Professors in War THE INDIAN REVIEW Mr. John Price Jones, writing in The Educational Foundations for October, says that college professors have risen to a new estate through the war's demands and have awakened in the public a new appreciation of their character and ability. The war put the professor in new surroundings for a long time and paid him with more money than the college could; his education proved to be an open sesame in all sorts of problems and he has shown that he has a good sense of true values, and that he could, in other fields, equal or surpass his brethren in earning power. He has shown himself to be quite at home among business men, diplomats, lawyers or young men whose careers have not been yet formed, and by his personality has created respect for the entire profession. The retaining of such good men in educational institutions and preventing them from seeking employment elsewhere Col becomes almost a manoeuvre of self-defence. leges need the best men to do their teaching; if they cannot be had because necessity drives them awayand rising prices have raised many problems among professors and their families-they must be induced to remain by the only means which will, for them, put worry away. As long as they can see their wants provided, and these are very simple, they are content, yea, happy, to remain in the place which gives them so much pleasure. The direct means to this happiness is money; the college will do the rest, and the professors have always done their part. Increased endowments, with unrestricted income, such as Harvard and other institutions are now seeking from their alumni, are the remedy, and the goal is already in sight. of an Greece, Rome & India Mr. Arobindo Ghose in the course article in his Journal, Arya, sums up the achievements of Greece, Rome and India, as follows: Greece developed to a high degree the intellectual reason and the sense of form and harmonious beauty, Rome founded firmly strength and power and patriotism and law and order. Modern Europe has raised to enormous proportions practical reason, science and efficiency and economic capacity. India developed the spiritual mind working on the other powers of man and exceeding them, the intuitive reason, the philosophical harmony of the Dharma informed by the religious spirit, the sense of the enternal and the infinite. The future has to go on to a greater and more perfect comprehensive development of these things and to evolve fresh powers, but we shall not do this rightly by damning the past or damning other cultures than our own in a spirit of arrogant intolerance. We need not only a spirit of calm criticism, but an eye of sympathetic intuition to extract the good from the past and present effort of humanity and make the most of it for our future progress. (The italics are ours.) [ DECEMBER 1919 The Political Ideas of James I Mr. Harold J. Laski, writing in the last number of The Political Science Quarterly, tries to explain how the efforts of James throughout his life were no more than a variation upon a single theme, i.e., the consistent application of the divine right of kings which admits of no limita tions. According to him, subjects had duties without rights; Law was the affirmation of the King's desire; the power of Parliament was the duty to offer advice when asked; and crown and terms. were interchangeable presupposed a people incapable self-government and thereby misunderstood the political instinct of his generation Nor did the vigorous antagonism of his Parliaments teach him the meaning therein implied. state James James' theory needs discussion from two angles; he was in the first place urging a special theory of prerogative; obstinate lawyers were urging upon him that its meaning was to be It is the final case discovered in its origins. against James' theory that his opponents, whother lawyers like Coke and Selden, or parliamentarians like those who drew up the famous protest of 1621, should have used no arguments not found in precedents. Novelty begins only with the Long Parliament, and it is the natural offspring of royal and novel, but impossible demands James thought of prerogative as identical with sovereignty and took it unto himself. But the fundamental idea that the sovereign power was the fusion of noble and popular wills with the King's determination had already been sanctioned by the practice of Elizabeth herself. The limitation that he admitted the duty incumbent upon a king to care for the welfare of his subjects-was meaningless in the light of his own reign. The constitutional struggle of James' reign is the most important consequence of his ideas. This is, in reality, the positive side of Elizabeth's negative policy. James taught the Anglican Church the value of political doctrine as a means to political victory and he thereby sanctioned that which made impossible policy of exclusion comprehension on one side and toleration on the other. The passion for uniformity brings persecution; persecution so far from destroying, almost to provoke diversity of outlook; diversity of outlook is the parent of knowledge. The controversy which the acts and writings of James produced, is in fact the necessary prelude to modern freedom, seems Extravagance in Europe "The streets of London to-day give no sign of anything but boundless prosperity; and it is the same wherever I go-Rome, Paris, Lucerne," writes Mr. J. R. Macdonald, in the Socialist Review. "Brazen-faced extravagance is everywhere. It gives one an uncanny feeling that some evil influence is playing with humanity-an influence with an artistic and dramatic sense that makes its victims engage in a great drama before ruin overwhelms them. The predominant note is life, self-indulgence, and gaiety the bold style of fashion, the crowded promenade, the thronged theatre, the Byzantine dance, the gorgeous feast; but mingled with the note of pagan indulgence is the motif upon which the drama is to end. "The plentiful murders of crude, primitive sexual passion, the decline of honour and honesty in public life, and the abandonment of those sober influences of puritan rectitute in forming public opinion and taste, are preludes, hardly observable at the moment, of the tragedy of which the life and gaiety of to-day are, if they are to be pursued, but the opening scenes. People seem to bave ceased to be aware of the sober pleasures of life, of its great duties, of its strengthening discipline; never was honest service and labour held in lower esteem or more grudgingly accepted; never was there such an anxiety to live unto one's self. The Bombay High Court Mr. P. B. M. Malabari, the author of Bombay in the Making writes an article on the above subject in the current number of the Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law. He says that the credit of establishing law and order in Bombay at first belongs to Governor Gerald Aungier who appointed honorary justices known as customers. Since these were traders and were ignorant largely of legal principles, he established a court of appeal which, besides hearing appeals, was empowered to try suits about a certain value. In this court all trials were to be by jury. Both these courts must have attempted to administer justice in accordance with the laws of England. But soon after, a special code was published for their guidance (1670). It was probably the first procedure code in India and it was soon supplemented by a more elaborate code drawn by Mr. George Willcox who was sworn in as judge. This code definitely established English law; and there was not the least vestige of Portuguese law or Portuguese courts in Bombay after the cession of the island by the King of Portugal to Charles II in 1661. This code provided for testamentary jurisdiction, holding of sessions, safe custody of prisoners, the judges, salary and host of other minor but necessary matters. Willcox was the first judge and was followed by a venal judge Nicolls who was soon suspended from his office. After this, the Governor appointed no judge whatever for some years with the result that lawlessness was rampant in Bombay towards the end of 17th century and great disorder disorder prevailed. The Court of Directors granted a charter in 1683 and they resolved to send out a new judge who would overcome mischief-makers. Governor Aungier was firmly convinced that English law was the main requisite necessary for Bombay's growth and prosperity and he compared Bombay to a hopeful child, which when restored to the breasts of its own mother (English Law) would grow in stature, good fortune and favour with God and man. The Care of Children. In an article on the above subject in the September number of the Modern Review, Dr. Sudhindra Bose gives a catching description of how the United States Government cares for its children. "India is a hundred years too late" and must try to catch up as soon as possible. A Child Welfare Department must at created and should work on a scientific plan to protect the Indian "Industry". once be In the United States, a Bureau of Child Hygiene has been formed for the purpose of child conservation and has actually succeeded in enormously diminishing the death rate among children. The schools also do their share of the work; doctors and nurses are appointed for the regular physical examination of children, lunch is provided in most schools for their children, thus combating the evils of malnutrition; and excelle..t arrangements for recreation are also made. Another institution, peculiar to the United States, is the Juvenile Court. Boys and girls are not tried in the same court with the hardened adult offenders. They are placed before special tribunals, where there are no lawyers, no inquisitive crowd, and none of the bustle and tumult of the regular court. The judge assumes the part of a kindly interested friend and tries to correct rather than punish the young offender. A Welfare Research Station has been formed at Iowa, with ample funds, for the investigation of child welfare problems. Lastly, the Children's Bureau also holds health conferences in different parts of the coun try. At these conferences parents are invited to bring their children for a thorough examination by a Government physician. He advices parents about the feeding and care of children and offers them the opportunity to discuss the many health problems which come up in the rearing of children. An important part of such a conference is an exhibit, in which are shown and explained many devices to lighten the mother's work in caring for her children," Positivism and the League of Nations Mr. Ahmed Rizi, who took a prominent part in the overthrow of the Hamidian regime in Turkey and was speaker of the first Turkish Parliament writing in the October number of The Positivist Review, speaks hopefully of the influence that the League of Nations can exercise on the developmert of Positivism and is a soil very favourable for Positivist cultivation. Even if at the beginning it is unable to influence the development of Positivism, Positivism must exercise a preponderating influence over it to assure its success. Whatever may be the League's mission, if it acts with the spirit and principles of the old diplomacy, its endurance is in no way guaranteed; it will render no service either to the nations or to Positivism, and perhaps will not even inspire the needful respect. The majority of the existing States do not recognise any moral principle; their foreign policy is not submitted to the control of any moral authority. If it continues in this mental condition, the League of Nations will never succeed in fulfilling worthily its task of reconciliation and realising its covenant of fraternity; it is therefore indispensable that it should have the conception of a new international order with new moral ideas. Now what doctrine in the world could better impress on it this morality, scientific and international? The League of Nations is not ordained to enrich itself, like certain States, at the expense of others; on the contrary, it will have as its aim to live for others. In this moral domain, it is Positivism which will once more set forth the ways of altruism. In practice the process of reaching this result seems to me very difficult. That is an immense duty which falls on the Positivists of the whole world. Without their concurrence the League of Nations will not be able to fulfil its international obligations; and its failure would be at once a terrible disappointment and a fatal blow to the civilisation of the West. King Sagara and Vasishta Mr. Pargiter, the learned author of the Puranic Dynasties of the Kali Age and a most skilful interpreter of the historical material of the Puranas, deals in the current number of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society with King Sagara of Ayodhya and his priest Va-ishta who was different from the Vasishta of an earlier age, the contemporary of Trisanku and Harischandra. The writer, in the course of two previous articles has brought the Ayodhya geneaology down to Harischandra and his son Rohita. Harischandra and some little-known kings, there After came Sagara, the son of Bahu. In the time of Bahu, the Haihayas, Sakas, Talajanghas and other tribes drove him out of his kingdom; and Sagara regained after great difficulty his father's kingdom from the Haihayas and others who were allowed to remain in the land through the intervention of Vasishta, These tribes do not seem to have been markedly different from Vasishta and Sigara in religion and were gradually assi nilated to the rest of the people. Contingents from these tribes took part long after wards in the great Baratha war, apparently chiefly in the army of the Kamboja King, but are spoken of as very inferior in status. As Brahminic influence gradually waned in the N. W., the Punjab nations and the border tribes became tainted in Indian opinion and were unsparingly reprobated. But at the time of their invasion of Ayodhya, they were spoken of as pure Kshatriyas, having the ministrations of Brahmios. The tribes that invaded Ayo dhya in the time of Bahu were certainly not Aryans by origin, but had become Arjanised and Hinduised. As Sagara was the 8th King after Harischandra, his Vasishta cannot be the previous Vasishta and would be several descents lower even if the kings had very short reigns. This affords an illustration of the lack of historical sense in the Brahmin compilers of the Puranas which produced two results: (1) chronology hardly existed for them and they confused different persons of the same name. (2) there was no real distinction between history and mythology, so that they freely mythologized incidents in the traditional history. The Sagara story supplies illustrations of both these errors. The Brahmins confused the two Vasishtas of Trisanku's time and Sagara's time. And as they did not know how the foreign tribes came to be at Ayodhya, they made the tribes the creation of Vasishta's wonderful cow and being ignorant of the former condition of these tribes, they classed them as Mlechchas and barbarians according to the ideas of their times. The Brahmins also confused and mytho logized traditional history, as in the story of Aurva which begins on a basis of traditional facts, then builds on suppositions and finally ends in confusion. War and Peace Writing in the League of Nations Journal, General Sir F. Maurice, late Director of Military Operations, quotes the following passage from an address which he himself delivered in New York a few months ago. "I speak to you as a soldier who entered the British Army believing that if you wish for peace you must prepare for War. Now after a close study of if you prepare for war thoroughly and efficiently, as the causes and events of the Great War, I believe that the Germans prepared for War, you get War. I The South American Indian In the East and the West, (for October: 19) Mr. Barbrooke Grub who has worked for more But in than thirty years among South American Indians as a pioneer missionary discusses their future and the possibility of the conversion of those among them that are still heathen. About half the population of the continent is either pure Indian or to a great extent Indian to-day inspite of no encouragement and possibly active repression. Indians who give up tribal life, drop their own tongues, adopt Spanish or Portu guese and are anxious to deny their ancestry and pass off as of European descent. spite of Spanish rule and the Catholic church, many tribes are as non European and pagan as in the days of Columbus. The governing powers seem to be content to keep them in check whenever they come within the bounds of civilised settlement and they are pushed into the deeper recesses of the forests. The settlers and company promoters are generally out for speedy gains and cannot secure these on account of the original inhabitants and their just claims. Mission work, especially in Paraguay, Argentine and Bolivia, has done much to reach and win for civilisation and Christianity these wild tribes. The extent of the land and the language difficulty are not really insuperable barriers. I am convinced that in the case of wild tribes who inhabit country yet unsettled, and where therefore no work can be given them, only industrial Missions will really succeed. The Indian living as a nomad can live well enough on game and fish, but this necessitates his living in small communities of not more than fifty to one hundred, and these communities are scattered over great areas. Schools are impossible under these conditions. The missionaries available can only spare a day or two in the year if they try to touch the people in these scattered areas. Disciplined life is impossible. Owing to want of sure and suitable food and the inevitable exposure, child life suffers a heavy death roll. Even if the people become Christian under these conditions they cannot develop, and once Christ comes in the Red man wants to improve his material condition. Native evangelists can do much, it is true; still, the need is for fixed permanent villages with a sufficient population to justify a school and chapel, and some one to instruct and train up the newly developing people. The South American wild tribes differ from the inhabitants of villages in India and China. Out here we have to build up not only a Church but a civilisation-a nation, in fact, from the very foundations. Such a work requires many Mission agents out of proportion to the small population, and the cost, too, is considerable. But, if properly worked, these Missions, after the pioneer stage has passed, can easily be made self-supporting. The Bolshevism of the Past The October number of the United Empire contains a good Review of Nesta Webster's "French Revolution-A study in Democracy" which says that the same false doctrines which decimated France in the Revolutionary epoch are now in the process of destroying Russia. The seeds of the French Revolution according to Mrs. Webster were not native to France, but tares some from an alien soil--the same which has produced the German atrocities and the bideous doctrines of Bolshevism. The deserved infamy of the German Professor Adam Weishanpt who wanted nothing less than the complete overthrow of all standards of right and justice, law and order and founded a sect known as the "Illuminati" (1776) is well brought out The book brings to light the pro German intrigues at the back of the French Revolution and exposes the fact that the reign of Terror far from being a spontaneous movement originating among the people, stands out as anti popular and anti-national and entirely alien to the spirit of old France. How it was to the interest of Frederick of Prussia to foment discord between Austria and France, the two most powerful monarchies; and how cunningly his agent, Von der Goltz, and the Prussian Baron Anarchisis Clootz carried out their deadly work, must be read in Mrs. Webster's graphic but judicial pages. The network of intrigue, the undermining of the fabric of Church and State, was as largely the work of foreign agents as were the Clydeside strikes and other recent internal troubles in Great Britain. The French Revolution (parent of the Russian debacie) was not a reformatory movement; for the genuine reforms were initiated and carried out by Louis XVI. before the Revolution. The uprising was not due to real resentment against the aristocracy, who had voluntarily signed away their seigneurial rights; but there was a section of the aristocracy on which some of the blame must fall, in that they were misguided enough to support the intrigues of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, who, under German influences, was personally as depraved as he was politically disloyal and mischievous It is, however, most unjust to judge a whole class by the Orleanist section, which was bitterly opposed to the King. Taken as a whole, the main fault of the aristocracy was not so much arrogance or ultra-Conservatism (many indeed were humanitarians) as a advanced philosophers and curious blindness to the subtlety and power of the secret enemies who were undermining the national life of France. China's Foreign Policy In a recent issue of Asia Mr. Patrick Gallagher writes as follows on the definite foreign policy which China has formulated. "China approaches the future as a reconstructive asset, not a liability. Peace, not War, is on her tongue and in her heart; but she declines to be dominated by any Power. She is quietly determind to exercise her right as a sovereign nation to choose her own friends and associates. She neither needs, nor will she accept political tutelage offered in any guise. She comes before the world in full comradeship, not to lean upon the world, but that she may bear her full share of the world's burdens. To that end, there must be respect for Chinese integrity, in fact as well as in assurance, throughout the length and breadth of of China. She does not ask for the return of ceded territory, but she does ask for the termination of all the leases wrung from her against Chinese interests and in jeopardy of the peace of the world as a direct consequence of Germany's act of War in 1897 in Shantung. "She insists upon three points: (1) territorial integrity; (2) political independence; (3) economic independence. She invites western co-operation of fair terms-her own terms; not terms made for her, without her counsel or consent. She desires to throw all China completely open to foreign residence and foreign trade; and to that end she asks that her officials be helped and not be hampered in their efforts to bring her laws and their administration up to the highest point of modern western efficiency, as rapidly as possible. She seeks technical assistance, not direction or tutelage. China will enter the League of Nations as a man, not as a mendicant." Czecho-Slovakia and its People The Geographical Review (July 1919) published by the American Geographical Society of New York stresses upon the unity of the Czechs and the Slovaks, more than 12 millions in number, who live in a compact mass in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia as far as Pressburg on the Under South and the upper Tisz on the East. pressure of invasion from without the Slovaks of Northern Hungary and the Czechs of the thrown together and Bohemian plateau were shared a mutual life especially since the Moravian plain offered no barrier at all. In the beginning of the 19th century there came about the revival of the national consciousness of the Czech nation, partly due to the humanitarian movement of the French Revolution and partly to the efforts of a few Czech and Slovak patriots to revive the almost forgotten Czech language and literature. Jan Kollar a scholar and poet was the first to inculcate the sentiment of pan Slavism; he compared the Slavonic culture to dawn; the German culture to-day; the English to mid-day, the French to afternoon and the Spanish to-night. Other Slav leaders are Safarik and Count Palacky. In 1918 the Czech deputes of the Reichsrat and the Slovaks of Hungary came together; and the Bohemian National Council was recognised by the Allies and America as the provisional govern ment of the Czecho Slavak state; this influenced the other Slavs, especially the Jugo Slavs to resist the Austro-Hungarian Empire and to acce lerate its dissolution. The future of the state will depend upon the skill with which its boun daries are drawn. Provided Czecho-Slovakia is assured the possession of the geographical and ethnographical frontiers that are her due, she has no reason to despair of a pros perous and even brilliant future. The Czecho-Slovak has many of the sterling qualities that make for success. He has known how to utilize the resources with which nature has lavishly endowed his country. Agriculture is highly developed. Oats, rye, barley, wheat are the chief grain crops. The potato, which forms the staple food of the people, is extensively grown. The cultivation of the sugar beet has become of great importance. Flax and hemp are also grown also fruit, especially plums, which constitute an arti cle of export. Although not so well developed as agriculture, the rearing of sheep, horses, and cattle and poultry and bee farming are also extensively carried on. The unusually rich coal and iron resources of Bohemia and its water power point to a high degree of industrial development. Indeed, the country in the last half of the nineteenth century has become one of the greatest manufacturing centres of Europe. The glass industry, introduced from Venice in the thirteenth century, is of great im portance. The manufacture of procelain is extensively carried on. The textile industry also stands in the front rank. Silver and leather work have a long his tory as local industries. Such industries exhibit the the Czeches' delicate artistic sense and are capable of considerable development. INDIA IN INDIAN & FOREIGN PERIODICALS THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL. By Hon. Mr. THE SIKHS, THEIR LAWS, AND THEIR CUSTOMS, B THE PROBLEM OF INDIA. By Lala Lajpat Rai ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN INDIA. By D. A. Shah. |