"Maustua Gaxom.'—tiis Own Story. weed by rk, Anttewer" George Allen t Gwin Ltd, London.
The Rev. C. F. Andrews has done fa service in producing this very workmanlike compressed version of the two volumes entitled "Th Story of my Experiments with "Truth," dictated by Mr, Gandhi in person during 1022-24 in his own Gujarati tongue and translated into English by some friend of his. To begin. with, Mz, Andrews, fervent admirer of Mr. Gandhi, feannot be accused of a lack of "sympathy in handling his material. Again it is of considerable import. dance that, misguided and malicious as certain of Mr, Gandhi's activities have been, the salient facts of Jife should be carefully stu understood, "Mr. Andrews' own history is perhaps not quite so well known. He originally came out to India in the Cambridge Mission, after being a Fellow and Lecturet of Pembroke College, Cambridge. For thirteen years he was a professor at St. Stephen's College at Delhi, and there he came very much under the influence of the nationalist politicians. He took a particular Interest in the labour question and also in the position of Indians in the other parts of the Empire, It in difficult entirely to assess Mr, Andrews. A man of intellectual ability, of much personal charm, of intense sincerity, and of apparent anxiety to do justice to the truth, his eareey has been marked curious flashes of unreason, amount ing at times almost to perversity, interspersed with unexpected spasms of sanity. Thus, in the last phase, he generously admitted that his at: tacks on the Government of India's opium policy had been based misapprehension of the facts, and he practically agreed that the Policy in question had been framed with due regard to the humanitarjan principles with which the League of Nations is so. greatly ¢oncerned. In the course of a very big railway strike in India, Mr. Andrews proved to be a most valuable instrument of mediation. though he has at times been a Indian settlers, ho recently visited British Guiana and incurred no little hostility from his usual friends by strongly supporting certain claims which that government had in mind for developing Indian immigration, Yet this same volatile exponent of Christianity can be found to give the weight of his experience in support of the most outrageous fabrications of extremist Indian propagandists, Perhaps it is fair to say that on those occasions Mr, Andrews! emotions are too strong for his intellect. Nevertheless he is deserving of much consideration when he discusses Indian polit issues, and it can at lea that he is a competent sp. of part of the advanesd school of thought—the part of that particular school which docs not dabble in revolutionary assassination, age. He eventually returned his native land, practised at the Bar in Bombay, and finally went to South Africa, where at one time he was supposed to be making a big fortune. He took part in the Boer 'War as a stretcher bearer, and it was his ambulance which brought Lord Roberts' son's body out of the Battle of Colenso. He eventually Jaunched his passive resistance campaign which successfully induced the South African Government to remove certain disabilities under which Indian residents laboured, It paved the way for the eventual concordat in South Africa which took place only a year or so ago when Mr. V. 8. Sastri became first High Commissioner for India in South Africa, The book ends with Mr. Gandhi's campaign against the Rowlatt Act, this special value about, establishes quite clearly the fact that it was the Rowlatt Report and the consequent legislstion which indueed Mr. Gandhi to fort in India the passive resistor campaign which he had launched in South Africa. So many critics of the British Government will persist saying in that it was the shooting at Jullianwala Bagh which embittered Mr. Gandhi, thus blatantly chronology, for it was Mr. campaign in protest against the Rowlatt Act which gave rise to the disturbances that necessitated General Dyer's action at Jullianwala Bagh. This Mr. Gandhi amply confirms in this book.
In regard to his agitation against the Rowlatt Act, Mr. Gandhi does not quite accurately represent the position. He first of all says that the Rowlatt Report contained no evidence which justified the drastic legislation proposed. He does not explain the actual circumstances. The Rowlatt Report was the work in the main of Mr. Justice Rowlatt. specially sent out from England to investigate revolutionary activities which had been seriously engaging the authorities in India, The Report in its entirety was never published, except as a confidential document, and therefore it is obvious that the expurgated editions would not necessarily give Gandhi the proofs that he might have wanted to become reconciled to the Rovlatt Act. Mr. Andrews says that the Rowlatt Act is a very drastic one, enabling men to be sted and imprisoned without He, unhappily, fails to mention' that' the most "careful safe guards wore imposed in order to fet the use of the Act to revolutionary conspiracy. It is one of the most puzzling features of this Indian agitation, to the plain man, that Mr. Gandhi, for whom Mr. Andrews would claim the virtues of truth and sincerity, able to stir up the masses of Punjab only by the most graceful and Paganda, deliberately distorting the provisions of the Act. For instance, it was freely stated that the Act enabled the police to inter-all weddings, that it made lo for men to be arrested:
This volume docs not carry the reader beyond the period in Bir. Gandhi fell ill la prison of append inthe time of Lord Reading's Vieeroysity, was operat-upon and his life saved. It dials, therefore, with his early ¢areer, and in great measure with his vigorous campaign in South Africa, just after the Boer War, ehalf'of Indians resident in that gauntry. The story is, probably, well known, Tt has already been told in the columns of the "North-China Daily News" in an article published in the Magazine Supplement of June 18, 1930, and it is only necessary just briefly to point the stages in Mr, Gandhi's career in somewhat staccato fashion, thus: torn in an Indian State on the West coast, son of the Prime Minister of the State, his family of the grocer caste, he went to England after his mother's death at the ge of about 19 to study at the His life in England was rhed by that naive desire to learn and to avoid ridicule which is so characteristic of the young man of that age. He came to wonder at the West, and he spent far too much time, as the exitical reader will agree, in introspection, which must have been extra. ordinarily bed for a young man of for walking in couples down the street, and fantastic lies of that description. In time of prosperity this foolish disregard for truth would possibly have been harmless, but Mr. Gandhi's campaign was launched just when the Punjab w: suffering badly from the economi effects of the war. This point is ed Lecause it has a great ig on the present situation in India to-day. In the first place, the the same blatant violence, are being employed by Mr. Gandhi's followers. And the same outrageous propaganda is being citeulated in support of a man who, Mr. Andrews vould have men believe, is one of the world's saints, Here is an example of to-day's propaganda on behalf of Mr. Gandhi, and it, may be added that this par-lar' leaflet was recently dis-
by Mr. Gandhi ted at a meeting presided over associate, Pandit Motilal Neb Treacherous, framers of lies, Bicol chefs, ie pecker, Tezees renvore, ungeatefsl, 0 Stardere
Bogs of ely sli, merle, wickedness," Parrsteyed bastards i, evil _docts,. children 6
You care to Hindustan to eat tha morsels thrown te. you, but seeing treasures you beeaste avanielous
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.