LAND & WATER 
Aiigust 23, 1917 
wrong and that there is a God judging,- tlie nations. Why, 
months after English women had pressed distractedly to 
learn of survivors from the Lusitania. their fellow citizens 
were still debating whether it was right or not to blockade 
Germany in the matter of food ! 
Weeks and weeks after the first German use of poison had 
nearly broken our line, great bodies of Englishmen were still 
debating whether wc could legitimately use such a weapon 
ourselves ! . , 
Why then, has there been so general an acceptation 01 
a picture quite false : A picture of two parties withm one 
happv and similarly cultivated society falling mto a mis- 
understanding, of tragic consequences, each worthy of the 
other's respect and only needing mediation for an impossible 
situation to be relieved ? j 1 
I say that that utterl\' false position has been ver>- widelv 
accepted. It is accepted not only by many neutral chiefs of 
e^-ery degree in the past, and even now, speaking officially : 
it is'accepted widely in the neutral Press and neutral speech 
ot private writers and travellers tf)-day. It is acceptetl to 
our shame, by men among us who are so worthless as to torget 
their country, and so stui)id as not to see that upon the fate 
of their country depends their own. 
How has such a complete dislocation of judgment been 
made possible ? I think it may briefly and in conclusion be 
ascribed in the following causes : 
First, there is the fact that the original Austrian collapse, 
the unchecked mastery of Trussia over all her dependencies 
and Allies — the single word of command which ran in the 
same tongue from the Danube to the North Sea— gave the 
enemy's propaganda a unfty and simplicity of direction quite 
impossible to his opponents. 
Next, there is the mere geographical fact that those oppo- 
nents were separated into two groups which had no link one 
with the other; each fought separated from the other by a 
thousand miles. 
Next, there is the diversity of speech and custom which 
makes it impossible for the great Powers of civilised Europe to 
create in the short space of this one war that community of 
sentiment which must ultimately arise, even if nothing nobler 
than necessity be there to forge it. 
Lastly, there was, most unfortTinately, the lack of capacity 
on our "side to understand what jiropaganda should be. It 
was so ill-co-ordinated, so turbid with little personal quarrels, 
so subject to the wretched system of political jobbery, so 
amazingly ignorant in its direction, and at the same time so 
slow and'lazy, that we were bound to reap a bad han'est— and 
we have reaped it. Against the ridiculous lies the Germans 
told with regard to their losses, for instance, there was no 
official action whatsoever. 
I shall point out later how the Germans were admitting 
in official lists less than a million dead at a moment when 
they were telling Mr. Gerard that they had a million and a 
half and had. as a plain matter of fact, a million and three- 
quarters. There is an endless series of such falsehoods to 
be noted in the German propaganda during the past three 
years. 
It is now too late for further criticism of this lamentable 
product of a bad political system to be fruitful. But there is 
a good side to this confession, which is that if it is too late for 
further propaganda now to be of use that is only because the 
supremacy of the Western Allies is now so strongly estab- 
lished, and because the mere force of things has convinced, or 
perhaps I should say, is convincing the plain man that the 
enemy's claims and his statistics arc false. 
Let it be remembered in conclusion, that any efforts for 
peace, whether well meaning or treacherous; whether just 
in motive or base in motive, are now of necessity working for 
our defeat and for the victory of the enemy. He is at that 
point where the continuance of the war is odious to liim and 
threatens him more and more every day with disaster and 
penalty. \\'c are at that point where the continuance of it is 
merely waiting for a harvest. Wc .have but to meet every 
such attempt, domestic or foreign, with plain refusal, to re- 
assert the simple truths of the original German aggression, the 
continued German abominations and the necessity of cutting 
out such a cancer, to achieve the result of all that has passed. 
He must be a madman or a fool at the best who sinks such an 
investment and who at the moment of fruition foregoes its 
fruit from some mere sense of weariness. As for him who 
dissuades his fellow-countrymen dishonestly from plucking 
that fruit, he is neither a fool nor a madman byt something 
very much worse ; for he is a traitor. H. BiiLLOC 
Owing to pressure on our space Mr. Belloc is unable to 
deal in the current issue with Mr. Gerard's figures on 
German Effectives, concerning which he has received many 
\ letters. .4 full criticism by him on this subject will be 
published next week. 
• Reforms in India 
To the Editor of L.\nd & Water. 
Sir,— It is well-nigh impossible lor any one who tak'es a 
serious interest in tliat most fascinating of all Imperial pro- 
blems-British rule in India- to keep silent at this time, 
when reforms are under consideration, which should prove 
in the course of years to be as momentous in their character 
and in their influence on Oriental life and progress as the 
landing of the first European in India, or Clive's victory at 
Plassey, or thei.taiH. of Delhi sixty years ago. 
What we liava.<Jono since 1S58 is an amazing thing; in 
two generations. wci hav<^ so educated an influential section of 
the \aried radesiodfithe Indian Peninsula that it is now fully 
persuaded it can govern the country by itself on the same 
lines as England is go\erned, where to gain the same political 
pri\-ileges it has taken this more or less united people the 
better part of a thousand years. When the Westminster 
Gazette re]>roaches the Aga Khan for delaying the publication 
of Mr. Gokhale's last will arid testament for twelve months, 
it overlooks the. fact that the .'^ga Khan, being himself of 
India by birtlvd^d upbringing, might conceivably be better 
informed of the true feeling of his countrj-men than an 
Englishman whose knowledge of India can hardly be more 
profound than was Professor Knatschke's knowledge of Alsace. 
This point of^vieW' is confirmed when in the same article one 
reads that tlip e.Tclusion of Indians from the commissioned 
ranks of the British Army was " illiberal, unjust and deeply^ 
felt." The difticnlties which have always surrounded this 
military question are apparently unknown, for had they been 
known no honest man, as the writer of this article obviously 
is, would have used the terms " illiberal " or " unjust " in this 
connection. 
Hasten Slowly 
When any Briton raises the argument of festina Icntc in 
connection with Indian affairs, it is so easy for his fellow- 
countrymen to convibV him of being nervous, conserv^ative, 
or even reactionary, but it is as well to remember that the 
most consen,ative Western mind is a tearing progressive com- 
pared with the bulk of Indian opinion. Psalm xc. is an 
Oriental hymn, and the spirit that underiies the original, and 
that is more or less suppressed in our familiar metrical 
version, is as lively to-day in the East as when it was written. 
Every Englishmaii who has bnen brought directly into con- 
tact with this spirit, possibly over a considerable number of 
years, must desire that reforms should be introduced slowly 
and tentatively and that we should emulate the caution and 
slow care of the wise beast of the East, the elephant, in 
crossing the dangerous and treacherous ground that lies 
between a despotic and a democratic Government. 
No one will deny that India deserves the most generous 
treatment for her splendid conduct during the war, but a 
cursory acquaintance with modern Indian history reveals 
that though on occasions we have been foolish, we "have not 
been illiberal in the past. Now that the Great War has 
established certain facts, we are able to make a quicker ad- 
vance, but it must still be regarded as slow by those who 
want to introduce at one leap the British Constitution. 
The war has accustomed the public mind to consider more 
deeply than aforctimes certain racial questions. One of them 
de&li^\•ith'i'nentality. For German mentality we now study 
the traiiliui; its people have received at home and in school, 
and' we find that their public conduct is a natural reflection 
of it. Now this is nbt a question of East and West ; it applies 
with equal force to all humanity, and I venture to suggest 
to British publicists that in writing of Indian reforms they 
should keep before them Indian mentality. This will not be 
easy, especially when the home is under consideration. 
Think of the diflerencc in the upbringing of a child of the 
high-bred :Mahommedan and of the Brahmin, both of the 
same' social rank as we should consider it, but of different 
religions. Think of the contrast between the teaching of a 
Brahmin child and of a Pariah child, both of the same religion 
as we regard religion, but of difierent castes. Then take into 
consideration the upbringing of say, a Hindu child of Malabar, 
where tliere were no marriage laws among the Hindus, until 
the present Indian member of the Governor- General's FZxecu- 
tivc Council, himself a Malayali, secured a permissive Act 
twenty-five years ago, or again, the training ol a child of 
a Pathan tribe. We English claim that the home is the 
very foiindation of our civilisation ; if that be true, then 
the civilisations of the East must be many, seeing they are 
based on such dififerent foundations. 
It is very desirable iri the interests of India that these ele- 
mentary facts should be borne in mind. 
Loiidori. August 2ist, ■ ' ■' Nox-Ofvicim.. 
