LAND & WATER 
August 23-, 1917 
wrong and that there is a God judging' the nations. Why, 
months after EngHsh women had pressed distractedly to 
learn of survivors from the Lusitania, their fellovi' 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 we could legitimately use such a weapon 
ourselves ! 
\\h\- then, has there been so general an acceptation ot 
a picture quite false : A picture of two parties within one 
happy and similarly cultivated society falling into a mis- 
understanding, of tragic consequences, each worthy of the 
other's respect and only needing mediation for an impossible 
situation to be relie\cd ? 
I sav that that utterly false position has been very widely 
accepted. It is accepted not only by many neutral chiefs of 
every degree in the past, and even now, speaking otticially : 
it is'accepted widely in the neiitral Press and neutral speech 
of private writers and travellers to-day. It is accepted to 
our shame, by men among us who are so worthless as to forget 
their country, and so stupid as not to see that upon the fate 
of their country dei)ends their own. 
How has such a, complete dislocation of judgment been 
made possible .' 1 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 Prussia over all jier 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 unity and simplicity of direction quite 
impossible to his opponents. 
Ne.xt, 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 unfortunately, the lack of capacity 
on our side to understand what i)ropaganda 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 harvest— 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 
halt and had, as a plain matter o'f 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 nov/ 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 are false. 
Let it be remembered in conclusion, that any efl'orts for 
peace, whether well meaning or treacherous; whether just 
in motive or base in motive, arc now of necessity working for 
our defeat and for the ^•ictory of the enemy. He is at that 
point where the continuance of the war is odious to him and 
^threatens him more and more every day with disaster and 
penalty. We are at that point wlicre the continuance of it is 
merely waiting for a harvest.- We have l)ul 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 achie\c tli(> result of -all th.at has i)assed. 
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 dishonestlj' from plucking 
that fruit, he is neither a fool nor a madman but something 
very much worse ; for he is a traitor. H. Bello' 
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. A 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 taKes a 
serious hiterest in that most fascinating of all Imperia'l 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 luiropean in India, or Clive's victory at 
Plassey, or the, fall of Delhi sixty years ago. 
What we havej done since 185S is an amazin.g thing ; in 
two generations^ we have .so educated an influential section of 
the ^•aried racesiof the, Indian Peninsula that it is now fully 
persuaded it can govern the country by itself on the same 
lines as I^ngland is governed, where to gain the same poHtical 
privileges it has taken this more or less united people the 
better part of a thousand years. When the Westminster 
Gazette reproaches the Aga Khan for delaying the publication 
of Mr. Gokhale's last will and testament for twelve months, 
it overlooks the fact that the .A.ga Khan, being himself of 
India by birth dhd upbringing, might conceivably be better 
mformed of the true feeling of his countrymen than an 
linglishman whose knowledge of India can hardly be more 
l)rofound than was Professor Knatschke's knowledge of Alsace. 
This j)oint of view is confirmed when in the same article one 
reads that the exclusion of Indians from the commissioned 
ranks of the British Army was " illiberal, unjust and deeply 
felt." The difficulties wliich 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 
W'hen any Briton raises the argument of festina Icnte in 
connection with Indian afl'airs, it is so easy for his fellow- 
countrymen to convict him of being ner\'ous, conservative, 
or even reactionary, but it is as well to remember that the 
most conser\'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 underlies 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 Englishman who has been 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 deser\'es the most generous 
treatment for her splendid conduct during the war, but a 
cursory acquaintance with modern Indian history reveals 
that though on occasions w.e 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 aforetimes certain racial questions.' One of them 
deals'with mentalit\-. For German mentality we now study 
the training 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 not a question of East and \\cst ; it applies 
with ecjual 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 diflerenre 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 bcttvecn the teaching of a 
Brahmin child and of a Pariah child, both of the same religion 
as We regard religion, but of dil'icrent castes. Then take into 
consideration the upbringing of say, a Hindu child of Malabar, 
where tl.ere were no marriage laws among the Hindus, until 
the present Indian member of the (Governor-General's Execu- 
tive Council, himself a Malayali, secured a permissive Act 
t\venty-five years ago, or again, the training ol a child of 
a Pat ban tribe. We English claim that the home is the 
very foundation of our civilisation ; if that be true, then 
the civilisations of the East must be many, seeing they are 
based on such different foundations. 
It is verj' desirable in the interests of India that these ele- 
mentary facts should be borne in mind. 
London. August 21st, Nox-OmrT \t.. 
