district administration which point to the necessity of such Co-operative Representation. The Hon'ble Sir S. P. Sinha in his admirable speech on the village Self-Government Bill has emphasized these inconveniences. He has pointed out "the need of a new motive power in the country-the interests and influence of the rural population in and on the management of their own affairs". In order "to evoke that interest and engage that influence in the system of Government and to tap the enormous reserves of energy, common-sense and natural shrewdness", we submit that the representation of Co-operative Societies is absolutely necessary since they alone have so far shown a living interest in economic matters and manifested markedly in their work that shrewdness and common sense. Sir S. P. Sinha has noted that villagers have shown in the past their reluctance to serve on the village Panchayets and to take a part in the labours of such uninviting character. Here also we can urge that the members of Co-operative Societies have been drilled to the work of management of common business and interests. Sir S. P. Sinha has further discussed the financial difficulty of the work of communal administration; and then again Cooperative Societies are the only bodies in the district who have learnt to look at matters from the correct economic point of view and to solve financial problems. He would leave jurisdiction in petty cases to village Committees; and we find that by common consent our Co-operative Panchayets have been settling disputes between members even before legislation conferred such jurisdiction on them formally. Sir S. P. Sinha would reserve for members of his contemplated Circle Boards the work of supervising the function of Village Committees. The members of our Supervisional Unions and the Directors of our Central Banks have already been trained in the performance of similar supervision in the case of primary societies. In a word, every requisite which the Honble Sir S. P. Sinha demands from the members of his Village Committees, Circle Boards and District Boards, is already to be found in the Panchayets of our primary societies and in the Boards of Directors of our Central Banks. A certain proportion of seats on the local bodies might be reserved for candidates chosen by Co-operative Societies-such proportion to depend upon the numerical strength of Co-operators com. prised in the local units in question. The reservation of special seats for Co-operative Members is in no measure contravening the true ideal and spirit of democracy. The Co-operative Societies are the most intelligent and organised portion of the agricultural population and Co-operative Representation will only weigh the vote of the best and most organised section of the agriculturists. With the growth of the influence of Legislative Councils, it is necessary that agriculture and cooperation should have representatives therein. War Indemnity for India. 205 The Editor of The Wealth of India (January number) discusses the all important question of indemnity in the War and puts forth a very strong plea for India's share in it inasmuch as she stood shoulder to shoulder with European Nations, pouring forth her blood and money in the cause of righteousness. If distribution of indemnity is to be on the basis of the sacrifices made in winning the war, he asserts that India's. claim to a share in it is indisputable. In defence of this plea, ample references are made to the utterances of responsible British statesmen, including Messrs. Asquith, Bonar Law, Lord Haldane, Lord Curzon, Lylod George, who ali acknowledged in handsome language the materiai. help that India gave in winning the war, her unflinching loyalty, her great sacrifices in men and money. Even the Times had a sympathetic note on India's enormous material assistance in securing the Allies' victory. The value of the Indian export exceeded one hundred million sterling yearly. The State controlled prices at considerably less than the prevalling price and the rates secured considerable savings in the War bill of the Allies. As india's material recources were organised to supply the equipment of Indian troops and provide the Allies essential requisites for prosecuting the war, the extra equipment supplied reached the value of eighty million pounds. Of essential munition exports, wolfram, (one-third of the world's supply, manganese ores, mica jute, shellac, saltpetre and hides were purchased by Government at controlled prices, considerably less, three to five times less, than those prevailing in neutral countries. For its own use and that of the Allies, rice, maize, barley, gram, oilseeds, oils and medicinal stuff were exported at controlled prices. Indian hides provided one third of the army boots. Skins were purchased at controlled prices considerably less million tons of wheat were supplied to the Allies, the than elsewhere, Three shipments being made available at considerably less prices than those ruling in the world markets. lo meet one year's requirements, forty-one million yards of khaki and hundred and eighty and two million pounds of wool were exported to England. The Tata Iron Works supplied eighteen hundred miles of railway track and two hundred engines. India supplied over six hundred thousand vehicles for various theatres of war. She supplied 883 vessels to Mesopotamia, over 500 anchor boats and electric plants for Basra and Bagdad, worked by Indian operatives and ten million cubic feet of timber, India's Part in the War Sir Valentine Chirol writing in a recent issue of the Journal of the Overseas Club points out that in any reckoning up of the credit and debit sides of the great war one of the most important assets will be the appreciation of what India means to the Empire and of what the Empire means to India. From the mere military and material point of view, writes Sir Valentine, we shall have to bear in mind "not only the actual part that India has played in the war, but the much larger part she might and would have played if her resources had been more fully developed and more intelligently employed." As it was, he continues :— Not only did the expeditionary forces she despatched to France in the autumn of 1914 fill a vital gap which, owing to our unpreparedness for a conflict of such magnitude, could not at that time be filled either from the United Kingdom or from the Dominions, but she alone was able to supply and did supply from her much larger reserves, guns and rifles and ammunition and war material of all sorts, without which it would have been difficult for our Army to carry on until British industry had been entirely reorganised for war purposes. At the same time India provided considerable forces for other expeditions to Mesopotamia East Africa, Egypt and Gallipoli, which it is now rather the fashion to depreciate as mere side-shows, though, in spite of many blunders they helped substantially to accomplish great ends in relieving the Empire from the meance which Turkey's co-operation with the Central Powers involved for the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf, i.e., for the safety of all our Eastern possessions. Recruiting, which has, of late especially, increased by leaps and bounds till it has now exceeded a million men since the beginning of the War, shows how much more effectively we might have drawn on the immense reserves of Indian man-power, had we made an earlier and larger appeal to Indian loyalty. Indian industries of which Agricultures must always remain the greatest, have made no mean contribution to the War, but it might have been infinitely greater had the British rulers of India realised in this respect, as perhaps Lord Dalhousie and Lord Curzon alone seem to have done, the immense potentialities of India, or had they not been hampered by the narrow and often selfish conception of the home interests which prevailed in this country until the Great War came to open our eyes. But the spirit in which India made all the sacrifices for the cause of the Empire in this war was even more remarkable. Says Sir Valentine : More important, however, for the future than any of the material contributions made by India to the War has been the willingness with which they have India rallied to the British cause because she learnt to know it was a cause worth fighting for. How did the Empire respond in turn? For the first time Indian representatives were admitted into the innermost Councils of the Empire. At the War Conferences in London they took their place beside the Ministers of the Crown and of the self-governing Dominions, just as the Indian troops have fought shoulder to shoulder with British and Dominions troops. In both cases better acquaintance has produced a sounder appreciation of common interests and common devotion to the great ideals for which the Empire stands; on the part of Indians a growing desire for the admission of India to full and equal partnership in the Empire; on the part of the Dominions a growing willingness to accept them into partnership; on the part of the British people a growing desire to help India forward on the path of progressive and orderly progress towards the ultimate goal of self-government as an integral part of the British Empire. Sir Valentine concludes with an appeal to Indians and Britons to show the same capacity to co-operate heartily and courageously in Council as they have shown on many a stricken field of Europe and Asia, The Settlement of Turkey One of the most important questions to come up before the Peace Conference is the fate of the Ottoman Empire. It is already probable that the outlying sections of the Empire will be detached from Turkish sovereignty and granted independence. Thus Arabia is practically recognised as an independent Kingdom. Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Armenia will also become independent of the Turkish Empire. In the current number of the Asiatic Review there is a discussion as to the fate of Thrace in Asia Minor. In a secret treaty which was concluded in April 1915 between England, France, Russia, and Italy, it was agreed that Adalia and the southern half of Asia Minor should be the Italian share of the spoils, and that Russia should take Thrace. Constantinople and the northern half of Asia Minor, and that France and England should be rewarded with Syria and Mesopotamia. The subsequent collapse of Russia and Armenian's entry into the war may be considered to have rendered this treaty null and void. President Wilson is prepared to support Turkish rule only in so far as it permits of the unmolested autonomous development of the other nationalities. In Asia Minor even according to the Greek census the Turks form seven tenths of the total population, and they outnumber the Greeks alone by four to one and the Greeks and the Armenians together by three to one. But this preponderance of the Turks is smaller in some provinces than in others. The villiyets may be divided into two classes-those where the Turks form 75 per cent. or more of the population and those where they form less than 75 per cent. If the law of selfdetermination is to be applied to Asia Minor, of course, the large Turkish majority would vote for Turkish rule. But what about the 24 million Indians of Asia Minor? Can Turkish rule be transformed to the extent of bringing it into harmony with modern ideas of popular government? Some propose that outside Powers should establish some sort of control over this reformed Turkish Empire, and then conflicting interests, mutual jealousies, and mazy intrigues will inevitably follow. The maintenance of Turkish rule is by no means a solution which will eliminate future trouble. The only alternative is partition or dismemberment of the Empire. Thrace and Asia Minor might be partitioned between The Greeks and the Turks; to the Greeks the provinces where the Greek element is strongest and vice versa. There must be an interchange and inter-migration as to render this partition more acceptable to both sides. Constantinople should not be left under the Turkish rule; the straits must remain a free and neutral international waterway. It cannot be safely put under the control of anyone European power, and it must be for sometime under the protection of the League of Nations. Materialism or Spirituality? 207 "Let the critic compare the noble and spiritual life of the ancient Hindus with the meaningless hurry and short-lived evanescence of modern times, and he will find that the history of mankind has been a history of progressive degeneration" writes Mr. Muthukumaru, M. A. in the course of an interesting article on "The Spirit of Hindu Institutions" in the January number of The Young Hindu of Jaffna (Ceylon). The writer thinks that the advocates of the modern theories of evolution and progress may pretend to be scientific in their ways of thinking. But they can never hide the fact that there is greater misery, vice, and suffering in the world now than in the days when man tried to find the true goal of his life not in the vanity of external things, but in inward realisation of his capacities. The present condition of Indian life divorced from all spiritual ideals sapped the purity of ancient institutions, and the result was decay of all that was best and most sublime in our National life. There are very few Hindus who can understand the spirit of their ancient institutions. The founders of Hindu institutions were great men who studied life as a whole and understood things in their true perspective. They knew the great secret of life and growth and made the unfoldment of life the chief aim of their institutions. The two chief features of Hindu institutions seem to be (1) the conditions so well devised and arranged as to facilitate the growth of a synthetic mind, and (2) the emphasis laid on the principle of unconscious growth by indirect suggestions and communion of minds with institutions. After explaining fully what the above principles meant in practice, Mr. V. Muthukumaru concludes: The present state of things in our midst is very discouraging. Most of the people who are entrusted with the work of guiding our destinies do not in the least work for the purity of our institutions. They go with the current and do not have that clarity and depth of vision necessary for leaders of thought and action. All of us are every day being unconsciously vulgarised by coming in contact with the institutions of modern civilisation. Who among us will consecrate his life to cleanse our temples, our schools, and our homes of the existing evils, and defend them against the inroads of alien ideas and ways? Great is our heritage and let us grow to be worthy of it. 208 Primary Education in India A writer who signs himself "Q. R" in the Sind Students' Magazine gives some interesting figures regarding the progress of Education in this country. The history of the movement for English Education in nineteenth century India is briefly told : India saw in the first half of the nineteenth century the extension and consolidation of British Rule, and in the second half two attempts made towards the cause of education. The first was the famous Wood's Despatch in 1854 and the second was the appointment of a Commission to enquire how far the policy laid down in the despatch of 1854 in regard to elementary education had been carried. The Commission made careful inquiries and found that in 1882 there were about 85,000 primary schools in the country recognised by the Department, and there were about 211⁄2 lakhs of pupils attending these schools, In addition to these there were about 311⁄2 lakhs attending unrecognised schools. That means 1.2 per cent of the whole population of India at that time. Then follows an instructive comparison between different countries of the world and a native state in India itself. The writer's conclusions deserve to be noted :- Now it has been universally recognised that a certain minimum of general instruction is an obligation which a Government owes to all its subjects. And thus it is that, led by German States, country after country in Europe and America and Japan in the East have adopted the system of free and compulsory education; and we find to-day all the countries in Europe, excepting Russia and Turkey, and the United States of America and Canada and Australia and Japan and several even of the smaller Republics in South America--all having this system in oneration. And even within the borders of India, the enlightened and far-seeing Ruler of Baroda, after an experiment of 15 years carried out in one of the Talukas of his the Amreli Taluka, has since state, namely, 1909 extended this system to the whole of his State. But here in British India education occupies a secondary place. Up to 1910 it had no separate department of its own. In the course of 34 years from 1882 to 1916, the progress in this country is represented by an advance from 1.2 per cent, to nearly 2 per cent of the total population. The expenditure on elementary education per head of the population is highest in the United States of America, being no less than 16 8; while in India it is barely one penny. Many are the objections which have been raised against primary compulsory education. Some say that there is plenty of room yet for our voluntary bases and others say that it would cost much. But where there is the will, there is the way. Canada and India Writers on constitutional problems have frequently referred to the historic Report prepared by Lord Durham in connection with the grant of self-governing powers to the Dominion of Canada, There are many points of comparison between Canada and India and it is interesting to read Mr. Bernard Houghton's article in India on the above subject. 1 Two differences there are but they are differences INDIA IN INDIAN & FOREIGN PERIODICALS THE NEW PARLIAMENT AND INDIA. By Mr. Saint A STATE CENTRAL BANK OF INDIA. By B. L. Vaj Education in India. We take the following from the Report on Indian Education in 1917-18 : In the four years of the war there has been an increase in educational expenditure amounting to 180 lakhs a year, the last year's total being about 12 crores of rupees. The number of schools has increased by 4,164 to 196,919, public institutes show a decrease by 4,558 to 159,510, private institutions, a decrease of 394 to 37,409, but pupils have increased by about 969,000. The percentage of those under instruction to the whole population has risen from 3.2 to 4.26. As to the provinces, Bengal has the largest number of school going children and the largest increase in the year. There has been a decrease in the number of pupils in the provinces of the Punjab, Burma and the North-West Frontier Province. Among general matters which occupied the attention of the Department of Public Instruction, the most important were the training and pay of teachers, reforms in which were made possible by the new Imperial grant of Rs. 30 lakhs. A second feature of the year has been the introduction of important changes in the system of the secondary school final examinations. Owing to the war and the consequent dearth of medical men, no great progress was possible in school hygiene. The most fruitful field of advance has been in first-aid classes in several provinces. Nearly the whole of the first aid class at the Training College at Allahabad passed the examinations and its members rendered valuable aid at the Kumbha Mela to bathers rescued from drowning. THE YEAR'S PROGRESS As regards the Universities and colleges the principal event has been the sitting of the Calcutta University Commission. Meanwhile certain developments have taken place in the organisation of instruction for the degrees of M. A. and M.Sc. Assistance was given during the year to Sir J. C. Bose's Research Institute in Calcutta, and the Government of Bengal sanctioned a lakh towards the acquisition of the land required. The two new Universities at Benares and Patna commenced operation,-that of Mysore had already come into being in 1916. The colleges and their students increased by 6 and 4,297 respectively. As regards secondary education the principal feature has been the institution of school-leaving certificate examinations. The number of pupils rose by 12,225 to 1,198,586. Primary education has expanded on the whole. The average annual increase in pupils during the last 5 years has been 166,117 and during the last year the increase in schools was 5,672 and in pupils 114,011. There was some retardation of progress caused by the difficulties of the year. The remarkable point about the figures under primary education is the increase of schools, Expenditure on primary schools rose by Rs. 17,28,969 to Rs. 3,10,42,514. The principal feature of the year has been the movement in favour of compulsory elementary education, The second important point is the continuance of elementary education. As regards professional and special education, progress was made in the matter of Sanskrit education in Bombay. In the United Provinces, the number of students who presented themselves at the Sanskrit examinations was the largest on record. Efforts have been made in the direction of technical and industrial education. The governing body of the Civil Engineering College, Sibpur, submitted a scheme, with a view to improving and increasing the output of mechanical engineers and mechanics. Further, the profession of teaching has risen by 480 to 19,876. The total number of teachers in public institutions of all kinds in India is now 292,739 and these trained 95,542 against 280,738 and 88,169 last year. |