Before the recent bloodless or peaceful revolution in Turkey, the western world knew little about the methods, aspirations, and work of the patriotic band of Young Turks. Indeed, the movement was looked upon by nearly all nations as something impracticable; and the noble band of workers for the cause of humanity was regarded as a bloodthirsty revolutionary body. Even after the declaration of a constitutional form of government in Turkey, leading journals of western civilization held that it was merely an announcement and would never come into actual practice. After the opening of the new Parliament, with its equal representation in proportion for all classes, the masterful action of that august body concerning the Balkan question astounded the world. Now the praises of the patriots are sung on all sides, and the English government is particularly enthusiastic over the triumph of those who strove to realize the national aspirations of the people.

I venture to say that India is passing through a stage of political transition. Her condition is somewhat similar to that of Turkey before the revolution. The only difference between the condition of Turkey and that of India is that Turkey had her own autocratic, absolute monarchy, while India is under a foreign rule which tyrannizes over the people the people through the most scientific and civilized methods of plunder and despotism.

The civilized world knows very little about the true situation in India. The London Times and other papers interested in the program of absolute

British supremacy, have fostered the idea that it is an anarchistic movement, precisely in the same way as Abdul Hamid's agents sought to misrepresent and discredit the Young Turk movement. In this article I shall state some plain, unvarnished facts relating to what is really going on in India; and in this manner I hope to throw some light on the unjust and despotic measures of the British bureaucracy, as well as expose the sophistry of the English press.

In the first place, let it be observed that there is nothing anarchistic in the Indian movement; but it is revolutionary. The young men who are its conspicuous leaders, who are denounced as anarchists, are but Nationalists of the most pronounced views. One of the most prominent of these, Mr. Barindra Kumar Ghose, confessed his faith during his trial and said that the object of the movement was to throw off the foreign yoke and establish independent government for the people of India.

An

There is a fundamental difference between anarchy and revolution archy does not believe in any form of government; but the Indian Nationalists are strong upholders of a representative system of government of their own. There is no just or truly representative government in India. The Indian Nationalists want a good government of their own, to substitute for the rotten and despotic one of the British bureaucracy.

Lord Morley, in his speech advocating his proposed reforms in India, termed the aspirations of the Indian Nationalists "their sinister and dishonest desires." If the United States was

justified in throwing off the British yoke, if Italy could free herself from the Austrians and the Greeks from the Turks, the people of India can justly demand independence. In this connection The Labor Leader of London justly observes:

"It is always a 'sinister and dishonest desire' when any of the subject races of the British Empire desires freedom. The sympathetic English hearts bleed at the thought of the Russian despotism. The sympathetic English hearts were filled with delight when Turkey obtained a Parliament. Oh, yes, freedom for Russia, freedom for Turkey, but freedom for India or Egypt is unthinkable-or, in other words, freedom for every nation in which England has no interest."

The Indian Nationalists advance numerous reasons to justify their demand for self-government. The most important of these may be summarized as follows:

(1) Every nation has the right to rule itself. If the British people have the right to sing "Britons never will be slaves" and act on that principle, then the Indian people have a right to demand India for the Indians and strive for that end.

(2) Existing conditions in India under the British rule have resulted in the moral degradation of the people of India. The British government, to aid British commercialism, has introduced liquor and forced our people to cultivate opium. Liquor and opium have devitalized the Indian people. China has been undone by Indian opium. The Indian Nationalists claim that to remedy these wrongs they have to eradicate the root of the evil-the bad form of foreign government.

(3) Young India charges the British government with being the cause of the daily increasing poverty of the Indian people-poverty which in India is the chief root cause of famine and plague. Sir William Digby showed that in 1850 the people of India had an average income of four cents a day; in 1880 the average income had been reduced to three cents, and in 1900 it

had dwindled to one and one-half cents a day. When India is daily growing poorer and poorer under British rule, evidently British rule is not for the best interests of the native population, and it must be replaced by a government of the Indian people.

(4) The foreign rule in India is not in favor of the intellectual development of the people, and the British Indian government's record shows that only 9 per cent of the people of India can read and write in their own language after a British rule of over one hundred years. In contrast with this deplorable condition, the Indian Nationalists point to the intellectual advance of Japan, a free country during the last forty years, where over 90 per cent of the people can read and write; which again demonstrates the necessity of a free government for the three hundred millions of Indian people.

(5) The Russian government is regarded as the most despotic on earth, but the Indian Nationalists advance facts approved by authorities like Archibald R. Colquhoun, gold medallist, Royal Geographical Society; William Jennings Bryan, and others, to show that the British government in India is in several respects more despotic than the government of the Czar.

(6) The Indian Nationalists advance incontestible proof to substantiate their claim that the government of native Indian princes is incomparably superior to that of the British.

(7) They also hold that the British government is responsible in large part for the ruin of Indian industry.

(8) To the shame of their masters, they point to the testimony of so authoritative a man as Mr. Theodore Morrison, that "miscarriage of justice in India begets political evil. The people are irritated against the government because they believe that the laws are not evenly administred."

(9) The Indian people have been denied the right of citizenship in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and other British colonies. They cannot even obtain the same privileges as are enjoyed by people of other free nations.

To suppress this new movement for human liberty and rights, the British government has adopted all kinds of repressive measures in India, such, for example, as (1) the suppression of education, (2) depriving the natives of the enjoyment of freedom of speech, press and peaceful public assembly, and (3) enforcement of military rule and deportation of Indian Nationalist leaders without any kind of trial whatsoever.

We can safely claim that it is the settled policy of the British government to oppose the liberal education of the masses of the Indian people; so there is no public school system in the Empire. The Indian people are making attempts to increase the private schools, but the the government has passed the University Act, which has made higher education more costly. Moreover, official steps have been taken to disaffiliate numbers of educational institutions from the Calcutta University, as will be seen from the following copy of a quotation from one of the official letters:

"I am directed by the Honorable the Vice Chancellor and the Syndicate to say that if this school desires continuance of recognition it must in the first place give guarantee that it will in future carefully abstain from mixing itself with political agitation The Syndicate accordingly call on the Managing Committee to submit within a fortnight from receipt of this letter a declaration signed by all the members of the committee, as well as by all the members of the teaching staff, that they are prepared to manage the school in full and loyal compliance with the terms of the circular letter No. 332, dated the 4th of May, 1907, from Sir Herbert Risley, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., Secretary to the Government of India Home Department, to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bengal, general department, and therefore will use their best endeavors to discourage the boys from joining in political agitation or demonstration of any kind."

The attempt to hamper the education of the people has been accom

panied of late by assaults on the freedom of the press. Thus we see the four most influential papers, The BandeMataram, The Sandhya, The Swaraj, and The Jugantor, as well as others suppressed and their presses confiscated during the last six months. At least one hundred editors and printers of Indian papers, among the most important of whom were Mr. Bal Gangadha Tilak, editor of Keshari; Mr. Purshotam Bapuji Khare, editor of Kal; Professor Paranjappya, the former editor of Kal; the editors of The Arunodhya, The Indian Home-Ruler, The Swaraj, The Punjabee, and many others, have been prosecuted and imprisoned for expressing their candid views about the misrule of the British government in India.

Not satisfied with these drastic measures, the British government has recently passed the Sedition Bill. The Indian Sociologist of London observes that:

"The following section (4) of the Sedition Bill, which in official expression is styled The Summary Jurisdiction Act, deserves to be carefully studied and weighed by all who are in love with the British sense of justice:

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"The accused shall not be present during an enquiry under Section 3 (1), unless the magistrate so directs, nor shall he be represented by a pleader during any such enquiry, nor shall any person have any right of access to the court of the magistrate while he is holding such an enquiry.'

The Morning Leader, an English paper, exclaims, "Why, under such conditions, trouble to hold an enquiry at all?"

With reference to the Sedition Bill, "Depute" remarks with righteous indignation:

"I forward an account, in The Pall Mall Gazette, of the astounding ukase against justice, not against crime, which just issues from the British satrapy in India.

"Three crowned nominee judges! No jury!! No witnesses even!!! The police can invent an 'informer' against

any innocent man, can hide the 'informer on the day of 'trial,' alleging that he is 'absent' through the 'interest of the accused,' and the most innocent man in India can be sent to penal servitude or the gallows on that 'informatior'!!!

"We need not try to find a parallel under any Czar. There never was a Russian Czar quite so drunk and mad, as well as bad, as to issue such a ukase of criminal idiocy as this. Did the British satrapy in India really want to prove its hopeless badness?"

The denial of the right of freedom of speech and peaceful public assemblage is a common thing in India. The Chicago Public of February 5, 1909,

says:

"The Indian National Congress, held at Madras during the latter part of December, which expressed sentiments of loyalty to the British government, is not regarded by all native Nationalists as a true congress. Another congress would have convened at Naghur at about the same time, but it was suppressed by the British authorities, who prohibited any gathering in that city or district between December 15th, 1908, and January 15th, 1909."

During the last eighteen months, eleven Indian Nationalist leaders have been deported from India without any trial. The most important and the first victim of this measure was Lala Lajpat Rai, the most prominent philanthropist of the Punjab. Among the others, Mr. Aswani Kumar Dutt, M.A., and Mr. Krishna Kurnar Mitra, B.A., were the most influential. Mr. Dutt is the founder of a college, and he organized village courts of arbitration all over the district of Bakharganj. Mr. Mitra was the superintendent of the City College, Calcutta, and editor of a vernacular weekly paper until his arrest. Of the remainder, the most important one is Subodh Ch. Mullick, a Bengali millionaire, for the past few years a liberal donor to the Nationalist cause. When the National Council of Education was started, nearly three years ago, for the purpose of providing higher education independently of the

government colleges, he gave $33,333 to the movement. He was the chief supporter of the Bande-Mataram newspaper. Mr. S. C. Chakervaty is a journalist who has been connected with several Nationalist newspapers.

was the editor of The Sandhya, a remarkable vernacular journal, written in colloquial Bengali and sold by thousands in the Calcutta streets at a farthing; and when Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal left Bande-Mataram he joined it as joint editor. Both these papers have been lately suppressed by new press laws. Pulin Das is a young advocate of Dacca and is secretary of the Anusilan Samiti.

These noble and patriotic leaders, as well as others, have been deported under a regulation of April 7, 1818. This regulation is an exhaustive one, so I shall quote a part from the preamble which will clearly express the motive of the British government:

"Whereas reasons of state, embracing the due ing the due maintenance of the alliances formed by the British government with foreign powers, the preservation of tranquillity in the territories of native Princes entitled to its protection, and the security of the British dominions from foreign hospitality and from internal commotion, occasionally render it necessary to place under personal restraint individuals against whom there may not be sufficient grounds to institute any judicial proceedings, or when such proceedings may not be adapted to the nature of the case or may for any other reason be inadvisable or improper, and herein referred to; the determination to be taken should proceed immediately from the authority of the Governor General in Council."

People in general, even men like Mr. Roosevelt, think that the British government in India is a blessing to the people of India, because it has guaranteed to the people the enjoyment of civil rights. But enforcement of laws which deny the right of judicial trial indicates that the people of India under the British rule enjoy less liberty than did the British people of the thirteenth

century. The Russian government gives some kind of trial to Russian revolutionists, but the British government fails to show even a mockery of

trial in the case of Indian patriots. This is only a part of the tragic story of what is going on in India to-day.

So far as we

know literature, the Book of Job is rightly reckoned as one of the wonders of the ancient literary world. But so far as I know, no one has pointed out the true heart of the book and what makes it so wonderful and modern, and that is that it shows us Job as a great social reformer.

The problem of Job was not so much a theological or metaphysical matter as it was social and economic. The Book of Job shows us the wrestle of an acute, advanced and radical social and religious philosopher with the smug and satisfied ideas of an established order. Job was a great radical and an aggressive reformer, standing third in the Hebrew nation, ranked only by Jesus and Moses.

Look at the long drama. He confronts, three opponents, all good men, smugly good, who have their ideas on too firm a basis to be shaken by this early John the Baptist. First, they believe with the elder statesmen and with the majority. Verily, what more could. be asked? "With us are the greyheaded and aged men, elder than thy father."* Certainly that argument in the Boston Transcript or the New York. Sun would be beyond question today. They repudiate Job's doctrine because it is new, and because its adherents are in a minority.

Second, they had education, learning and wealth on their side. Hear one of them say: "I declare what the wise men

* Job XV: 10.

have told from their fathers, unto whom the land was given.'

These were the bulwarks of their opposition to Job, and when he dared reply, they answered by abusing his moral character, calling him the Quaker, witch, Socialist, anarchist of their day. "Thy wickedness is great; there is no end to thy iniquities," etc.**

Again, take the discussion of the question of evil, and see how modern is Job's treatment of it. He would agree very well with Clarence Darrow and Tolstoi. The three comforters maintain that evil in the world is the result of sin: "The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."*** Job has cast aside. this view. He sees with clearer vision that the evils which befall his people are the result of bad social organization and economic conditions.

I quote a few verses from Job's mouth: "Why . . . do they that know him not see his days?" Because there are those who have taken away the flocks, driven away the asses of the fatherless, taken the widow's ox, removed the land-boundaries. Now this translated into present-day language, is simply a statement of oppression and land-lordism, which resulted in what our socialist friend would call the forming of the "proletariat." "The poor of the earth hide themselves together.

*Job XV. 18-19. **Job XXII: 5-9. *** Job XXVIII: 28. † See Job XXIV: 1-6