1904-5.] THE CAUSES OF FAMINES IN INDIA. 237 
brought the Indian people any nearer to self-government than they were 
when British rule began?”” He answered, ‘‘Not a bit.”” What he said 
is true, and it is Britain’s shame and crime. It is also a blunder, which if 
persisted in will bring disaster; for even Indian patience will not endure 
forever. 
THE ROOT OF THE TROUBLE. 
What does all this that I am saying about India mean with regard 
to Great Britain? Does it mean that Britain rules India worse than 
other European nations would do? On the contrary, as I have already 
indicated, I do not believe that any other nation, European or American, 
would rule India so well. The fault does not lie with the want of humanity 
of the British people. Iam myself an Englishman. Iam keenly sensitive 
to anything which seems to throw disparagement upon the honour or char- 
acter of my countrymen. The men whose strong words I have quoted in 
support of nearly every position taken in this paper are eminent and loyal 
Englishmen. I believe in the British nation. I believe that the 
people who abolished slavery in their colonies when their eyes were 
opened to see its wrong, need only to be made aware of the real 
condition of things in India to set about a change. The fault lies 
primarily with the system of holding and governing foreign peoples 
without their consent. Abraham Lincoln said,.there is no man good enough 
to govern another man. It is equally true that there is no nation good 
enough to govern another nation. Said Macaulay: ‘‘Of all forms of 
tyranny I believe the worst is that of a nation over a nation.” Imagine 
the case our own. Suppose Canada had been ruled for a hundred and fifty 
years by a foreign and distant power, like Germany or Russia. Suppose 
that power responsible to nobody but itself, and possessing absolute and 
sole control in everything,—in making and administering our laws, in 
shaping our tariffs, in building and managing our railways, telegraphs, 
telephones, and steamboat lines, in issuing franchises, in owning and 
managing our mines, forests and lands, in everything connected with our 
economic and industrial as well as political life,—what condition would 
Canada be in to-day? Would our people be rich or would they be miser- 
ably poor? If there were prosperity, whose would it be, ours or our 
our foreign ruler’s? 
THE REMEDY. 
What needs to be done to lift India out of her present impoverishment, 
and hence out of her always impending liability to famines? The answer 
has been given many times over by some of the ablest students of the 
