The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

But why is there a lack of intelligence among the Indians? Have they not had the blessings of British rule for several generations? Why have they not been fitted for self-government? Gladstone, whose greatness of head and heart shed a lustre upon all Europe, said: "It is liberty alone which fits men for liberty. This proposition, like every other in politics, has its bounds; but it is far safer than the counter doctrine, 'wait till they are fit.'"

How long will it take to fit the Indians for self-government when they are denied the benefits of experience? They are excluded from the higher civil service (ostensibly open to them) by a cunningly devised system of examinations which makes it almost impossible for them to enter. Not only are the people thus robbed of opportunities which rightfully belong to them, but the country is deprived of the accumulated wisdom that would come with service, for the alien officials return to Europe at the end of their service, carrying back their wisdom and earnings, not to speak of the pensions which they then begin to draw.

The illiteracy of the Indian people is a disgrace to the proud nation which has for a century and a half controlled their destiny. The editor of the Indian World, a Calcutta magazine, says in last February's number:

"If India has not yet been fit for free institutions, it is certainly not her fault. If, after one and a half centuries of British rule, India remains where she was in the Middle Ages, what a sad commentary must it be upon the civilizing influences of that rule! When the English came to India, this country was the leader of Asiatic civilization and the undisputed center of light in the Asiatic world; Japan was then nowhere. Now, in fifty years, Japan has revolutionized her history with the aid of modern arts of progress and India, with an hundred and fifty years of English rule, is still condemned to tutelage."

Who will answer the argument presented by this Indian editor? And he might have made it stronger. Japan, the arbiter of her own destiny and the guardian of her own people, has in half a century bounded from illiteracy to a position where ninety per cent of her people can read and write and is now thought worthy to enter into an Anglo-Japanese alliance, while India, condemned to political servitude, and sacrificed for the commercial advantage of another nation, still sits in darkness, less than one per cent of her women able to read and write and less than ten per cent of her total population sufficiently advanced to communicate with each other by letter or to gather knowledge from the printed page. In the speech above referred to, Mr. Gokhale estimates that four villages out of every five are without a school house, and this, too, in a country where the people stagger under an enormous burden of taxation. The published statement for 1904-5 shows that the general government appropriated but six and a half million dollars for education while more than ninety millions were appropriated for "army service," and the revised estimate for the next year shows an increase of a little more than half a million for education while the army received an increase of more than twelve millions.

The government has, it is true, built a number of colleges (with money raised by taxation), but it is gradually extending the system of primary and secondary schools (also with taxes), though the progress is exceedingly slow and the number of schools grossly inadequate. Benevolent Englishmen have also aided the cause of education by establishing private schools and colleges under church and other control, but the amount returned to India in this way is insignificant when compared with the amount annually drawn by England from India.

It is not scarcity of money that delays the spread of education in India, but the deliberate misappropriation of taxes collected, and the system which permits this disregard of the welfare of the subjects and the subordination of their industries to the supposed advancement of another nation's trade is as indefensible upon political and economic grounds as upon moral grounds. If more attention were given to the intellectual progress of the people and more regard shown for their wishes, it would not require so many soldiers to compel loyalty to England, neither would it require a large army to preserve peace and order. If agriculture were protected and encouraged and native industries built up and diversified, England's commerce with India would be greater, for prosperous people would buy more than can be sold to India to-day, when so many of her sons and daughters are like walking shadows.

Lord Curzon, the most brilliant of India's viceroys of recent years, inaugurated a policy of reaction. He not only divided Bengal with a view of lessening the political influence of the great province, but he adopted an educational system which the Indians believe was intended to discourage higher education among the native population. The result, however, was exactly the opposite of that which was intended. It aroused the Indians and made them conscious of the possession of powers which they had not before employed. As the cold autumn wind scatters winged seeds far and wide, so Lord Curzon's administration spread the seeds of a national sentiment, and there is more life in India to-day, and therefore more hope, than there has ever been before. So high has feeling run against the government that there has been an attempted boycott of English made goods, and there is now a well organized movement to encourage the use of goods made in India.