Rerieu: of Rerietct, 1/7/06. 



Leading Articles. 



57 



THE NATIONAL REVIVAL IN BENGAL. 



What the Swadeshi Movement Means. 



Sister Nivedita contributes to the Indian Review 

 for March a glowing defence of the Swadeshi move- 

 ment in Bengal. The Swadeshi movement is the 

 name for the popular protest against the partition 

 of Bengal, which led the patriots to band themselves 

 together to refuse to purchase any goods not made 

 in Bengal. The movenient has already achieved 

 great results, and Sister Nivedita, who is an Irish 

 Nationalist, Miss \oble by name, sees in it the 

 beginning of the resurrection of India. 



THE DAWN OF THE NEW DAY. 



Sister Nivedita says: — 



All India is watching to-day the straggle that is going 

 on in Eastern Bengal. Scarcely a word appears in the 

 papers, yet the knowledge is everywhere. The air is tense 

 with expectation, with sympathy, with pride, in those grim 

 l;eroic people and their silent struggle to the death, for 

 their Swadeshi trade. Quietly, all India is assimilating 

 tlieir power. Are they not a farmer-people engaged in a 

 warfare which is none the less real for being fought with 

 spiritual weapons? But let him who stands in tlie path of 

 right, beware 1 We cannot fail — and we shall not fail; for 

 all the forces of the future are with us. The Swadeshi 

 movement has come to stay, and to grow, and to drive 

 back tor ever in modern India the tides of reaction and 

 despair. 



EESULTS ALBEADY ACHIEVED. 



Already no small results have been achieved — the 

 promise of greater things to come: — 



Of Calcutta, it may be said that in all directions small 

 industries have sprung up like flowers amongst us. Here 

 are whole households engaged in making matches. Some- 

 where else it is ink, tooth-powder, soap, note-paper, or 

 what not. Tliere. again, is a scheme tor pottery or glass 

 on a more ambitious scale. And this, without mentioning 

 the very staple of the country, its cotton weaving. Where 

 before were only despair and starvation, we see to-day glad 

 faces and feel an atmosphere of hope. 



SACRILEGE. 



The boycott of foreign-made goods is enforced by 

 the solemn sanctions of religion: — 



Is the Swadeshi movement actually an integral part of 

 the National Righteousness? The Mother-Church, at least, 

 has spoken with no uncertain voice. Like a trumpet-call 

 has gone forth the Renewal of Vows at the Kalishat. in 

 Calcutta. Throughout the whole country has been lieard 

 the fiat issued at Puri. Henceforth it will be held sacrilege 

 to offer foreign wares in worship. 



CO-OPERATION FOE SELF-SACRIFICE. 



Miss Noble, by a very effective analogy, disposes 

 of the usual assumption that the Bengali will never 

 subject himself voluntarily to the discomfort of pay- 

 ing more for worse wares when he can get better 

 goods at a lower price : — 



If we are told that no people will voluntarily buy in a 

 dear market when they might bny in a cheap, we answer: 

 this may tie true of Western peoples, educated in a system 

 of co-operation for self-interest, and, at the same time, it 

 may be untrue of the Indian nation, educated in a system 

 of co-operation for self-sacrifice. Hindus once upon a time 

 ceased to eat heef. They were aceoBtomed to the food, and 

 liked it. It was convenient to kill cattle and feed a house- 

 hold, in times of scarcity. But an idea of mercy and ten- 

 derness, aided by the permanent economic interests of tjie 

 civilisation, came in. and to-day. where is the Hindu who 

 will eat beef? The Swadeshi movement is the cow-protecting 

 movement of the present age. There will yet come a time 

 in India when the man who buys from a foreigner what his 

 own countrymen could by any means supply, will be re- 



garded as on a level with the killer of cows to-day. For 

 assuredly the two offence? are morally identical. 



Now that the purchase of English goods is de- 

 clared to be even as the sin of killing the sacred 

 cow, let Manchester and Mr. Morley look out for 

 storms. 



HOW TO DEAL WITH THE NEGROES. 



An Object Lesson from Jaalaica. 

 Mr. Josiah Royce, of Harvard, pays the British 

 a very handsome compliment in his paper on " Race 

 Problems and Prejudices " in the International ] our- 

 nal of I^tliics for April. The paper itself is one 

 which will delight the heart of Al. Finot, the chival- 

 rous champion of the equality of all races ; but for 

 us its most interesting feature is the high tribute 

 which Mr. Royce pays to the British Administra- 

 tion of the West Indian Islands, notably of Jamaica. 

 He holds up our West Indian colonies as examples 

 to his countrymen who are perpetually complaining 

 of their negro problem in the South. 



■THE ENGLISH WAY.' 



He says : — 



The Southern race problem will never be relieved by 

 speech or by practices such as increase irritation. It will 

 be relieved when administration grows sufficiently effective, 

 and when the negroes themselves get an increasingly respon- 

 sible part in this administration in so far as it relates to 

 their own race. That may seem a wild scheme. But I in- 

 sist; It is the English way. Look at Jamaica and learn 

 how to protect your own homes. Despite all its disad- 

 vantages to-daj-, whatever the problems of Jamaica, what- 

 ever its defects, our own present Southern race problem 

 in the forms which we know best, simply does not exist. 



HOW THE THING IS DONE. 



Mr. Royce explains the secret of " the English 

 way " : — 



The Englishman did in Jamaica what he has so often and 

 so well done elsewhere. He organised his colony: he estab- 

 lished good local courts, which trained by square treat- 

 ment the confidence of the blacks. Black men, in other 

 words, were trained, under English management, of course, 

 to police black men. X sound civil service was also organ- 

 ised; and in that educated negroes found in due time their 

 place, while the chiefs of each branch of the service were 

 and are. in the main, Englishmen, The negro is accus- 

 tomed to the law; he sees its ministers often, and often, 

 too, as men of his own race; and in the main, he is fond 

 of order, and respectfiU towards the established ways of 

 society. 



WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN JAMAICA. 



Administration, I sa.y, has done the larger half of the 

 work of solving Jamaica's race-problem, .\dministration 

 has filled the island with good roads, has reduced to a 

 minimum the tropical diseases by means of an excellent 

 health-service, has taught the population loyalty and order, 

 iias led tliem some steps already on the long road up from 

 slavery." has given them, in many cases, the true self- 

 respect of those who themselves oflBcially co-operate in the 

 work of the law. and it has done this without any such 

 result as our Southern friends nowadays conceive wlien 

 they think of what is called "negro domination." Ad- 

 ministration has allayed ancient irritations- It has gone 

 far to offset the serious economic and tropical troubles 

 from which Jamaica meanwhile suffers. 



We have so often heard nothing but doleful and 

 despairing criticisms of the English way in the West 

 Indies, that this American tribute is all the more 

 grateful. 



