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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Open Letter to the Right Honorable David
+Lloyd George, by Lajpat Rai
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: An Open Letter to the Right Honorable David Lloyd George
+       Prime Minister of Great Britain
+
+Author: Lajpat Rai
+
+Release Date: June 1, 2012 [EBook #39874]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OPEN LETTER TO THE RIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by spend, Ernest Schaal, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      _OTHER BOOKS BY LAJPAT RAI_
+
+                              YOUNG INDIA
+
+                _An Interpretation and a History of the
+                   Nationalist Movement from Within_
+
+                            Price $1.50 net
+
+
+                        ENGLAND'S DEBT TO INDIA
+
+                  _A Historical Narrative of Britain's
+                        Fiscal Policy in India_
+
+                            Price $2.00 net
+
+
+                             THE ARYA SAMAJ
+
+                      _An Account of its Origins,
+                       Doctrines and Activities_
+
+                            Price $1.75 net
+
+
+                    OBTAINABLE FROM ALL BOOKSELLERS
+
+
+
+
+                             AN OPEN LETTER
+
+                                   TO
+
+                          THE RIGHT HONORABLE
+                           DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
+                    PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+                                   BY
+                               LAJPAT RAI
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                             B. W. HUEBSCH
+                                MCMXVII
+
+
+
+
+                     Copyright, 1917, by Lajpat Rai
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                             AN OPEN LETTER
+                                   TO
+                          THE RIGHT HONORABLE
+                           DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
+                   _Prime Minister of Great Britain_
+
+
+
+
+                             AN OPEN LETTER
+                                   TO
+                          THE RIGHT HONORABLE
+                           DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
+                   _Prime Minister of Great Britain_
+
+
+Sir: I am an Indian who has, by the fear of your Government in India
+been forced to seek refuge in the United States, at least for the period
+of the war. In 1907, when Lord Minto's Government decided to put into
+operation an obsolete Regulation of the East India Company (III of 1818)
+against me, in order to put me out of the way, for a while, without even
+the form of a trial, Lord Morley, the then Secretary of State for India,
+defending his action, gave me the highest testimonial as far as my
+private character was concerned. You must have heard that speech though
+it would be presumptuous to imagine that you remember it.
+
+
+                             MY CREDENTIALS
+
+Even my worst enemies have not been able to point out anything in my
+life which would give any one even the shadow of a reason to say that,
+in my private life, I have not been as good and honorable a person as
+any British politician or diplomat or proconsul, is or has been or can
+be. My record as a wage-earner is as clean and as honorable as that of
+the best of Britishers engaged in governing India.
+
+Mr. H. W. Nevinson, than whom a more truthful and honorable publicist is
+not known in British life, has said in his work, "The New Spirit in
+India," that once when he told a high Anglo-Indian official that I was a
+good man held in great esteem by my countrymen, the latter remarked,
+that because I had a high character in private life, I was the more
+dangerous as an agitator.
+
+I am reciting all this as evidence of my credentials to speak on
+behalf of my countrymen. Just now I am a mere exile. For the present,
+I cannot think of returning to India, unless in course of time I begin
+to feel that by running the risk of being hanged or imprisoned, I
+should be doing a greater service to my country, than by remaining
+outside. I am now in the fifty-third year of my life, out of which
+more than thirty-four were spent in the limelight of public gaze. I am a
+man of family with children and grandchildren and have had my share,
+however small, of the good things of the world. Political freedom for
+India has been a passion to me ever since I was a boy. However hard the
+life of an exile or a convict may be, I am prepared to risk everything
+in the cause of my country.
+
+In the language of that prince of political exiles, Joseph Mazzini, the
+word "exile," is perhaps the most cursed in the dictionary of man. It
+dries up the springs of affection; it deprives its victims of the sweet
+babblings and lispings of his little ones with whom every man of age
+loves to beguile the evening of his days; it closes the avenues of all
+comfort that are associated with that sweet word home; it shuts the
+doors of heaven and makes life a continued agony, hanging on the slender
+thread of such pity and hospitality as one may receive from the generous
+and kind-hearted foreigner.
+
+
+                   INDIA COMPARED WITH GREAT BRITAIN
+
+How can I ask you who have perhaps never left your country except for
+some pleasant trips on the Continent, to put yourself in my position, if
+possible, for a moment only, and imagine how I long to kiss the soil,
+with which are mixed the bones of my mother and other forbears; how I
+miss the loving embrace of my beloved father, the sweet, expectant,
+imploring eyes of my widowed daughter, the devoted look of my wife and
+the kindly affectionate hand-shake of good and devoted friends. Nor can
+you realize how an Indian loves his country. How can you, of dark,
+sombre, fog ridden and misty climes, who are born of a chill atmosphere,
+of treacherously changing weather, who count hours of sunshine and
+months of darkness and fog and rain and snow and sleet, enter into the
+feelings of one whose country is a perpetual sunshine, and where
+universal light reigns--a country where weather is neither treacherous
+nor continually and rapidly changing, where beautiful dawns, starry
+nights, moonlit fields, resplendent waters, snow-clad hills and joyous
+rivers constantly and unremittingly fill one's mind with the sublimity,
+grandeur and beauty of nature; where one needs no stimulants to make him
+feel lighter and happier. An Indian needs no alcohol to forget his
+troubles. He has only to go to the Himalaya, or to the banks of Ganga,
+Brahmputra, Sindh or their numerous tributaries by which the land is
+blessed and fertilized. Oh, no! It is impossible for you to understand
+how passionately an Indian loves his country. He would rather starve in
+India than be a ruler of men in a foreign climate. For him, India is the
+land of Gods--the _Deva Bhumi_ of his forefathers. It is the land of
+knowledge, of faith, of beatitude--the _Gnan Bhumi_, the _Dharma Bhumi_
+and the _Punni-Bhumi_ of the ancient Aryas. It is the land of the Vedas
+and of the heroes--the _Veda Bhumi_ and the _Vir Bhumi_ of his
+ancestors. Yes, to him, it is the land of lands, the only place where he
+wishes to live, and more so, where he wishes to die. For a Hindu to die
+anywhere but in India, is as if he had been damned to hell. He shudders
+at the idea. To him, it is unthinkable. You may call it foolish,
+unpractical, sentimental and unprogressive; but there it is--a mighty
+fact of life into which no foreigner can penetrate.
+
+Every Englishman loves his country, its darkness, its fog, its sleet and
+rain nothwithstanding. Who does not love his country and who does not
+say:
+
+        Home, kindred, friends and country--these
+            Are ties with which we never part;
+        From clime to clime, o'er land and seas,
+            We bear them in our heart;
+        But, oh! 'tis hard to feel resigned,
+        When they must all be left behind!
+
+                                    --J. MONTGOMERY.
+
+If then, an Indian decides to be an exile, voluntarily and maybe for
+life, he only does so either under a grave sense of duty or of danger.
+The duty lies in speaking _the truth_ about political conditions in
+India and the danger in being effectively prevented from doing so if he
+remains there. No Indian can speak the _whole truth_ while in India. The
+criminal laws of your Government--your Penal and Criminal Codes,
+Seditious Meetings and Conspiracy Acts, and Press Laws, your tribunals
+presided over by your own people unaided by jurors--effectively gag his
+mouth.
+
+All honor to those who, though they cannot speak the whole truth, yet
+keep the fire burning in India and do as much as considerations of
+policy and expediency permit. If they do not speak the _whole truth_,
+they have at least the consolation of being at home, in the heart of
+their family and surrounded by their dear ones. For a political exile,
+however, there is nothing else to do, unless he has to carry on a fight
+for his living also, in which case he will divide his time between the
+two, that of earning bread and crying for justice for his country.
+Happily I have been comparatively free from much anxiety about the
+first. The only justification for my condition of exile, then, is that I
+continue to speak the truth about conditions in India and draw the
+attention of the world to them.
+
+But an additional reason has just been furnished to me by the morning
+papers of March 15, 1917. It is said that your agents in India have
+decided to raise a war loan of $500,000,000, equivalent to 1,500,000,000
+Rupees of Indian money, and also, to make the floating of the loan easy,
+your Government has agreed to increase the duty on cotton imports by 4%
+_ad valorem_. This war loan, it is added, would be a "_free gift_" of
+India to Great Britain! A free gift of $500,000,000 by starving,
+poverty-stricken India, to rich, wealthy, mighty Great Britain! Could
+anything be more astounding, more absurd and more tyrannical. The news
+has stunned me. I know that David Lloyd George, the British war-lord of
+1917, is not the same person who was the radical Chancellor of Exchequer
+in the Liberal Government from 1908 to 1914, and who did magnificent
+service to the British workingman by reducing his burdens and
+alleviating his condition. I have been told that the said David Lloyd
+George is dead and you, sir, are an entirely different person. The Lloyd
+George of 1914 could not possibly have done the thing which you, sir, in
+alliance with Curzons and Milners have just accomplished. The newspapers
+say you are the same person; only you have changed. If so, the change is
+not of opinion but of personality. Evidently the soul of the original
+David Lloyd George has left the body to make room for an altogether
+different soul. We Indians believe in the possibility of such a
+metamorphosis taking place even in the lifetime of the same body! The
+best part of the joke, however, in connection with the L100,000,000
+transaction lies in the fact that you call it _a gift by India_--_a gift
+indeed_. A gift like those given by Belgium to Germany. Is it not so,
+Mr. George? You are a shrewd person, very well educated, clever in
+diplomacy, well versed in tricks of speech and a master in statecraft;
+but even you ought to know that this trick will not deceive any one--not
+even the Indians who have been so often deceived by your predecessors in
+business. By way of adding insult to injury, you profess to do "_an act
+of justice_" to India by consenting to an increase of 4% on the duty
+leviable on imports of cotton goods. You say it is necessary for the
+success of the war loan of $500,000,000; but do you think that the
+Indians are so devoid of knowledge of the ordinary rules of arithmetic
+as not to understand what this "hitting below the belt" means to them?
+Your additional duty would but bring only $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 to
+the Indian exchequer, if the imports of cotton do not undergo a
+decrease. Your Government in India estimates it at L1,000,000 sterling.
+The interest at 5-1/2% amounts to $27,500,000. Your Government in India
+estimates an annual charge of L6,000,000 sterling. Where is the balance
+to come from except from the famished Indian _ryot_? Is that how you
+show your love for democracy, for the people at large, for the
+workingman? Your representatives in India and outside, are proclaiming
+to the world that India is the most lightly taxed country in the world,
+withholding the fact that the average income of an Indian is only L2 a
+year, of which he pays 7 shillings toward taxes. That was before the new
+taxes were imposed.
+
+Your publicists circulate another lie, viz., that India pays no tribute,
+while they know that from 20 to 40 millions sterling are remitted to
+England every year, out of which only a portion represents interest on
+loans made to India for the building of railways which your countrymen
+have used in developing their trade, and the remainder is the profit you
+make out of India. Then you cite the figures of trade in support of your
+theory that India is prosperous under British rule, but you forget that
+that trade benefits your country more than it benefits India, if at all.
+We send you food and raw materials at cheapest prices, making ourselves
+liable to "famines." You pay us in articles of luxury, of flimsy value,
+at the highest prices. The balance of trade is always in your favor. We
+toil and sweat, and your countrymen enjoy the profit. All the paying
+industries, railways, tea, jute, half of the cotton industry, etc., are
+in the hands of your countrymen. Theirs are the insurance companies,
+banks, railways and ships that profit by their trade. The railway rates
+discriminate against native industries and internal trade. Your
+countrymen get the plum-pudding, while our people cannot have even two
+meals of the coarsest food every day. When there is famine, millions
+die. Of late, your "scientific" methods of famine relief have succeeded
+in controlling mortality figures in famine days. The method by which you
+do this is genuinely scientific. Most of the deaths are charged to
+epidemics and disease; no one notices, however, that the havoc caused by
+disease is due to lack of nourishment and consequent low vitality.
+God-fearing Englishmen have cried themselves hoarse over the situation.
+The misery of the Indian masses has been pictured by their powerful pens
+in pathetic and soul-stirring words, but you and your colleagues still
+continue to ignore what they have said. New methods are every day being
+invented to exploit us. New departments with fat salaries for Englishmen
+are being multiplied. The public debt is being piled up. While hundreds
+of millions are spent on railways, nothing has been done to develop
+local industries. The country is suffering from lack of capital (cash
+and credit). (See Sir D. M. Hamilton's article in the _Calcutta Review_
+for July, 1916.) Every honest inquirer who makes inquiries on the spot
+and does not depend on the reports of your officials, finds and reports
+that the condition of the masses is the most pitiable (see the article
+by Mr. Manohar Lal in the _Allahabad Economic Journal_ for April, 1916,
+and also the paper by Mr. Patro, of Madras, read in a meeting presided
+over by the Governor of Madras). For the latest British testimony on the
+point, see an article on Indian Industrial Development by Mr. Moreland,
+C.S.I., C.I.E., in the _Quarterly Review_ for April, 1917, in the course
+of which he remarks: "It is a matter of common knowledge that the
+standard of life in India is undesirably low; that while the masses of
+the people are provided with the bare necessities of life of a bare
+existence [Are they?--L. R.] they are in far too many cases badly housed
+and badly clothed, badly doctored and badly taught, often overworked and
+often underfed; and that the present income, even if it were equitably
+distributed, would not suffice to provide the population with even the
+most indispensable elements of a reasonable life."
+
+A careful study of the Reports on Prices and Wages discloses that the
+real living wage in the case of the vast bulk of agricultural laborers
+has considerably diminished, and this in spite of the absurd conclusion
+of the Prices Commission appointed by your Government a few years ago.
+No one knows better than you, Mr. David Lloyd George, that big buildings
+in cities, mostly owned by foreign capitalists exploiting the country;
+big trade carried on by foreign exporters and importers; railway mileage
+and receipts of Government revenue do not mean prosperity. Even the
+importation of treasure secured by capitalists in payment for exports
+does not indicate better conditions of the masses. If the masses are so
+prosperous, as your officers say, why cannot you tax the people for
+purposes of education and sanitation? Why is the death rate so high
+(over 30 per thousand)? Why can't you force the local bodies to spend
+money on education and sanitation? Why do your finance ministers say
+that there is no room for further taxes? Most of your agents in India
+know the real condition of the people but they have to conceal it from
+the British public as well as the world, as that enables them and their
+kin to continue in the enjoyment of that power which means so much to
+them.
+
+In reply, you might well ask, why then is India loyal? Why do the people
+put up with all this? Why don't they rebel? Because they have been
+emasculated, and emasculated so completely, that they are absolutely
+helpless against your organized brigandage. They are weak, ignorant and
+incompetent. Sixty-four years ago they were not so helpless. But now
+they are completely demoralized and penniless. Your system has ground
+them into dust. They cannot even protect themselves from wild beasts.
+You have completely disarmed them. No Indian can possess a firearm
+except under a license from your magistrates, which is only rarely
+granted. You have completely hypnotized them by your professions of
+disinterested liberalism and altruism. The truth has, after all, dawned
+on them that you are the worst harpies they ever have had and if they
+could they would overthrow you without a scruple. You know that you are
+safe in their helplessness. When the war came they deluded themselves
+with the hope that in your hour of need you might accord them a better
+treatment, but by this time they have found their mistake and have
+concluded that, just as a lion may die of sheer exhaustion when attacked
+by an enemy rather than willingly loosen his grip on his prey so long as
+there is breath in his body, so a nation holding another in subjection
+might endanger her own existence without loosening her grip on her
+victim.
+
+When the war broke out in August, 1914, I, with other Indian publicists,
+thought that however badly you had treated us in the past we had nothing
+to gain by German victory and the best thing, under the circumstances,
+was for us to stand by you and establish our claim to better treatment.
+The Princes and people of India therefore stood by you. You and your
+colleagues have been singing their praises and extolling their loyalty,
+but nothing has been done so far to give them even the elementary
+political rights of a free people. Verily, we have had a deluge of fine
+words but not an iota of deeds. On the other hand, you have imposed
+fresh burdens on us. While doing an "act of justice" about the cotton
+duties you have committed a wrong which wipes away the little good that
+might otherwise have been expected to accrue therefrom. Your courts and
+officers in India have taken away what little freedom the people enjoyed
+before. In cases of alleged sedition the sentences inflicted have been
+quite on a par with the doings of the Romanoffs in Russia. This time
+even women have felt your steel.
+
+You knew as well as anyone else does, how the German government has been
+trying to win the good will of the Indians. It cannot be denied that the
+temptation was alluring. If, then, we have withstood it, it was not
+because we were in love with your Government in India, but on different
+grounds. Personally, I do not believe that any liberty is worth having
+which we cannot win ourselves, because liberty won by the aid of another
+places us at the mercy of that other. European diplomacy is so crooked
+that it is futile to place faith in the promises of any of them.
+
+I would esteem German friendship as much as British or American or that
+of the Japanese or the Chinese; I would gratefully accept any help
+anybody would render in educating and fitting our young men for the
+coming task, but I would not do anything that would cause useless
+bloodshed in India. I am not afraid of blood. Blood will have to be shed
+if we are to gain our freedom. I am not afraid of failures and defeats.
+Failures and defeats are sometimes the necessary steps to victory. I do
+not believe in peace at any price; nor pacificism at any cost. I do not
+believe that "they also serve who only stand and wait." I am for a manly
+assertion of our rights, even though blood may have to be spilled in
+asserting or defending them; yet I would consider it highly improper to
+encourage bloodshed where there is not a ghost of a chance of success.
+That, in my eyes, is sheer lunacy and I have never made a secret of it.
+So I protested against my people attempting to stir up revolt in India,
+under the instigation of a foreign government. It was due to my horror
+of useless bloodshed. I have no doubt that _agents provocateur_ played
+an important part in instigating those whom your courts have found
+guilty and sent to the gallows. I believe that the men who have been
+sacrificed should have lived and worked for the movement for which they
+have died. So that, in a nutshell, gives you my attitude towards foreign
+help. Remember, please, sir, that I do not presume to pronounce any
+judgment on those who think differently and have acted in the light of
+their consciences. I simply state my opinion and my attitude.
+
+This time the movement has failed. It was bound to fail. But the
+experience which the Indians engaged in the cause have gained is not
+lost. Next time, and who knows, the chance may come at no distant date,
+they will profit by the experience thus gained. The world is not in love
+with you, sir. There are a dozen peoples in the world who will be glad
+to see your downfall and help in bringing it about. They will not
+support the Indian Nationalist and the Indian Revolutionist openly, but
+they will encourage him in every way they can, without bringing about
+diplomatic complications. So the Indian will not be altogether
+friendless when the next opportunity to strike comes. By that time the
+country also will be better prepared to do something more definite and
+more spectacular.
+
+Under the circumstances, the question that I wish to put to you is:
+"Would you do nothing to avert it?" It is in your power to act if you
+will. The Indians are very easily satisfied. They abhor bloodshed. They
+do not like revolution. They will gladly remain in the Empire, if
+permitted to do so on terms of self-respect and honor. Their needs are
+few. Their life is simple. They care more for spiritual values than for
+worldly goods. They envy nobody's property. They have no ambition to
+start on a career of exploitation. All they want is to be let to live
+and think as they will. At present they are let _to exist_, but not to
+live. More than 100 million are insufficiently fed. At least 60 millions
+do not get two meals a day. More than 80% of the boys receive no
+schooling, and more than 90% of the girls. They work and toil and sweat
+primarily in the interests of the British capitalist and secondarily in
+the interests of his Indian colleague. The latter only gets the leavings
+of the former. The ships, the railways, the leading banking houses, the
+big insurance offices, the tea plantations, one-half of the cotton
+mills, about all the woollen mills, most of the paper mills, all jute
+mills are owned by the former; a few by the latter. The profits of
+agriculture are divided between your Government and the big landlords.
+The pressure on land has reduced the size of the ryots' holdings, while
+the number of mouths requiring food and the number of bodies requiring
+clothing has increased.
+
+Your Government encourages drinking, speculating and gambling in a way
+never before conceived. If you have any pity in your heart, sir; if you
+are a good father and a good husband, I would beseech you to devote but
+an hour's time to the wages tables printed by your Government in their
+Report on Prices and Wages (1915). I give a few samples below:
+
+In the district of Patna (Behar), the monthly wage of an able-bodied
+agricultural laborer in the year 1907 was only R5.62 (say R6) equal to
+8s. or $2. In 1873 it was from R3 to R4. Imagine the laborer having a
+family of four and then conceive how he manages to live on this wage. In
+Fyzabad (Oude) the monthly wage of an able-bodied agricultural laborer
+was only R4 (5s. 4d. or $1.33) in 1905, the same as it was in 1873. In
+1906 it is given as ranging from R1.87 to R4 a month. From 1873 to 1906
+it was never more than R4 a month.
+
+In Cawnpore (U. P.) it was R3.75 in 1873; R3 in 1892; less than 4 in
+1896; from 3.44 to R5 in 1898 and from R3.69 to 7 in 1903; at which
+figure it practically stayed up to 1906, the last year for which figures
+are given in the report.
+
+In Meerut (U. P.) it was R4.33 in 1906 as against R4.5 in 1873.
+
+In Belgaun (Madras) it was R6.25 in 1912.
+
+In Jubbulpore (C. P.) it was R5 in 1908.
+
+In Raipur (C. P.) it was R5 in 1908.
+
+In Bellary (Madras) it was R4.75 in 1907.
+
+In Salem (Madras) it has never exceeded R3.67 since 1873.
+
+The Government postal runners who carry mails at a trotting pace for
+several miles a day, often making two trips in 24 hours, are paid the
+following salaries in the different provinces of your Indian Empire:
+
+    Bengal                  1913,    R7.75    a month,  $2.58
+    Behar and Orissa         "        6.33       "       2.10
+    United Provinces         "        6.25       "       2.08
+    Panjab and N.W.F         "        7.75       "       2.58
+    Bombay                   "        7.5        "       2.35
+    Central Provinces        "        7.         "       2.33
+    Madras                   "        7.11       "       2.40
+        (The equivalents in dollars are approximate.)
+
+Postmen who are supposed to be literate, received from R10 to R16 a
+month (_i. e._, from $3.33 to $5.33 a month) in the different provinces
+in 1913.
+
+The scale of wages allowed to unskilled labor in the railway yards of
+Mirzapore and Cawnpore (U. P.) is given between R5 to R6 per month
+(_i. e._, less than $2.00). These are figures of 1914.
+
+In the canal foundry and workshop at Roorkee (U. P.) the daily wage in
+1916 was only 4 annas a day (_i. e._, 8 cents).
+
+In the Cawnpore saddlery establishment, the bullock drivers, the
+sweepers and the _Bhishties_ received only R5 and R6 a month (_i. e._,
+less than 8s. or $2.00); the lascars from R6 to R7 (_i. e._, $2.00 to
+$2.33).
+
+In the woolen mills in Northern India unskilled labor was paid at R8.12
+(_i. e._, less than $3.00) a month in 1914. These are the rates allowed
+in big cities. For other big cities the rates may, in some cases, be
+somewhat better, but in small rural towns and villages, they are
+considerably less.
+
+Does the Indian laborer, considering his standard of life, the size of
+his family and the requirements of decency, get a living wage? I am sure
+that a humane inquirer, not so much interested in the good name of the
+Government as in truth, will have no hesitation in answering the
+question in the negative. Any increase in wages has to be divided over
+the average strength of a family, which will show how disproportionate
+the increase in wages is to the increase in prices. In a family of five
+with one or two earning hands the increase in wages is two-fold at the
+most. While the increase in the cost of living by the increase in prices
+is five-fold. Your Official Report writers always ignore this important
+consideration. As for the housing conditions in which Indian workmen
+live, let me present to you the following testimony from a recent issue
+of the _Times of India_, Bombay (quoted in the London _Times_, June,
+1917):
+
+    "It is no unusual sight to find fifteen or twenty persons, of
+    both sexes, lying huddled on the floor of a single room in a
+    stifling atmosphere and a vile stench. A single small window or
+    an open door gives the only ventilation. Furniture there is
+    none, beyond a few brass pots and some pegs. The sanitary
+    arrangements are unspeakable. Every noise and smell that occurs
+    in the neighborhood penetrates the crazy walls and floor and
+    disturbs the sleepers. The chawls are often so rickety that it
+    is a miracle that they do not collapse under their own weight.
+    They seem to be kept up like a house of cards, by the support of
+    their scarcely less rickety neighbors."
+
+As for the Indian laborer getting any education or any leisure for art
+or for the pursuit of taste, that is out of the question. The condition
+of the small farmer or _ryot_ is even worse. Sir, if you are ever
+inclined to study the actual conditions of life in India, do not rely
+upon the "conclusions" of your officers as embodied in reports. Study
+the facts, given in the reports, but disregard the conclusions. If you
+seek the aid of an Indian Nationalist he may show you how the reports
+are drawn up, and how dates and figures have been selected to suit
+conclusions. Having been a lawyer most of your life you are well aware
+of the magical properties of special pleading. In the hands of a
+skillful apologist, the figures can be made to mean anything. Better
+still, if you want to have a glimpse of conditions of life in India,
+depute an honest man of the type of Mr. Nevinson to go to Indian
+villages unaccompanied by officials, and see the things for himself; or
+to the slums in towns. The slums of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Lahore,
+Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Benares, will throw the slums of London and
+New York far back into the shade. The latter are verily a paradise as
+compared with the former. As to the villages, the less said the better.
+
+The point is in fact conceded by all fair-minded English publicists.
+
+The _Manchester Guardian_, only the other day, discussing the recent
+increase in the cotton duties, questioned "the wisdom and justice" of
+this L100,000,000 exaction from India and admitted that "the loss it
+represents to an extremely poor population like that of India is very
+much greater than the gain to England." Even the _Morning Post_, that
+representative of Jingo Imperialism, recognizes the extreme poverty of
+the masses of India. I will not quote the _Nation_ as you do not like
+that journal. The moneyed classes of India, the Rajas and Maharajas, the
+bankers and mill owners, the industrial corporations that will fill this
+loan could not find a more profitable investment. They get 100 per cent.
+stock for 95 and besides get from 5 to 5-1/2 per cent. interest, in some
+cases free of income tax for thirty years to come. Upon whom will the
+burden of interest fall? Neither on the lender nor on the borrower, but
+mainly on the ryot and the laborer. Do you know, sir, that the average
+price of salt (wholesale) in Lahore, Punjab, had risen from R1-9-7 a
+maund in 1912-13 to R2-7-3 in 1916-17? But that in retail sale "the
+average price of salt per maund (82 lbs.) had risen from R1-14-0 to
+R5-0-0" (_Tribune_, Lahore, March, 1917). The fresh taxation imposed
+since the war, which by this loan-cum-gift transaction of 100 million
+sterling threatens to become permanent, has raised the prices of the
+necessaries of life to an abnormal extent. The wages remain virtually
+the same. Your Government which employs large numbers of laboring men in
+railways, canals, and otherwise have not considered it necessary to
+raise the wages of the workingmen. Will the private employer do
+otherwise? I know from personal knowledge how frightfully the poor
+Indian clerk is sweated in the offices of your Government in India on a
+mere pittance. Can't you feel for the millions of those little ones
+whose already scanty, insufficient food is still further reduced by the
+fresh taxes imposed by your Government to find means to pay the war
+budget and this permanent addition of L6,000,000 a year to their burden?
+Don't you know, sir, that in India there are millions of widows (much
+more than in any other country) who have to support their little ones by
+their own toil and that every penny of additional taxation hits them
+hard. The hardships and privations imposed in Europe by the war are
+nothing as compared with what the Indian masses have been putting up
+with, for the last fifty years or so. The fiscal policy of your
+Government has ruined Indian industry. You know it as well as anyone
+else. Did you notice the letter of Mr. G. W. Forrest in the London
+_Times_ of March 14, 1917, wherein he admitted that "the tale of
+England's dealing with Indian industry was one of littleness and
+injustice," and that "by positive prohibition and heavy duties the
+Indian textile trade in England was destroyed and our own trade was
+fostered." You and your colleagues have used grandiloquent rhetoric in
+your defense of the increase in the cotton duties in India and over your
+concern for India and Indian industries, but you are mistaken if you
+think that anyone in India is likely to be taken in by your hypocritical
+professions. Pardon me, sir, I mean no insult when I say "hypocritical
+professions." The practice is a part of a modern statesman's job. He has
+to create a certain atmosphere before he can make his people believe
+that what he does is the only correct thing to do.
+
+Your cotton duties, sir, afford no relief to the Indian poor. It would
+not have hurt me much, if you had forced or induced the Rajas and the
+Maharajas, the bankers and the capitalists to contribute even more than
+100 million pounds to the war expenses, as it is they who have grown
+fat, if anyone in India has, under the British regime, but to force the
+Indian ryot and the Indian wage earner to do it and to continue to pay
+for it for years to come out of his scanty daily rations is the climax
+of cruelty. Then the unkindest cut of all is that it should come from
+you, whom we had associated with feelings of kindness, and pity, for the
+poor and the workmen.
+
+Your Government has called it a free and spontaneous gift of the people
+of India! If the members of your cabinet, if the Secretary of State for
+India, if the Governor General of India and his ministers of the
+Executive Council, are the people of India, then truly you are right and
+we wrong. If they are not the people of India, as they are not, then it
+is a gift by yourself to yourself, of other peoples' money. Again, the
+statement that the measure was unanimously approved of by the Indian
+members of the council is a _diplomatic lie_. You know that the matter
+was settled between your Cabinet as represented by the Secretary of
+State for India and the Viceroy's Executive Council (which includes only
+one Indian member nominated by you), before it was announced in the
+Legislative Council. You know also, sir, and if you don't, you ought to,
+that the Indian Legislative Council has no power under the law to make
+any changes in the budget. The budget is entirely beyond their purview.
+The members can only extol it or criticise it. They can propose
+resolutions disapproving of some of its provisions which can amount to
+nothing more than pious wishes even if passed. But the official majority
+in the Council guarantees the defeat of any hostile resolutions by
+non-official members. Re this loan-cum-gift transaction, the
+non-official members of the Legislative Council put a seal on their
+mouths because they thought it was useless to incur the risk of being
+called disloyal for a matter which was reported to them as a _fait
+accompli_ and which they could not in any way change or modify; yet two
+of them did raise a sort of feeble protest.
+
+
+                IT IS NOT A GIFT BY THE PEOPLE OF INDIA
+
+The press comments on it, however subdued and timid and halting, leave
+no doubt about the real mind of India in the matter. The truth has been
+pointed out by the _Manchester Guardian_ and the _Nation_. (Beg your
+pardon, sir, for mentioning the _Nation_ again). The former, in its
+issue of March 15, remarked: "It is we, who govern India and not the
+Indian people. The initiative in all financial proposals necessarily
+comes from the government we appoint in India, and these cannot reach
+the light of public discussion in the Legislative Council or elsewhere
+until they have received the sanction of the Secretary of State for
+India here. For Mr. Chamberlain to throw off upon Indian people the
+responsibility for originating and devising the 100 million contribution
+is as unconvincing a rhetorical exercise as the House of Commons has
+witnessed for many a long day. The responsibility from the first to the
+last is his and that of the Indian Government. We have said more than
+once, and we repeat it that in our opinion a wise statesmanship would
+both find better uses in India for India's millions and employ India
+more advantageously for the common cause by using more of her manhood
+and less of her money," I will not quote the _Nation_, sir, which is on
+this point as explicit, if not more, as the _Manchester Guardian_.
+
+Now, sir, you know that India has been very eager to fight for the
+Empire. She has supplied you with about 350,000 troops in this war,
+paying for their services and equipment herself. But 350,000 do not
+represent even a fraction of her man power, the whole of which she was
+prepared to throw in this struggle. While Australia and Canada and
+Ireland have either rejected conscription or are shirking, India has
+been clamoring for it. You can no longer say that you could not utilize
+India's manhood because of the prejudice of color. That shibboleth has
+been shattered by this war and, we hope, for good. The colored people of
+Asia and Africa are fighting in numbers alongside of the best European
+troops. Poor people! They believe they are fighting to make the world
+"safe for democracy!" You cannot say that Indians are lacking in
+fighting qualities, because the existence of them in a high degree they
+have proved conclusively in face of difficulties, by no means light and
+contemptible. That the Indian soldier can hold his own in Europe, even
+better than the European soldier in Southern Asia, has been established
+beyond the shadow of a doubt by the experiences of this war. Why, then,
+won't you use India's manhood and relieve her of this financial exaction
+which she can ill afford to meet, without suffering egregiously?
+
+
+                 INDIA'S TEEMING MILLIONS WANT FOOD AND
+                         KNOWLEDGE OF THREE R'S
+
+The question for India's teeming millions is not "how to live well" but
+how to live at all. There is no question of comforts for them. What they
+want, and do not get, is sufficient and nourishing food and a knowledge
+of the three R's. Your Government is unable to give them the first, and
+persists in refusing to give them the second; yet when an Indian
+publicist loses patience and says "slavery has deprived Indians of
+wealth, honors and freedom, and has reduced them to destitution and
+starvation," your Viceroy in India cites it as an instance of depraved
+journalism and a justification for the gagging of the press. He
+complains that "there are papers in India which magnify the ills from
+which she suffers" and "which harp upon plague, famine, malaria and
+poverty" and "ascribe them all to the curse of an alien government." May
+I ask, sir, if it is not a fact that millions in India die of famine,
+plague, and malaria? Is it not a fact that the curses and the appalling
+effects of them, are directly or indirectly traceable to poverty? Many
+countries on the face of the earth do not grow food sufficient for
+themselves while India does. Why then should India alone suffer from
+famines when her food supply, once in a while, falls short of the
+ordinary year of agricultural "prosperity?" If even during famine years
+India can supply food to other nations by exports of wheat and other
+grains, why can't she keep that food at home and feed her own hungry
+children? Why should plague have stayed in India so long? Why should
+malaria exact such a heavy annual toll there? The reason is obvious.
+Because of the ignorance and poverty of the people.
+
+Let us assume that India has not grown poorer under British rule, though
+there is abundant evidence to the contrary, that the masses have become
+poorer and are becoming poorer every day; let us also assume that in the
+matter of education India was worse off under native rule--_i. e._,
+before the introduction of the British rule--a period of history when no
+other part of the world was any the better. Is it not a matter of shame,
+that after 150 years of British rule, when most of the other national
+governments in other parts of the world have reduced their illiteracy
+almost to zero point, India should still have more than 90% of its
+population illiterate. Is it not a matter of shame, that of all the
+grain producing countries of the world India alone should be so
+miserably situated as to be unable to supply sufficient and nourishing
+food to her sons and daughters. Don't you think, sir, that the Indians
+have reason to feel sore when they see that the food grown by them is
+denied to them; that it is almost snatched from their mouths; that
+others should eat the food which is grown by them, that even in the best
+of years millions of them must be contented with only one meal a day,
+and that of the coarsest grain.
+
+Do you remember, Mr. Lloyd George, how bitter you felt against the
+capitalist, when you yourself in your boyhood, felt the pinch of want?
+Have you forgotten all that you said in the Lime-house speech? I repeat
+that the sufferings of the British laborer and workingmen, the trials of
+the British poor are nothing compared with those of the Indian ryot and
+the Indian workingmen and the Indian clerks in your employ in that
+country. Yet you have no feeling to spare for them, and those that have,
+you and your Government brand as malcontents and seditionists. Don't you
+think, sir, that the Indian ryot and the Indian poor are being crushed
+under the weight of two capitalisms superimposed upon each other--one
+foreign and the other indigenous? When we ask for freedom to manage our
+own affairs you say we are not fit to do so. But what can we do to
+ourselves which will be worse than what you have done us? If left free,
+we might bring to book the indigenous capitalists whom, in the interests
+of your own capitalists, you have been supporting and fattening. But
+even if we fail to do so, we shall at any rate have upon us the burden
+of only a single weight. Your colleagues say that in refusing
+self-government to India they are actuated by devotion to India; that
+they do not want to hand over the millions of India to the tender
+mercies of a small minority of educated and wealthy men in whose hands
+the government will inevitably drift. Supposing it does, it will be easy
+for the masses to keep the minority in check. They can revolt and rebel,
+but under your Government the bureaucracy is all powerful. The truth is,
+sir, that the condition of these very millions, in whose interests, you
+say, you are reluctant to give power to the educated and the wealthy
+few, is a standing condemnation of your government there. The educated
+minority and the wealthy few are fairly well off under your regime. It
+is the ignorant ryot and the millions of workingmen and women who
+suffer. In the words of one of your distinguished writers (W. Lily),
+they do not live but just exist.
+
+Recently the _Times_ said that the British were "the trustees of the
+welfare of India's millions." Who are these millions for whom you are
+trustees? Are they those homeless, educationless millions who get only
+one meal a day or are they those who have benefitted from your schools
+and are wealthy? If the former, you have failed in your trust. If the
+latter, they are quite fit to manage their own affairs. It was only the
+other day that Mr. Austen Chamberlain was reported to have said
+(_Times_, London, March 30) at a luncheon given to him and the India's
+so-called representatives at the Imperial conference (one of whom was a
+Lieutenant Governor interested in extending India's sphere of
+subjection) that "India will not remain and ought not to remain content
+to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for the rest of the Empire."
+Noble words these, full of hope and encouragement. But what a sad and a
+crushing acknowledgment of the present helpless condition of India. It
+is a truthful statement for which the Indians ought to be grateful to
+Mr. Chamberlain. At the present moment India is a mere "hewer of wood
+and a drawer of water" for the rest of the Empire. Against that her sons
+protest, and will continue to protest, as long as the wrongs of the
+country are not redressed, your press act, your sedition laws, jails and
+prisons notwithstanding.
+
+The position, Mr. Lloyd George, is pathetic. When we ask for more outlay
+on education, you say, no, the condition of the finances will not permit
+of that. When we point out the way to find finances, you say, "no,
+further taxes are impossible and retrenchment in public expenditure in
+other departments undesirable." When we say, "give us the management and
+we will do it," you say, "no you are unfit." The result is that you will
+neither educate the masses yourself nor will you let us educate them.
+Yet you hold their ignorance a valid ground for refusing us our right to
+manage our own affairs. When, however, you want money for Imperial
+purposes you raise loans, impose taxes, and reduce public expenditure on
+education and public works. You have done this not only now, for the
+purposes of this bloody war, but you have done so in the past in
+building railways for your merchants and to fight your wars in Africa,
+in China, in Afghanistan, in fact, all over the old world. It is true
+the present is a trying time for you and you may have a pretence of
+justification in this crisis in your Imperial life. But so long as you
+refuse the conscription of wealth in your home islands, what right have
+you to impose this conscription of India's money resources? You have not
+forced the dominions to make monetary contributions. In fact you have
+advanced them over L140,000,000 from your own funds. You have not so far
+called upon the British capitalists to pay even a fraction of their
+wealth. You have simply taxed their excessive profits. Why should you
+have made an exception in the case of India? India is the poorest part
+of the Empire. Yet it is she who has been selected for this exceptional
+treatment. She had already made lavish gifts of money and provisions and
+equipment. Her gifts were in entire disproportion to her means. Compared
+with your dominions' resources and their money sacrifices India's
+contribution stood higher than those of the former. Yet you selected
+India for this compulsory money contribution because India is the only
+part of the Empire which you could thus treat. India is the only part of
+the Empire which has been forced to give $500,000,000 as a _free gift_.
+Even the fabulously rich United States which have made huge war profits
+from you and your other allies have not thought of a national gift. Yet
+imperial sophistry represented by your imperial publicists and
+officials, represents that Great Britain exacts no tribute from India
+and makes no profit out of her connection with India and that she rules
+India simply out of philanthropic and humanitarian motives.
+
+
+                                 WASTE
+
+One would have thought that under the pressure of the war, your
+Government in India would make an honest and earnest effort to reduce
+expenditure on public services, at least under heads mainly ornamental
+or which only afford luxuries to your agents in India; but on the other
+hand, what is the actual situation? A perusal of the proceedings of the
+Imperial Legislative Council and also of the Provincial Councils shows
+that all efforts made by the non-official members to obtain additional
+money for education and sanitation by the reduction of expenditure on
+luxuries, were opposed by your Government, and were consequently
+defeated. All efforts to reduce expenditure on comforts were of course
+resisted by those who enjoyed them, and it is they whose votes count in
+the Indian Councils. For example, it was proposed that the huge
+expenditure incurred by the different Government Departments, Imperial
+and Provincial, in moving to the Hills for seven months of the year,
+should be reduced, at least partially. Many persons competent to express
+an opinion on the subject, among them Lord Carmichael, the retiring
+Governor of Bengal, have placed it on record that this "exodus to the
+hills" was not necessary, and was in fact prejudicial to the interests
+of good government; yet the Government opposed the motion of the
+non-official member and he was forced to withdraw it. A similar motion
+to curtail the expenditure on the ornamentation of the residence of the
+Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces was also opposed and met a
+similar fate. The huge allowances made to the heads of the different
+governments in India for kitchen expenses, for dispensing hospitality,
+and for traveling in royal style have not been reduced by a penny. The
+Punjab Government has provided in its current budget a large amount of
+money for providing palatial residences for its officers in summer
+resorts, and has sanctioned large pensions, from father to son, for a
+few of their Indian supporters. These men are mostly wealthy men. They
+did nothing more than help you in your suppressive and exploiting
+policy. Your Government naturally rewards them. Is it not bribery. If an
+expert financier were to examine into these items, which can only pass
+unchallenged in a country wherein the people have no voice in the
+raising of the taxes and in spending them, it would be found that great
+savings could be effected and the money thus made available used for
+other urgent needs of the people. The fact is that the Indian ryot who
+pays for all these extravagances has no voice to check the vagaries of
+those who spend his money for their own comforts. I have not mentioned
+the lavish scale on which special traveling allowances are granted to
+high officials in India. It is a matter of common knowledge that these
+officials do not spend as much as they draw under this head. Yet it is
+actually proposed that the salaries and the allowances for the European
+members of the Indian services be substantially raised. _Verily,
+taxation without representation_ is a crime of the worst possible kind.
+
+
+                               DEMOCRACY
+
+Mr. Lloyd George, you and your colleagues in the Government of Great
+Britain, say that in fighting the Germans you are fighting the battle of
+Democracy, to make the world safe from autocracy and militarism, that
+you are fighting for rights of small nations, and for the domination of
+right over might. The United States has joined the war for the same
+reason. I have seen numerous recruiting posters exhibited in New York
+City exhorting young Americans to enlist in the army "to make the world
+safe" for Democracy. I have not the slightest doubt of the sincerity of
+the American professions because their international record is so far
+clean. Vide their record in Cuba and the Philippines. Can we say the
+same for Great Britain? I am afraid not, so long at least, as you
+continue to deny self-government to India, the second of the two biggest
+democracies of the world. Here is a nation of 315 million human beings
+(or say several nations, if you wish, as your publicists are so fond of
+repeating _ad nauseam_ that India is not a nation) whom you are
+governing by the force of might, without their consent, and on
+absolutely despotic lines; whom you deny freedom of speech, freedom of
+association and freedom of education; whom you tax without their consent
+and then spend those taxes outside of their country, and in providing
+luxuries to your representatives in India or in bribing such Indians as
+uphold you in your possessions. I have no doubt that you are sincere in
+your denunciation of German militarism. For myself I have no use for
+Czars and Kaisers, Emperors and Sultans, and I dare say that you, too,
+have none. Thus I am in full sympathy with your efforts to exterminate
+the race of Kaisers. So far you are right. But an Indian cannot help
+smiling rather cynically when he hears you saying that you are waging
+the war to make the world safe for democracy. Your conduct in India and
+in Egypt, and in Persia belies your protestations.
+
+
+                          AS TO SMALL NATIONS
+
+In defending your conduct you urge that India is not a nation. Very
+well, sir, divide India into small nations and give them self-government
+separately. You will admit that there are parts of India which are
+homogenous, entitled to be called small nations in the sense in which
+Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, and Holland are. The bulk of the
+population follow the same religion, speak the same language and belong
+to the same race. Remember, please, that I do not admit that India is
+not a nation or that the sameness of language, religion and race is
+necessary for a political national existence. Switzerland, Canada, the
+United States, South Africa, Russia, and Austria-Hungary have demolished
+that theory.
+
+The apologists of the present system of Government in India say that the
+Indian people are not sufficiently educated in the principles and
+practice of politics and that their ignorance and illiteracy make it
+necessary for the British to continue to rule them from without, until
+they are fit to establish and maintain a democratic form of government.
+I have already made some remarks about illiteracy and shown that the
+responsibility for it rests on your shoulders. If you, sir, are to be
+the sole judge of the educational requirements of the Indian people,
+their progress is bound to hang on your convenience. No one in
+possession is anxious to be dispossessed and if the time and method of
+his dispossession is to be determined by himself, then woe to the
+dispossessed! But, sir, you forget that literacy is not education. The
+Indian masses have a background of centuries of culture which places
+them in the matter of intelligence and character, in a better position
+than even the literate millions of European and American countries. And
+after all, it is intelligence and culture that count most in the fixing
+of final values.
+
+As for their training in political life, how are they to get it, if you
+make it a penal offence for their leaders to tell them that the present
+system of Government is unnatural, harmful, and a hindrance to progress?
+The masses cannot grasp principles unless one illustrates these
+principles by their application to the affairs of every day life. Your
+Government and your courts say that an agitation for home rule is legal
+and permissible, but any criticism that is likely to create
+dissatisfaction is illegal and deserves to be suppressed high-handedly.
+You know from experience, sir, that the masses require to be led. No
+government is willing to make changes unless compelled from below. That
+is as true of democratic America as of monarchical England. Much more
+must it be so in the case of countries under foreign yoke. To carry the
+people with them, the leaders must expose the existing evils and stress
+the necessity and urgency of sweeping changes in political conditions.
+The moment they proceed to do so with any degree of effectiveness, they
+are charged with an attempt to create disaffection and convicted of
+sedition. Do you honestly believe that any people on the face of the
+earth can make any progress in political education when they are ruled
+by a Press Act which stops criticism and discussion in the following
+terms:
+
+                SECTION OF THE INDIAN PRESS ACT OF 1910
+
+    Whenever it appears to the Local Government that any printing
+    press in respect of which any security has been deposited as
+    required by Section 3 is used for the purpose of printing or
+    publishing any newspaper, book, or other document containing any
+    words, signs or visible representations which are likely to have
+    a tendency directly, or indirectly, whether by inference,
+    suggestion, allusion, metaphor, implication or otherwise:
+
+    (a) To incite to murder or to any offense under the Explosives
+    Substances Act of 1908, or to any act of violence or
+
+    (b) To seduce any officer, soldier, or sailor in the Army or
+    Navy of His Majesty from his allegiance or his duty or
+
+    (c) To bring into hatred or contempt His Majesty or the
+    Government established by the law in British India, or the
+    Administration of Justice in British India or any native Prince
+    or Chief under the suzeranity of His Majesty or any class or
+    section of His Majesty's subjects in British India or to excite
+    disaffection towards His Majesty or the said Government or any
+    such Prince or Chief or
+
+    (d) To put any person in fear or to cause any annoyance to him
+    and thereby induce him to deliver to any person any property or
+    valuable security, or to do any act which he is not legally
+    bound to do or to omit any act which he is legally entitled to
+    do or
+
+    (e) To encourage or incite any person to interfere with the
+    administration of the law or with the maintenance of law and
+    order or
+
+    (f) To convey any threat of injury to a public servant, or to
+    any person in whom the public servant is believed to be
+    interested, with a view to inducing that person to do any act or
+    to forbear to do any act connected with the exercise of his
+    public functions the Local Government may, by notice in writing
+    to the keeper of such printing press, stating or describing the
+    words, signs or visible representations which in its opinion are
+    of the nature described above, declare the security deposited in
+    respect of such Press and all copies of such newspaper, book, or
+    other document wherever found to be forfeited to His Majesty.
+
+    EXPLANATION I: In clause c the expression disaffection includes
+    disloyalty and all feelings of enmity.
+
+    EXPLANATION II: Comments expressing the disapproval of the
+    measures of the Government of any such native Prince or Chief as
+    aforesaid with a view to obtain their alteration by lawful means
+    or of the administration or other action of the Government or
+    any such native Prince or Chief or of the administration of
+    Justice in British India without exciting or attempting to
+    excite hatred, contempt, or disaffection, do not come under the
+    scope of clause c.
+
+Can any people make headway in the art of self-government who are
+governed by a foreign bureaucracy aided by an army of Indian Czars
+regulating the very minutest details of their life? You know that this
+over government of India is a direct result of your rule. Before you
+came the Indian village was a self-governed unit. (See statements of
+Monroe, Elphinstone, Metcalfe, and Lawrence.) Even now the people in the
+Native States are in this respect better off than the people of British
+India. The Education Minister of your Cabinet, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher has,
+after a visit to India, placed it on record that "the inhabitants of a
+well governed Native State are, on the whole, happier and more contented
+than the inhabitants of British India. They are more lightly taxed; the
+pace of the administration is less urgent and exacting. They feel that
+they do things for themselves instead of having everything done by a
+cold and alien benevolence." Yet if an Indian leader were to point this
+out and ask the Indian masses to improve their lot by demanding and
+winning for themselves the right to manage their own affairs, and by
+driving out those influences that stand in their way, he would be
+persecuted and imprisoned or transported.
+
+The first axiom for political progress is that the people should
+throw away their attitude of submission to oppression, tyranny,
+high-handedness, and conditions of slavery whether imposed by a national
+or a foreign Government. They have a right to revolt if they have the
+means to do so successfully. But in any case, they have a right to
+discuss, agitate and organize for changes. This they cannot do unless
+they have a free press, a free platform, and the right of free
+association. In India the first is denied by the Press Act, the second
+by the comprehensive sections of the Penal Code, and the third by the
+so-called "Seditious Meetings Act." What little was left has been done
+away with under the extensive powers taken and exercised by the
+Executive under the plea of war exigency by the "Defense of India Act."
+While every other part of the Empire, including the "Mother Country" is
+discussing political and economic changes of an extremely radical
+character, such as the establishment of a more effective Imperial
+Parliament and Preferential Tariffs after the war, not to speak of
+constructive programmes for education, and industrial rejuvenation, the
+Indian leaders are "officially" advised to be mum, and any effort to
+rouse the country to a consciousness of its rights and duties is
+characterized as perverted, ill-timed, and inconsistent with loyalty.
+
+The advocates of "Home Rule" are being openly hampered in their
+propaganda. Papers advocating home rule have been persecuted, and
+leaders have been prohibited from entering provincial areas. But what is
+worse is that the Criminal Investigation Department have been instructed
+to take down the names of all those who have enlisted in the cause,
+either as active or passive workers. A deputation of representatives of
+the press that waited on the Viceroy to lay their grievances before him
+has been lectured on the impropriety of thus raising the question at
+this juncture and has otherwise been treated with shocking discourtesy.
+
+In conclusion, let me ask you, sir, to notice the coercive methods by
+which the War Loan is being raised in India. Poor underpaid subordinate
+officials are being forced to purchase Government stock. They will
+surely purchase the stock and win the good-will of their officers, but
+just as surely they will squeeze the cost out of the people. That will
+be strictly in accord with the standards of loyalty set up by your
+officials!
+
+Mr. David Lloyd George, I have addressed this letter to you, because at
+this moment you seem to be the only British statesman possessed of
+imagination. Exercise your imagination, sir, a little and save India for
+the Empire; win the gratitude and blessings of a fifth of the human
+race--of a people who were one of the first pioneers of civilization in
+the world, who laid the foundations of culture, which you profess to be
+so very anxious to save. Remember that the Indians were rich,
+prosperous, free, self-governing, civilized and great, both in peace and
+war, when not only Britain but even "Greece and Rome were nursing the
+tenants of the wilderness." The Indians have lost their freedom because
+they oppressed the people under them and as surely as night follows day,
+the British will lose all that makes them great to-day, if they continue
+to oppress and exploit the subject races within their Empire. The world
+cannot be safe for democracy unless India is self-governed. Nor can
+there be any lasting peace in the world, so long as India and China are
+not strong enough to protect themselves.
+
+Pardon me, sir, if I have disturbed you at such a critical moment;
+though it is folly to presume that you could be disturbed in the
+slightest degree by such a letter. I have written it out of a sense of
+duty as sacred as that which inspires you in your herculean task; and if
+you are inclined to think harshly of me for this letter, just try to put
+yourself in my position and decide what then would be your point of
+view.
+
+                                                         LAJPAT RAI.
+New York City, June 13, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+                           Transcriber Notes:
+
+Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
+
+Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of
+the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
+
+Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
+unless otherwise noted.
+
+Page 11, "Deva Bhumi" was replaced with "Deva Bhumi".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Open Letter to the Right Honorable
+David Lloyd George, by Lajpat Rai
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