May 17.
The admirable achievements of the Young Men's Christian Association in providing healthy recreation for bodies and mind" all over the world deserve grateful recognition and sup: port, Less impressive are the attempts which its enthusiastic officials so frequently make to contribute to our political wisdom. So far from furthering the cause of international amity, on which the Association is largely dependent for its financial stability, those contributions often do definite harm, An example is to be found in the speech reported to have been delivered at Tokyo last week to the Pan-Pacific Club by Dr. Sherwood Eddy, described as secretary of the Foreign Cent mittee of the Y.M.C.A., now on a world tour. In that speech Dr. Bddy confined himself in th: main to an emotional exposition of the Indian situation as he saw it, with passing references to Russia and China. He paid a glowing tribute to Mr. Gandhi, whom he profanely compared with Jesus Christ, and in a truly amazing tirade he observed:
"Te was during the World War that the greatest awakening came. India gave more than a million troops, more than all the other British "dominions put to:
gether, and poured out her t sure, and she thought she ha earned wame vaward in the way'
of dominion status, She was met with the Rowlatt Bill giving the government enormous powers. Then came the General' Dyer in: cident at Amritsar, when ten thousand men, women and chil dren were assembled unarmed the centre of the city on a day Wke May Day. Dyer without a word of warning, opened fire on that unarmed mass, and after leaving several hundred dead and many hundreds wounded on the field, unattended through the night, marched off after _his victory. That was the spark which inflamed India."
Dr. Eddy's hysteria over Mr. Gandhi whom he personally met on his tour may be put on one side. If he failed to detect the poseur in the composition of his hero, he erred in distinguished if not very perspicacious company, although he might have noted the brilliant analysis of Mr. Gandhi's character contributed last year to the "New York Herald Tribune" by an able American journalist, Mrs. Michael Pym. "He might also have heard of the verdict of the foremost Indian Governor of t" day, Sir Malcolm Bailey, who remarked of Mr. Gandhi to the Legislative Assembly that there was "a broad gulf between sanctity and sanity."
But the inflammatory travesty of recent Indian history perpetrated by Dr. Eddy in the passage quoted cannot _be allowed to pass. In the mouth of an extremist Indian politician it would be a commonplace. Coming from a responsible official of a body which dairiis to stand for world-peace and the: friendship of the British and American nations, it deserves the strongest censure. What are the facts with which Dr> Eddy should he perfectly well-acquainted but which he completely distorts? Tet 8 Reginald Craddock be quoted on the war issue: he martial races gave their he princes their men and the landholders ant ly to numerous patriotic Among the loyal ones als>|" element that clamoured ward did none of these things, ticither did their sons go to the war nor did they contribute to rds it. The vote of £100,000,000 jin's contribution wax opposed by some of their chid representatives in the Imperial Legislative Council, They and their proes after a very. shor! lull at the outset did nothing bat carp and agitate ahd, so far they dared go, encouraged it nay be added, the mance Member, introduc ing the first budget after the outbreak of war, took credit for keeping down military expend! ture with the plain object placating. the politically-mind classes, The demand Dominion Status has arisen only in the last three or four years, although, as Lord Irwin has ex: plained, the eventual grant of that status is implicit. in tae Declaration of 1917. The forms which are now in opera. tion were far more progress it than those suggested int united demands of Hindu and Moslem politicians at the time that they were under consider: tion.
The Rowlatt Act with revolutionary lines suggested after an haustive inquiry by Mr. Justice Rowlatt, one of the ablest judges on the British Bench. It was so, flagrantly misrepresented by: politicians, including Mr. Gandhi, at a time of serious post-bellum economic stringency, that grave disorder broke out in the Punjab—the direct result of Mr. Gandhi's "non-violent" nonce-operation. Europeans were murdered at Amritsar and other places and the Province was saved from terrible and widespread bloodshed only by the firm measures of Sir Michael, O'Dwyer and drastic action by General Dyer at Amritsar, where, against specific orders proclaimed by beat of drum, agitators, some of them convicted later of murder and arson, violently harangued a huge!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.