial work- ers was so impaired that, according to official statistics, they were exceeded in weight by the prisoners in the different jails and penitentiaries. The prisoner in Bom- bay Jail weighed 112 pounds. The factory operative weighed but 102 pounds. In the United Provinces the average weight of the jail inmates was 115 pounds. The weight of the factory worker was 107 pounds. This physical deterioration was, of course, mainly due to low wages and insufficient food. The Government in 1919 clapped many strike leaders in prison and broke strikes by putting soldiers in the places of the strikers. This is no longer feasible. The strikes are so large now that the whole British army of occupation would have to go to work if the policy were continued. Hand in hand with the increasingly powerful Organ- ized Labor movement of India goes the Swadeshi move- ment, which pledges the individual to wear only clothing of native manufacture and to destroy ‘‘all foreign cloth in their possession.’’ Whilst primarily intended to as- sist in the revival of the textile industries, the Swadeshi movement aims at the fostering of all native Indian in- dustries. It is vigorously fought by the British Gov- ernment. In 1906 merchants were fined for refusing to sell English products, a British magistrate, Dunlop, personally flogged a little Indian boy for shouting Bande Mataram (Hail Motherland!), the Swadeshi rallying ery, and printers, students, merchants, lecturers and editors were terrorized and imprisoned for the crime of advocat- ing the manufacture and use of Indian manufactured goods. A slight increase in the number of cotton mills is no- ticeable as the result of the Swadeshi movement. It re- ceived quite an impetus during the war when factories were started to produce war material, which could not be turned out in sufficient quantity in England. The Indian people see great possibilities for good in both the Labor and Swadeshi movements. Their future development will be watched with great interest by the entire world. INDIA’S MEN AND MONEY CONSCRIPTED FOR “DEMOCRACY” eee creer ere mee een a elders “India was bled absolutely white during the first few weeks of the war.’’—Lord Hardinge, for- mer Viceroy of India, in speech in House of Lords, July, 1917. ‘“‘The people of India have no voice in this or any other act of Government. It is sheer dishon- esty.”’—The London Nation referring to war “‘gift’’ of $500,000,000 from the Government of India. “Women were kidnapped till their relations who fled from the recruiting officers returned or en- listed. Men were forced to stand naked in the presence of their women and often driven naked through thorny bushes. The crops of those who fled from the recruiting officers were in many in- stances destroyed and their houses looted. Women were abused in the presence of their men folk.” —From evidence given before the Hunter Commission on the Indian system of ‘“‘voluntary enlist- ment” by A. H. Khan, Revenue Official. During the recent war England convinced a good many people, ignorant of the situation in India, that India had thrown herself, heart and soul, into the great war for ‘‘democracy and the preservation of small nations.’’ It was a lie! Some Indians were deceived. The Indian people were not deceived. There are always people, blinded by their great faith in humanity, who can be hoodwinked by charlatans. And when David Lloyd George solemnly declared: ‘‘As the Lord liveth, England does not seek a yard of territory. We are in this war from motives of purest chivalry to defend the weak,’’ there were some Indians who believed the great political chameleon. And when their faith was waning, America, their land of dreams and, to their minds, the greatest influence for universal liberty, entered the conflict with the solemn pledge that all nations, without distinction as to size, would be granted self-determination. The pledge given all mankind by Woodrow Wilson was breathed as a prayer by the Indian: ‘““The Allies are fighting for the liberty, the self-gov- ernment and the undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settlement, that concludes this war, must be conceived and executed for that purpose.’’ British propagandists told America that India, in its war exuberancy, forced a ‘‘gift’’ of $500,000,000 upon the ‘‘mother country,’’ and ‘‘voluntarily’’ raised a huge army in return for the blessings of British civilization. And these lies, for they are lies, are repeated even now. And, sorry to relate, they are still swallowed. The ‘‘gift’’ of $500,000,000 was made to England by English officials, who constitute the Government of India. The Indian Legislative Council was never con- sulted. ‘‘Tt is sheer dishonesty,’’ said the London Nation. ‘The people of India have no voice in this or any other act of government. If they had, they would be forced to think before contributing out of their dire poverty this huge sum to the resources of their wealthy rulers.’’ ‘For Mr. Chamberlain to throw upon the Indian 9) 12 people the responsibility for originating and devising the $500,000,000 contribution, and the protective duties connected with it, is as unconvineing a rhetorical excuse as the House of Commons has listened to for many a long day,’’ commented the Manchester Guardian. England bought huge war supplies from India. They consisted in part of 70,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,500,000 tons of wheat, 2,250,000 pounds of wool and blankets, 1,500 miles of railway equipment and similarly large quantities of boots, shoes, rifles, ete. England then made herself a gift of $500,000,000 to pay for part of this war equipment. In other words she robbed the defenseless people of India of these vast stores in order to fasten her rule more securely upon India, Egypt, Ireland and the other enslaved nations and to grab the German colonies and trade. The lie that India furnished an army of volunteers is made out of whole cloth. England terrorized the Indian people into furnishing an army of conscripts. Every village in Northern India was compelled to furnish a certain number of recruits. If it failed to furnish its quota it was punished. If men fled from the recruiting officers their crops were destroyed and their homes robbed. The two sons of Gauhar Singh, head man of a village near Gujranwala in the Punjab, fled from the recruiting officers. The father was arrested, his property confis- cated, he was dismissed from his official position, and it was ordered that, unless his sons surrendered, any per- son touching his property or cultivating his crops, was to be instantly shot. The evidence of A. H. Khan, government revenue official, given before the Hunter Commission, gives pos- itive proof of the atrocities committed upon the unfor- tunate people to compel their participation in the war. England states that 1,401,350 Indians fought. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the other British colonies contributed 1,548,701 men. What was India’s reward for contributing this huge army and the $500,000,000 ‘‘gift’’! AMRITSAR The startling Amritsar massacre was the act of panic- stricken autoerats. They were panic-stricken because they recognized in the nation-wide protest of the Indian people against the enactment of the Rowlatt Acts, a force which, by its mere passivity and proportions, was at once menacing and invincible. When the puppet, Dyer, mowed down two thousand unarmed Indians at Amritsar, he wasn’t shooting merely at the crowd. He was shooting at the Spirit of India—that Spirit which saw Greece and Rome rise and fall and which, from its throne in the Himalayas, shall similarly witness the decay and death of the British Empire, founded on greed and sustained by brute force. The Rowlatt Acts, which swept away every right and constitutional safeguard of the Indian people, were de- signed to check the great reaction which was inevitable when the Indian people faced the fact that the war was not fought for their self-determination, or that of any other people, and that Lloyd George’s glitterimg prom- ises Were on a par with all of England’s past promises —made in moments of emergency and repudiated on the eve of their supposed fulfilment. The fiction was carefully spread by Indian officials that the Rowlatt Acts were necessary to check the spread of anarchy, Bolshevism and all that was abhorrent in revolutionary doctrines. But the Rowlatt Commission, in recommending the enactment of the Acts, completely gave the game away, when they admitted: ‘There will, especially in the Punjab, be a large number of disbanded soldiers, among whom it may be possible to stir up dis- content.’’ The Punjab contains 14 per cent of the population of India. It contributed 40 per cent of the Indian Army. ‘There is enough military material in the Punjab to shake down the empires of Europe,’’ once remarked Lord George Hamilton. Hence the fear of England that these splendid fighters, disbanded, disillusioned, and even disarmed, would tear down the tyranny which, they were told, was to be scrapped as a result of the great and glorious deliver- ance of the world from the dreadful curse of Prus- sianism ! But that much-berated system had not been killed! It had but moved from beneath the Black Eagles of Prussia to the protecting embrace of the Union Jack of England! THE GREAT PROTEST Mahatma Gandhi, prominent Nationalist leader, or- ganized a passive resistance movement in protest against the Rowlatt Acts. It began on April 6, 1919, with the closing of all shops and places of business, the people joining in one monster voice of indignation and sorrow. Satyagrahis, as the participants were termed, took the following solemn vow: ‘‘ We shall bear any abuse, any insult, any violence, any suffering, even unto death, with- out hatred, without resistance as brave men, as martyrs determined to maintain the truth at all cost.’’ Two hundred thousand people were present at the big protest meeting in Calcutta. One hundred thousand at- tended the Delhi demonstration. In every important center the people met and passively protested. The outstanding feature of this mighty demonstration was the display of Hindu-Mohammedan unity. England has always done her utmost to keep the two races divided and she has always represented to the outside world that her presence in India was absolutely necessary to keep them from one another’s throat. Their joint par- ticipation in this great protest bore a deep significance for the invader. 13 England’s reply was aeroplane bombings, machine gun massacres, public floggings, widespread deportations and the reopening of the closed shops and stores at the point of the bayonet. If the shops were not opened soldiers were put in charge. In Lahore, Colonel Frank Johnson said the soldiers put in charge ‘‘would not be authorized either to make book entries or receive pay- ments. ’’ Before we detail the terroristic practices indulged in by the British in the different parts of the Punjab, it is perhaps proper to examine one persistent charge made against the participants in this memorable protest, viz., that it was the result of Bolshevist influence. This charge has been made by all the now discredited militarists and also, we are sorry to say, by Mrs. Annie Besant. This lady has always ‘‘proof positive’’ that Indian revolu- tionaries are swayed by gold. During the war it was German gold.’ Now it is Bolshevist gold. The people of India are so incensed at her continual baseless allega- tions and her fulsome eulogies of the fake Home Rule bill that she is now howled down every time she attempts to address a public meeting. ‘‘T found no trace of Bolshevik influence behind the disturbanees,’’ swore Police Superintendent Orde of Delhi before the Hunter Commission. ‘‘There was no conspiracy to create rebellion, Police Superintendent Broadway of Lahore. ‘“‘T was not aware of any revolutionary movement,’’ testified Commissioner Kitchin of Amritsar. Surely these police officials are just as watchful of the interests of empire as General Dyer and Mrs. Besant! ” stated THE BIG TRAGEDY! On April 10th the Amritsar authorities secretly de- ported Kitchlew and Satyapal, leaders of the local pro- test movement. When the people went to Commissioner Kitchin to protest against the deportation and ask for the restoration of their leaders they were fired on and several of them killed. The people immediately got out of control. They de- stroyed two banks, the town hall and a telegraph sta- tion. Three English bank officials were killed. It is charged that about $600,000 was looted from the de- stroyed banks. On January 13th, 1920, one Sub-Inspec- tor, several head constables and about twenty ordinary police constables were arrested and charged with having a lot of this stolen money in their possession. An Eng- lish woman, Miss Sherwood, was severely beaten by some enraged Indians because she refused to admit men, wounded by English soldiers, into a hospital of which she was in charge. A lot of propaganda was centered about this incident. General Dyer made Indians, using the street in which she was beaten, crawl on their stom- achs as a punishment. It was in connection with this punishment that he coined his unconscious witticism: ‘““We, Englishmen, regard women as sacred.’’ Miss Sherwood is in good health again and recently stated in an Indian paper: ‘‘It was Indians who rescued me, an Indian house that gave me shelter and Indian hands that first dressed my wounds.’’ She also refused a large monetary gift offered her by the Government. She evidently thinks that her case has been over-ex- ploited by the British military butchers. General Dyer arrived in Amritsar on April 11th, con- dueted his massacre on April 13th and declared Martial Law on April 15th. The declaration of martial law on the 15th was evidently an after-thought and, in his opin- ion perhaps, perfectly legalized the mass murder two days before. The facts are comment enough on this tragedy, but one’s mind instinctively recalls Macaulay’s description of Colonel Hamilton, the author of the historic Glencoe Massacre, February, 1862: ‘‘All the moral qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre he possessed in perfection.”’ Jalhanwala Bagh is a square plot of waste land, sur- rounded by a wall about seven feet high and has two or three small entrances. The largest of these could not admit three men abreast. A very large number of people were in Amritsar.on the day of the massacre celebrating a religious festival, but owing to the size of the meeting place and other circumstances the crowd which assembled on the evening of the 13th of April was not over six or seven thousand. The speaker of the day was Lala Hans Raj, President of the Lahore College. The outstanding features of the massacre are: (1) General Dyer knew at 12:45 p:m. that the meeting was to be held in Jallianwala Bagh at 4:30 that after- noon; (2) he took no steps in the interval to warn the people that the meeting would be dispersed by gun- fire; (3) he would not have stopped the slaughter at 2000 but for a shortage of ammunition and the fact that the entrance to the meeting square was so small that he could not get in his armored ears with their machine guns; (4) he enforced the curfew law that night result- ing in the 1500 wounded lying unattended, where they fell, for 27 hours; (5) the meeting could have been dis- persed without a single casualty; (6) his object was to strike terror into the minds of the people. We reproduce the following extracts from General Dyer’s testimony before the Hunter Commission: @. You state in a report, General: ‘‘ At twelve-forty- five I was informed that, in spite of my stern proclama- tion, a big meeting would be held at Jallianwala Bagh at four-thirty that afternoon?”’ A. That’s correct. Q. I want you to explain why you did not take meas- ures to prevent the crowd from assembling at all in the Jallianwala Bagh ? A. I went there as soon as I could. organize my forces. situation. (Note the evasion.) Q. You did not open fire by the machine guns by accident because they could not go through the narrow passage ? A. Yes, if they could be got in the probability would be that I would open fire with the machine guns straight. @. Did the crowd at once start to disperse as soon as you fired? J ahiaaaao I had to consider the military A. Yes, immediately. @. Did you continue firing? JA ASY 68: Q. Why did you not stop when the crowd started to disperse ? A. I thought it was my duty to go on till it dis- persed. If I fired a little the effect would not be suf- ficient. If I fired a httle 1 would be wrong in firing at all. Q. What reason had you to suppose that if you had ordered the assembly to leave the Bagh, they would not have done so without the necessity of your firing and continuing firing for any length of time? A. Yes, I think it was quite possible that I could have dispersed them perhaps even without firing. A little later: ‘‘If I hadn’t fired on the crowd they might have come back and laughed at me.”’ Q. After firmg did you take any measure for the relief of the wounded? A. No, certainly not. It was not my duty. not my job. The hospitals were open. Indians who did not salaam (bow in reverence) to It was 14 Britishers were compelled to crawl through Dyer’s ‘‘sacred street’’ on their stomachs, with their noses rubbing the ground as they crawled; @. You think that the people ought to salaam every British officer ? A. Most certainly, yes, if you ask my opinion. India is the land of the salaam. Indians know and ought to know it. They all know salaaming. They salaam big people. They salaam Rajahs. (. Take your orders as regards crawling. was your object? A. I felt women had been beaten. We look upon women as sacred. I searched in my brain for a suit- able punishment for these awful cases. I went down to the street and ordered a triangle erected. I felt ‘the street ought to be looked on as sacred. I posted pickets at both ends and told them: ‘‘No Indians are to be allowed to pass along here. If they have to pass they will have to go on all fours.’’ (. There were a number of: floggings? A. Yes. I think there were twenty-five in all. After the wounded lay unattended in Jallianwala Bagh for twenty-seven hours, General Dyer, who ‘‘would not tolerate violence or wickedness,’’ made the following concession: ‘‘The inhabitants may bury or burn their dead as soon as they please. But there must be no demonstration of any kind.’’ General Beynon, Dyer’s immediate superior, and Sir Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, telegraphed the victor: ‘‘Your action correct. Lieu- tenant-Governor approves.’’ The slaughter, the floggings, the crawlings—all might not have occurred if the British official listened to the people who went to him to protest against the deporta- tion of their leaders. ‘“There was no disorder till the people were fired on,’’ admitted Miles Irvine afterwards, the man who was responsible for the firing of the military on the crowd. What LAHORE Colonel Frank Johnson came from Africa to India. He was in charge of Lahore during the disturbances and of course used his African methods of terrorism. He flogged wholesale. He marched the students of the King Edward Medical College 16 miles a day in the broiling sun from their college to Lahore Fort for roll-call! Martial law notices had been torn off the walls of the college. The students of the Lahore Law College caught a police spy tearing down the notices on their college, but the police protected him when the students demanded his punishment! Colonel John- son told the Hunter Commission: ‘‘I had been longing to teach the people a lesson.’’ So he taught a lesson to no fewer than 1011 students. His evidence shows that the people he shot, flogged and punished were not armed, did not attack his forces and were not rebels. Q. Is there any recorded report of any member of the police force or of any soldier receiving any wound from any member of the crowd? tA aN Oe Q. Was any of your men treated in hospital? A. None that'I know of. @. Were any arms discovered by anybody anywhere in the large number of searches you conducted ? TALE NO: Q. If the people were bent on rebellion wouldn’t they have secured arms? A. I think you are right. Q. From April 15th to the end of the month there was no rising at all anywhere? A. That is a historical fact. Other statements he made were: ‘‘I ordered persons shot who obstructed any person from opening his shop. ‘‘Not a single firearm was used by a native. ‘Sixty per cent of the disturbances at Lahore oc- eurred after the Amritsar shooting.”’ Khan Bahadar Baksh, Senior Sub-Judge of Lahore, testified before the Commission that Lieutenant O’Dwyer, son of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Pun- jab, stationed himself outside a Mohammedan mosque and laughed and mocked at a funeral procession of people killed by the military as it was entering the place of worship! Colonel Johnson’s conclusions regarding his reign of terror are so absurd that it is difficult to refrain from the opinion that he considered the Hunter Commission as a joke and not a real inquiry into the atrocities practiced upon the Indian people. ‘‘In such times you thought the right of whipping was essential?’’ he was asked. ‘‘Tt was absolutely essential,’’ he replied. the kindliest kind of punishment.’’ ‘*You never imagined the -punishment had serious effect ?’’ ‘‘T eannot imagine it.’’ ‘