reply is sometimes made by Englishmen, and not without reason: "Physician, heal thyself." "Men living in glass-houses should not throw stones. Sometimes the reply takes the form of a question: "Would you Americans like it if we Englishmen protested against your negro lynchings and your holding of the Philippines against the will of their people?" I think the answer we ought to make is: Whether we like your question or not, it is just, and entirely proper on your part; and even if for the time being it makes us mad, as it will be likely to, in the end it will do us good. If such questions were asked Americans oftener than they are, they would set us wondering whether it would not be wise for us to substitute for our glass houses other houses less fragile. The fact is, observations by nations of other nationsobservations of their superiorities and their defects; outspoken recognition, on the part of nations, of the excellencies of other nations and also criticisms of their short-comings and wrong deed, if made in the right spirit, if made not cynically or bitterly, or to set one's self up above others, but courteously, constructively, and with the purpose of helping to bring about better conditions for mankind-these are among the most valuable things in the world.

The truth is, the world is one in all its deeper and real interests. Every nation is related to every other, and all are related to the whole. No nation can do another wrong without all suffering None can be injured without all the rest to a greater or less extent being injured. None can prosper without the rest being benefited. In the very nature of things, political freedomfreedom of nations and peoples-is a matter of world concern. Every nation held in bondage just so far limits the world's freedom, and thus makes the world a less desirable place for all the other nations to live in. On the other hand, every nation that is free adds just so much to the general freedom of the world, and thus makes world conditions better for all other nations. Therefore, when any civilized people which is held in subjection by another enters upon a struggle to gain its freedom, every other civilized people has a just and necessary interest in the struggle, and ought for its own sake. and for the sake of the cause of freedom in the world, to extend to the struggling people its sympathy, and moral support.

We cannot assert too emphatically the broad truth, important to all humanity, that freedom for nations and peoples is not and in its very nature cannot be, a mere domestic question of the nation holding the struggling people in bondage; it is a matter which the whole world should and must trust itself in if freedom is to make progress among mankind. So long as there is one important nation or people in the world held in bondage by another, the peace of the world is imperilled. That oppressed and wronged nation or people is a volcano which at any moment may burst into an eruption of revolution and war, and the war may spread no one knows how far.

Says Bishop Charles H. Brent :

The

"Moral questions have no boundaries. world of to-day is steadily revealing itself to be a world of identical moral interests. If we exploit abroad, the downfall of the exploited will eventually become our own downfall.'

Gandhi is right when he says that

"India's present condition of bondage and helplessness hurts not only India, not only England, but the whole world."

India held in subjection by Great Britain works much injustice to the United States of America. It ought not to be overlooked that India is a great and important nation with which the United States has a right to have and would be much advantaged by having, free and unobstructed commercial, industrial, cultural, and other cultural, and other intercourse. This we could have if India were free; but we cannot have it with her controlled by any foreign power. For England to hold her in subjection, carry on her government, and manage her affairs with British interests supremely in view, and to prevent her from having commercial and other relations with us and other nations except under conditions which are fixed by England and which give Englishmen advantages over all others, is unjust. It is unjust to us and to every other nation in the world. I repeat, India is a vast landalmost a continent-rich in resources of nearly every kind-agricultural products, forests, fisheries, minerals. In the nature of things all the world has an interest in these. Why should they be controlled by a single power, in the interest of a single power, and that power not India? India is a market why should that market be controlled by a single nation, instead of being open to all nations on an equality? India has a great foreign commerce; why should that commerce

great

be managed and shaped to the disadvantage not only of India but of all other nations except Great Britain, and to the primary advantage of Britain alone?

What would Americans say if we were obliged to to transact all our business with Japan or China or Russia or Germany or France under conditions fixed by Great Britain and shaped for the benefit of Great Britain? Would we endure such injustice? Yet the wrong done us would be no worse than that to which we are subjected now in relation to the great and important nation of India. Britain has no more right to control our business with India, and herself monopolize the trade and commerce of that vast country, than she has to control our business with Japan or France, or monopolize the commerce of those nations. Thus Britain's robbing India of her freedom and nationhood and holding her in subjection to British control, is not only an immeasurable wrong to India herself, but it is a great injustice to this country and to every other nation in the world, an injustice to which neither the United States nor any other nation should submit.

The United States Government, called an International Conference in Washington to consider reduction of armaments and also certain other important matters regarding the Pacific Ocean and the Orient. It was essential that India, the second largest nation in the Orient should be represented. Was she represented? No. Our Government was mocked by having sent to us, by India's foreign masters, so-called representatives of India who did not represent India at all, who were not chosen by India. True, they were Indian by birth, but they were selected under the authority of Great Britain to represent British interests and not the interests of India. If this was a wrong to India, it was also a wrong to the United States and to all the nations represented in that Conference.

The possession and forcible rule of India by Great Britain, has probably been the most powerful single influence in the modern world, against democracy,against just government based on the will of the peoples governed, and in support of autocracy, imperialism, government by force. It has been so because it is by far the most imposing and imposing and conspicuous example in modern times of a great nation conquered, ruled, and exploited by and for the benefit of another nation. We may

almost say that it is the mother-example of the kind in the modern world. India is so great, both in area and in population; its place in the history of mankind has been so prominent; its wealth and its resources in the past have been so vast; and the wealth that it has yielded to the nation which has ruled and despoiled it has been so immense, that its domination for nearly two centuries by a foreign power takes its place not only as an event of first magnitude in modern history, but as the greatest political crime of modern times,-because it affects more people, is more wide-reaching in its influence, and has been more disastrous to the progress of political liberty and justice among modern peoples, than any other political crime of the modern world.

I have called Britain's conquest and domination of India a "mother-example ' of its kind. And a terrible brood it has brought forth. For, it has set a precedent so conspicious that all the world has had its attention drawn to it, and so dazzling, so attractive and so appealing to the lower passions and ambitions of nations that it has been irresistable, it has caught and spread like wild fire, until all the leading nations of Europe have felt its influence, and have had aroused in them ambitions to follow, to conquer for themselves dependencies, in Asia, in Africa, in the islands of the sea (and in America except for the Monroe Doctrine, and thus gain for themselves wealth and prestige and power, as Britain has done in India. Even our own nation has felt it. Except for Britain's Indian career, the United States would never have gone away to the coast of distant Asia and seized the Philippines. Everybody, who remembers those days knows that our militarists and imperialists held up what Great Britain had done in India as their strongest argument and justification. And even more than that. It is well-known that some of our most prominent leaders not only military men but political leaders at that time contemplated and actually advocated in high government circles the procuring for ourselves of good fat slice of China," urging as our justification for so doing the example of the European nations in Asia, and especially that of Britain in India. And there seem to be reasons of considerable strength for believing that had it not been for the honorable and inflexible opposition of John Hay, at that time our secretary of State, we actually

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would have proceeded to capture and take permanent possession of a section of China.

No other event in modern history has kindled so much envy and jealousy in other nations as Great Britain's creation for itself of a vast empire in Asia; and therefore no other has had so powerful and wide-spread an influence in causing other nations to say, "We too! Why should we not do what England has done? If she may capture and rule and despoil great India, why may we not conquer and exploit any land in Asia or elsewhere that is not strong enough to resist us? And if Britain claims that her motive is India's benefit, of course, we will proclaim just as loudly that our motive is the

same.

This subject need not be pursued further. It is enough, simply to emphasize our contention, that England's domination of India has been in the past, and continues to be still, the greatest of all destroyers of the spirit of democracy in the world. If in the future, the spirit of freedom is to make any headway among the nations, by far the most important single thing to be done is the creation of a world-wide public opinion which will condemn and drive out of existence the shocking spectacle of the oldest and second largest civilized nation in the world held in subjection by a foreign sword.

Many Americans are troubled by what seems to them the marked growth in this country within recent years of an imperialistic spirit. Such a spirit is manifesting itself as appears to them, in many insidious, unexpected, largely unnoticed, but real and threatening ways. Some of these ways arein the increase in the number of persons among us who speak lightly of democracy, and wonder if a more aristocratic and autocratic form of government is not better; who look with more or less favour upon Mussolini and the Fascisti movement in Italy, and the rise of dictators in several other nations; who scout the ideas of the human equality found in our Declaration of Independence; who boast of ancestry" and aristocratic or distinguished "blood" wherever they can find the slightest peg to hang such boasting on; whose highest ambition is to is get admission to British aristocratic society or to be invited to a function at Buckingham Palace, or above all to marry a daughter daughter to an English lord or other foreign titled person; who regard the world as having been made for the white race and especially for Nordics, and look down on all the other races;

and who would like to have Britain and America unite against the so-called "yellow peril and "brown peril" that is, unite to dominate Asia and as far as possible the rest of the world. I say this imperialistic spirit, this anti-democratic spirit, this aristocratic and arrogant spirit (which nearly every where allies itself with militarism and largely with capitalism) seems to many thoughtful persons to have been insidiously but steadily growing in this country for some years past.

From what source does it come? It is believed that it comes largely, indeed mainly, from England. Not, of course, from the nobler, truer England, the England which in the days of our American revolutionary struggle pleaded for justice and freedom for America, and which to-day would give justice and self-rule to India; but from that England which in 1776 sided with George III and Lord North against the rights of the American Colonies, and which to-day is determined to retain India in its grip, as then it was determined to retain America.

Every student of English history knows that this undemocratic spirit, this aristocratic, autocratic, imperialistic, 'nabob" spirit, is not indigenous to England. England got it from outside and within the last two centuries. From what source? It is more and more believed by those who look into the matter, that the true answer is, she got it mainly from her conquest and rule of India. The evil spirit of arrogance, domination, pride of class, indifference to the rights of others, imperialism which the men who have gone to India and spent half their lives in autocratic rule there have instinctively imbibed there, has been brought back by them to England, on their return from their plan of autocratic rule abroad, to poison the ideals and the political and social life of England.

this poison---be inevitable that that it should

Nor could this evil spirit confined to England. It was it should spread, especially come across the sea to us, because of our close relations with England. It has done so, and it will continue to do so, to poison our ideals and our life, as long as England continues to dominate India by force, and therefore as long as that unjust domination continues to poison England's own ideals and life.

This is one of the reasons why India is America's concern, and why American public opinion ought strongly to demand India's freedom. We should demand it in self

Those who claim that British rule in India and India's struggle to escape from that rule, are solely the domestic concern of Great Britain, with which no other nation has a right to meddle, should do a little reading of history. As a fact, have nations struggling to free themselves from the oppression of a foreign yoke never received sympathy or encouragement, from other nations? Have we ourselves never extended sympathy or aid to such struggling nations? Has Great Britain herself never done the same? The fact is, the true spirit of both America and England has always been that of wide interest in liberty, and sympathy with nations and peoples in any and every part of the world who were struggling to shake off alien despotisms and gain for themselves freedom and nationhood. England's record in this respect has been very noble. Let us glance at it.

We in America can never forget the sympathy extended to us by several of England's greatest statesmen, and also by many humbler people, in our Revolutionary War. Nor can we cease to remember that in our Civil War the working people of England to a remarkable degree stood by our national government, even against their own interests, because they believed our national cause to be the cause of human freedom.

When Greece early last century went to war to throw off the yoke of Turkey, the English people took a very deep interest in the struggle. They did not for a moment think of it as a mere domestic affair of Turkey, in which they had no right to interest themselves. Lord Byron's dramatic espousal of the Greek cause attracted the attention and was the admiration of liberty-lovers in all lands.

With Italy's struggle to free herself from the yoke of Austria, England warmly sympathized, and showed her sympathy by the strong public utterances of Gladstone and other public men, and also by giving shelter and aid to Italian refugees Mazzini, Garibaldi, and many others who were driven into exile on account of their efforts to obtain their country's freedom. The enthusiasm with which Garibaldi was welcomed to England after his patriot army had won its entry into Rome was not less than that which greeted Kossouth in America after his heroic

struggle for liberty in Hungary. A personal witness thus describes the great scene in London :

"I was one of the number who had the honor and pleasure of giving welcome to the brave Garibaldi when he came to London after his glorious victory in freeing his country. He was met at the railway station by tens of thousands of young and old, rich and poor, and escorted through the streets to the Duke of Sutherland's mansion. It was such a spectacle as seldom if ever has been seen in London before or since. Pen cannot describe it. When we arrived in front of the horseguards those nearest Garibaldi's carriage unhitched the horses, and the carriage with the hero was dragged the rest of the way by thousands who delighted to do him honor. It was the enthusiasm of a liberty-loving people for the work done by that one man not only for Italy, but for the whole world-a victory won for freedom over tyranny.

noble

These facts and incidents show the and true England, the England that did not regard the struggle of Greece and Italy as. more domestic concerns of Turkey and Austria. If this England had always been in power, India would never have been conquered and enslaved! If this England were in power to-day, India would soon be set free.

Turn now to America. The United States, assisted as she was by other nations in obtaining her own freedom, has manifested throughout a large part of her history an earnest sympathy with nations, wherever located, who were struggling to throw off a tyrannical yoke and to establish for themselves governments based on principles of justice and liberty. Said Washington in a notable public utterance delivered the same year as his Farewell Address:

"My sympathetic feelings and my best wishes. are irresistibly excited whenever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom. "

was

When the South American nations were engaged in their struggle to throw off the yoke of Spain and gain their independence, the sympathy for them in the United States ardent and almost universal. Nobody thought of their struggle as a mere domestic affair of Spain in which we should not interest ourselves. Ours was the first nation to recognize the new republics. This did not occur until 1822, but as early as 1816 Henry Clay urged that we should carry our national sympathy so far as forcibly to intervene in their favor.

President Monroe in his annual message

to Congress in 1822, expressed in unmistakable languge his own sympathy and that of the American people with Greece in her struggle for freedom. One memorable evidence of America's sympathy is seen in the fact that the eminent Boston philanthropist and educator, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, later the husband of the equally eminent Julia Ward Howe, went to Greece (as did Lord Byron in England) and rendered distinguished service to the Greek people in their war for liberty.

With the revolutionary or semi-revolutionary movement in Germany in 1848, to establish liberal government in that country, the Uuited States manifested profound sympathy from the beginning. Our minister to Berlin, Mr. Donelson, was instructed to keep in close touch with the movement and give it any encouragement he could without diplomatic discourtesy or offence to the Berlin govern'ment. He was informed from Washington that an important part of his mission was"to manifest a proper degree of sympathy (on the part of America) for the efforts of the German people to ameliorate their condition by the adoption of a form of government which should secure. their liberties and promote their happiness."

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He was instructed that it was the

cordial desire of the United States to be, if possible, the first to hail the birth of any new government adopted by any of the German States having for its aim the attainment of the priceless blessings of freedom."

The profound sympathy of this country with the struggle of Hungary for freedom under the leadership of Kossouth, in 1849, is well-known. President Zachary Taylor showed his own interest and that of the American people in the struggle by appointing a special agent with authority to recognize the independence of the new State "promptly, in the event of her ability to sustain it". In his annual message (of 1849) President Taylor declared that he had thought it his duty,

"in accordance with the general sentiment of the American people, who deeply sympathized with the Magyar (Hungarian) patriots, to stand prepared, upon the contingency of the establishment by her of a permanent government. to be the first to welcome Independent Hungary into the family of nations.

"The feelings of the American Nation are strongly enlisted," he declared, "by the sufferings of a brave people who have made

gallant though unsuccessful effort to be free." On the failure of the Hungarian revolution Kossouth and his companions took refuge in Turkey. The American Congress

passed a joint resolution (which was approved by the President. March 3, 1851) declaring that the people of the United States sincerely sympathized with the Hungarian exiles, Kossouth and his associates, and concluding as follows:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled that the President of the United States

be, and hereby is requested to authorize the employment of some of the public vessels to convey to the said United States the said Louis Kossouth and his associates in captivity.

Accordingly an American frigate was sent to bring the exiles from Turkey. Kossouth arrived in this country in October, and his stay here was an uninterrupted triumph, exceeded only by the welcome given to Lafayette twenty-five years before. He was greeted with enthusiasm at the National Capitol by both Houses of Congress. President Fillmore received him most cordially and invited him to dinner, and Daniel Webster made the principal speech at the great Washington banquet. Said Webster:,

We acclaim the pleasure with which we welcome our honoured guest to the shores of this far land, this asylum of oppressed humanity...... Let it be borne on the winds of heaven that the sympathies of the Government of the United States and of all the people of the United States have been attracted toward a nation struggling for national independence, and toward those of her sons who have most distinguished themselves in the struggle. Let it go out, let it open the eyes of the blind: let it be everywhere proclaimed, what we of this great republic think of the principles of human liberty."

It should not be overlooked that the United States Government was the first to recognize the French Republic in 1848, and also the present French Republic inaugurated in 1870.

III to

One more marked illustration of our hatred of tyranny and our sympathy with liberty abroad should be noticed. I refer to the historic fact that in 1867, our President and Congress compelled Napoleon III abandon his effort to set up in Mexico an imperial government contrary to the will of the people of that country. In this case we did not stop with expressions of sympathy with Mexican freedom, but we went so far as to offer military aid in its defence.

Such are some of the notable occasions and ways in which, throughout a large part of our national history, the people of this country through our most eminent and honored leaders have expressed our sympathy with nations and peoples struggling for