116 HAPPY INDIA 



If the Indians have any doubt about the nature 

 of a government, let them look at Europe where 

 they have all kinds of government autocratic, 

 aristocratic, democratic, all of them bad, most of 

 them horribly wicked, taking the hard-earned savings 

 of the people and spending them in making war, a 

 war causing misery and destruction. They will 

 see nations that might enjoy the great blessings 

 which Providence has showered upon them im- 

 poverished, desolated and made miserable because 

 their Governments use the power they have acquired 

 for the purposes of destroying each other. 



As far as I can make out from my somewhat 

 limited reading, the various Governments that there 

 have been in past times in India all kept up a pretty 

 lively contest with one another. It will be for the 

 people of India eventually to decide whether they 

 like the system of separate Governments that ruled 

 in their country before the British came, the system 

 that still holds in Europe, or whether they prefer 

 the Pax Britannica, with such modifications in the 

 British rule as are suited to more modern conceptions. 



I look at the matter not from the point of view 

 of one who has any bias in the matter. Although 

 I am an Englishman, and have been proud of the 

 British Empire from childhood, and willing to give 

 time, trouble and money to increase the honour and 

 glory of that Empire, I do not consider that it is 

 for the benefit of an Englishman that India should 

 be held in subjection by us by force of arms. We as 

 a nation would be richer if we left India alone than 



