Muslim Educational Conference The thirty second session of the All-India Mahomedan Educational Conference met at Surat on December 27, the Hon. Sir Ibrahim Rahim-tullah presiding. Seven hundred delegates and over fifteen hundred visitors including Hindus and Parsees attended. The proceedings of the Conference were generally in Urdu and occasionally in Gujarati and English. After prayers in Arabic Mr. Edross, read an address in Urdu. Then the Hon. Mr. Baredawallawho followed expressed a desire that Turkey and England should become close friends. He referred to the backwardness of the present Mussalmans in education and suggested founding of scholarships and hostels. the Sir Ibrahim Rahimtullah in the course of his presidential address (see page 5) pointed out that there was only one way in which the Mussalmans of India could take their rightful place in the progress of the world and that was through education in a wider sense. Mussalmans ought to be able on merit and merit alone to take their place in self-governing India. It was humiliating to be always in need of special protection. The Mahomedan Educational Conference, he said, was steadily working out the mission which it undertook a generation ago and so the success which the present session achieved was a good augury for the future. He then referred to various educational activities among Mussalmans. He proceeded to offer constructive suggestions with regard to the ways and means of advancing education and appealed for charitable endowments. He then described the scheme of Tata scholarship which gave help to deserving students. He suggested a similar scheme for the Moslems. A message sympathising with the objects of the Conference from H. E. the Governor of Bombay was then read. The resolutions passed at the Conference will be read in another page, The Industrial Conference Special importance attached to the last session which was held at Delhi, on December 30, in view of the publication of the report of the Industrial Commission. The recommendations of the commission were put to a most searching scrutiny and the resolutions of the Conference on this subject are printed in our Industrial Section. The President, Mr. Jehangir B. Petit subjected the report to an able and elaborate criticism in the course of his address. His views on the poverty of India, on India's need for financial assistance and fiscal autonomy appear on page 30 under the heading "Indian Industrial and Economic Problems." He also laid stress on one or two vital points in connection with the material advancement of India which must not be lost sight of. In the first place he expressed his complete concurrence with those who refuse to treat the industrial problem as a problem apart, and who have been consistently urging all these years that political freedom is essential to industrial growth. He dealt at some length on Imperial preference and pointed out that it would in practice mean 66 forcing India to sell her raw materials to the different parts of the Empire or her Allies cheaper than she can sell them elsewhere, and compelling her to buy her entire requirements of finished products from England and her Colonies and the Allies." And he proceeded :— It is pure camouflage to urge that the possession by India of fiscal freedom and her unrestained use of it to protect her infant industries, will clash with England's free-trade policy. I hope there is no one so foolish in India still existing as to take such an argument seriously at this stage of our history. If the Colonies remain in the Empire and still arrange their tariffs in their own advantage and for their own benefit even against England; if they can thus advance their own interest without damaging those of the Empire, I fail to see why India cannot unless it is sought to be made out in so many words that India is to continue to be the Cinderella of the Empire for all time and that what other parts of the Empire can claim with justice and obtain as a matter of right, India cannot. All-India Christian Conference The fifth All-India Conference of Indian Christians was held at Nagpur on the 28th December last, under the presidentship of the Hon. Mr. M. S. Das, CI.E. A large number of delegates attended the session among the distinguished visitors being the Lord Bishop of Nagpur. Mr. D. C. Anketell welcomed the delegates to the Conference, and the Bishop spoke on behalf of the other sections of the Christian community. The President in his opening address gave a two-fold warning to the community-first, the danger of adopting European habits, manners and customs indiscriminately; second, the possibility of the community allowing social divisions, inherited caste-feelings and sectional interests to prevail over the equality and fraternity of every member of the church politic. He then dealt with the question of communal representation on which the Conference passed a resolution. Mr. Das also pointed out the danger of foreign missionaries taking largely to politics. He concluded by saying that the community should pay great attention to the development of skilled labour among Indian Christians as the backbone of industrial progress lies in such development. The Conference adjourned on the first day after doing formal business. The Committee in work during the year then met for a consideration of their reports. The Law Committee reported that a new Christian Marriage Act was in contemplation. A Committee of the National Missionary Council had prepared a memorandum on the subject. christians. The Conference gave general support to the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme while pleading for separate representation for Indian The Conference passed resolutions touching practical training in industries and agriculture, the establishment of technical and primary schools, hostel accommodations, and scholarships for Indian students in Europe and America. The Hindu Conference The fifth session of the All-India Hindu Conference commenced its sittings at Delhi, on December 27. Babu Girdhari Lal, Chairman of the Reception Committee having welcomed the delegates, the Hon. Raja Sir Rampal Singh was elected President. The President delivered an impressive address, the main part of which appears in another page in this issue (p. 44) under the heading, "On Hindu Ideals." With regard to the reform scheme, he said : I strongly hold that the scheme is a distinct advance towards the progressive realisation of responsible government and with certain modifications and amendments would personally accept it as framed by the illustrious authors. He then referred to communal representation and after deploring the introduction of the same by the Minto-Morley scheme continued : I would remind my Sikh brethren who too now demand separate representation for themselves that they cannot politically gain more strength by following a policy of separatism than by being with the community which claims them to be its kith and kin. They should not forget that they are Hindus and will remain Hindus. He also spoke of the religious disputes between the Hindus and Mahomedans. It is high time now for you, gentlemen, to devise means for the stoppage of such occurrences in future. A better opportunity you cannot avail of. Meeting as you are in a city which has very pleasant and affectionate memories for the two sister communities in India. I would suggest that a joint commission of the Hindu Sabha and the Muslim League should sit and enquire into the causes and suggest remedies. The Conference passed resolutions demanding Communal representations, and the stoppage of cow-killing, and the Bakrid riots. Another resolution urged the recovery of Sanskrit Manuscripts now in German hands. Pandit Deva Ratna Sharma moved one demanding responsible selfgoverment for India immediately and an equal status in all respects for its people in the British Empire. It was passed unanimously. The Temperance Conference The All-India Temperance Conference met at the Sangam Theatre, Delhi, on the 30th of last month. There was an influential and representative gathering when the proceedings opened with Temperance hymns followed by an impressive prayer by the Rev. Herbert Anderson, the indefatigable General Secretary of the All-India Temperance Council. Rai Bahadur Kanhya Lal then delivered the Welcome Address in which he urged the adoption of active measures to save the young, and advocated prohibition. Pandit Bishan Narain Razdan, President, Amritsar Temperance Society and a veteran temperance worker having been elected to the chair, delivered his presidential address. The address over, the Hon. Mr. Sarma moved the first resolution recommending the adoption of prohibition, which was carried unanimously after being duly seconded and supported. Mr. S. S. Bhatia of Lahore moved the second resolution regarding the adoption of the principle of local option and restriction of the facilities for drinking. The Rev. Mr. Anderson moved a resolution urging the need for providing counter attractions and said that Government should deal more sympathetically with the large funds at its disposal to bring brightness into the lives of the poor and to minimise the temptation. This was supported by Principal Rudra. The Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sadashiva Iyer of Madras then moved the fourth resolution on Juvenile smoking. The General Secretary then presented his Report of the working of the All-India Temperance Council in which he detailed the various important features of the year's work in the Provinces and quoted facts and figures to bring home the large increase in the consumption of intoxicating liquors and made out a strong and unanswerable case for active measures by Government to check the alarming increase. . Anglo-Indian Empire League The Annual Conference of the Anglo-Indian Empire League met at Allahabad on the 30th December last. In the absence of Mr. J. H. Abbott owing to illness the chair was taken by the Hon. Mr. Du Bern of Rangoon who read Mr. Abbott's speech after expressing regret at his absence. The Hon. Mr. Du Bern then addressed the meeting and said in the course of his speech that it was his view that they must not approach politics with an aggressive spirit. They wanted to protect themselves and not to attack their neighbours, be they Indians or Europeans, as they must all work in amity, but they did not want to be submerged. Resolutions were also adopted to unite the various branches of the League and the associations in each province into one provincial body with absolute Provincial autonomy and to form a central council to deal with imperial and general questions. Peace BY MR. A. WILLIAM JAMISON The heart bowed down with grief, the silent tear, For those we loved on earth no longer dwell. Gave their life's blood, for countless hearts to mourn. No mortal words may ever dare describe. If half the power that fills the world with terror, Were not bestowed on plentious camps and courts;'Twere better to redeem man's mind from error. If we could cry as though we feel we ought, Our eyes with tears would wet for ever be; The great instruction all too dearly bought Has brought us nearer, God, man's veiled eyes to see; 66 BY MR. K. G. KRISHNASAMI AYYAR, B.A. HE Second of the Fourteen conditions in President Wilson's conditions of peace is :Absolute freedom of navigation of the seas outside territorial waters alike in peace and war, except as the seas may be closed wholly or partly by international action for the enforcement of international covenants." The Third condition is : "The removal as far as possible of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all peoples consenting to the peace and associating for its maintenance.' According to International Law, the territories of a state include not only the compass of land, in the ordinary acceptance of the term, belonging to such state, but also that portion of the sea within a Marine League from the shore lying along and washing its coast which is commonly called its maritime territory. Outside this territorial area the sea is in general insusceptible of appropriation as property. The following is the historical aspect of the rights relating to the High Seas. This reply of Elizabeth, however, was not consistent with England's control over the British Seas. At the beginning of the Seventeenth Century it is probable that no part of the seas which surround Europe was looked upon as free from a claim of proprietary rights on the part of some power and over most of them such rights were exercised to a greater or lesser degree. In the basin of the Mediterranean the Adriatic was treated as a part of the dominion of Venice. In 1630 the Infanta Maria, when about to marry the King of Hungary and son of the Emperor, was not allowed to go to Trieste on board her brother's fleet, but was obliged to accept the hospitality and escort of Venetian vessels. Ligurean sea belonged to Genoa, and France claimed to some not well defined extent the waters stretching outwardly from her coast. England asserted the dominion over the Channel, the British Sea and the seas outside Ireland and more vaguely claimed the Bay of Biscay and the ocean to the north of Scotland. Before the commencement of the 16th century Spain asserted dominion over the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, Portugal declared the Indian Ocean and all the Atlantic South of Morocco to belong to it. Both pushed the assertion of proprietary rights to the extent of prohibiting all foreigners from navigating or entering their waters. The voyages of Drake and Cavendish and the commerce of Holland with the East were in defiance of this assertion of rights and in affirmation of the freedom of the seas. plaint of the Spanish envoy against of the English Vessels into the Indies was met by the following Queen Elizabeth:"I refuse to admit any right of Spain to debar my subjects from trade or from freely navigating that vast ocean, seeing the use of the sea and air is common to all; neither a title to the ocean belong to any ture nor public use and custom permitteth any possespeople or private persons, for as much as neither na sion thereof." 3 The com the intrusion waters of the answer from The The latter was disputed by Denmark which considered the whole space between Iceland and Norway to belong to her. In 1637 Denmark seized vessels placed outside Dantzig by the then King of Poland to levy duties on merchantsmen entering. The action of Denmark increasing the dues payable on passing the Sound led to a war with Sweden, Holland and the Hanse Towns . and the result of the war was that Swedish ships were exempted and the dues levied from the Dutch were regulated. Finally the Baltic was shared between Denmark and Sweden. England continued to require that foreigners intending to fish in the German Ocean (North Sea) should take out English licenses. An attempt by the Dutch to fish without them was visited with a levy of £3,000. Even crowned heads in person were expected to make practical acknowledgment of the dominion of England. Philip II of Spain when coming to marry Queen Mary, was fired into by the English Admiral, who met him, for flying his own royal flag within the British Seas. In 1606 the King of Denmark when returning from a visit to James I, was met off the mouth of the Thames by an English captain, who forced him to strike his flag. A refusal to accord the honors of the flag in part caused the war of 1652 between England and Holland and furnished a pretext for that of 1672. The obligation to honor the flag was acknowledged in the Treaties of Westminster of 1654, of Breda and of Westminster of 1674, in the last of which it was expressly recognised that the British Seas extended from Cape Finisterre to Stadland in Norway. The prevalence of piracy during the middle ages and the consequent necessity to secure the approaches to the shore from the attack of pirates coupled with the advantages that were derived by the foreign trader from such protection, led to the establishment and recognition of rights of control over various seas by the adjacent states which was attended by levying of tolls and dues to recompense the protecting state for the cost and trouble to which it was put. The acts of piracy committed by a French Admiral within the English Seas against merchant vessels of various nations, led to the acknowledgment by the procurators of the merchants and mariners of Genoa, Catalonia, Spain, Germany, Zealand, Holland, Friesland, Denmark and Norway, of the possession by England of the exclusive dominion over the English Seas and the right of making and establishing Laws and Statutes and restraints of arms and all other things which may appertain to the exercise of Sovereign dominion' over them. For nearly three centuries beginning from the fourteenth, England kept the peace of the British Seas either by cruisers in constant employment 6 or by vessels sent out from time to time. (Vide Borough's Sovereignty of the British Seas). In spite of all this there was a marked difference in the degree to which proprietary rights over the open sea was maintained, between the beginning and the end of the seventeenth century. At the latter time the said rights were everywhere dwindling away. By the commencement of the nineteenth century they had almost disappeared. The pretentions of Denmark to the northern seas shrank in the course of the eighteenth century into a prohibition of fishery within 69 miles of Greenland and Iceland. But these Danish ordinances were disregarded by the seamen of England and Holland with the support of their respective Governments. In the end the fishing grounds were tacitly opened, Denmark continuing to claim nominally a breadth of 20 miles off the coasts of Iceland until 1872 in which year she revised her fishing regulation accepting the 3 miles limit. The situation of the Baltic Sea was tried to be utilised by Denmark and Sweden for being shut up against hostilities between powers not possessing territory as its shores. The maritime predominence of England prevented the attempt from fructifying and virtually the claim abated in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century Russia claimed to regard the whole of the sea north of the 51st Latitude on its then American shore and north of the 45th Latitude on its Asiatic shore as being its territorial possession. The Russian Government published an ukase in 1821 prohibiting foreign a hundred vessels from approaching within Italian miles of the coasts and islands bordering upon or included in the ocean' within the limits mentioned above. The pretention was Great States and resisted by the United Britain and was entirely given up by conventions made between Russia and the said two powers, Similar attempts were made by Russia in 1875 elsewhere to claim rights in a considerable extent |