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responsible government," we have only put back the clock. The common citizenship and the Indian nation are further off than ever. But the situation is clearer. After all only a microscopic minority of the Indian peoples is interested in politics; while to all Indians their particular religion is a vital and permanent force. The framers of the Reforms overlooked that cardinal fact, and in working out their scheme offered the greatest possible surface to religious friction. One result of this veiled civil war is that, excepting two small sections (the revolutionaries and the ambitious extremist Hindus), all other classes have come to realise that the British Ráj is that which divides them least; if they cannot have their own domination, better that of the British than of any rival race or creed. A year ago the writer of this article asked a strong Ulster Unionist settled in Dublin how he and his kind liked the Free State Government. The apt reply was: "It isn't our Government, but it's the best we'll get." That sums up the attitude of the vast majority of the Indian peoples to the British Ráj to-day.

We are committed to the present experiment till 1929, when a Parliamentary Commission will review its workings and advise Parliament how far to "modify, extend or restrict the degree of responsible government" granted in 1919.

It would be premature to anticipate the findings of a parliamentary commission three years hence. To-day those who break away from political cant and party formulas see clearly that :— (a) Existing communal hostility is a bar to any future political

advance and to the progress of India in every direction; (b) The tension is an inevitable result of the second and third principles in the Reforms Scheme as interpreted by India's various religions and races. Even if temporarily composed to secure further political power, it is, as past experience shows, certain to break out again ;

(c) If we are to fulfil our responsibility for maintaining peace and promoting prosperity in India, we must get back to the right road. While adhering to the principles of giving qualified Indians an increased share in every branch of the administration, and of fostering and strengthening such indigenous. germs of self-government as are found to exist, we must abandon the idea of "responsible (i.e., democratic) government ";

(d) It follows that the future ideal should be not self-government, which political India interprets as a step to separation, but co-partnership, Great Britain remaining the predominant partner till such time as a spirit of common nationality and citizenship comes into being.

After all, our first duty, as Lord Irwin has quickly realised, is to the 99 per cent. of the people who know little and care less about politics. Their interests have been sadly neglected of late years in the turmoil of politics, and it is time that, while giving politics and politicians their due share of attention, we returned to the more productive field of good administration, from which we have unconsciously strayed.

We have it on the authority of that great student of democracy, De Tocqueville, that " Patriotism and religion are the only two forces in the world which can permanently direct the whole of a body politic to one end." There is as yet no indication of a common patriotism among India's 320 millions, marching with uneven strides through the centuries from the fifth to the twentieth; her nine great religions are not unifying, but dividing forces. The stage is far too vast for any Indian personality or political party to fill. While giving reasonable scope for Indian political progress, let us frankly face the fact that British supremacy alone holds India together, and that such supremacy is justified only by our determination" to administer the government for the benefit of all our subjects resident therein." That was the solemn promise given in Queen Victoria's Proclamation of 1858, and re-affirmed in the preamble to the Reforms Act of 1919. Within the last six years we have not been fulfilling it.

M. F. O'DWYER

DISRUPTIVE TENDENCIES IN THE

AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH

BOTH in the Dominion of Canada and in the Commonwealth

of Australia, movements of a sinister kind, threatening internal disruption, have been steadily increasing in strength during the last few years. Recent reports from Canada indicate the existence in the Maritime Provinces of an influential party whose object is actual secession from the Confederation, and the constitution of a new Dominion. According to an instructive article, entitled "The Political and Economic Situation in Canada," which appeared in the April number of the EDINBURGH REVIEW last year, the genesis of a similar movement is now perceptible in the Western Provinces also. The article reproduces a passage from a speech delivered by Mr. R. A. Hoey, M.P., on January 7th, 1925, at the convention of the United Farmers of Manitoba. After saying that "a frank warning should be issued to the central provinces that the West would not remain indefinitely in Confederation to be dominated by greedy monopolistic influences in Montreal and Toronto," Mr. Hoey added significantly :

If Confederation is to rest on a basis of injustice and discrimination, why should we maintain it? If we refuse to maintain it, we can cut ourselves off, and the East can have all the protection it wants, while the West can have a fiscal policy in conformity with its desires. Confederation cannot be preserved on a basis of equity and justice, why try to preserve the camouflage of a spiritual unity which does not exist?

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Exactly similar questions are now being asked in many parts of the Australian Commonwealth. There West Australia occupies in relation to the comparatively populous south-eastern States a position analogous to that of the Western provinces of Canada in relation to Ontario and Quebec; while the grievances of Tasmania are, generally speaking, identical with those complained of by the inhabitants of the Maritime Provinces of Canada, but intensified by Tasmania's geographical isolation from its politically predominant partners. Resentment against the

greedy and monopolistic influences" exercised over the Federal legislature by Sydney and Melbourne has, indeed, become very strong in all the outlying parts of the Commonwealth, and the chief justification for the coming transfer of the seat of government to Canberra lies in the fact that the change will, in some degree, release Federal politicians from the mischievous importunities and sordid temptations to which they have been exposed in Melbourne during the last twenty-five years. A protectionist environment is never wholesome for a legislative body, and Melbourne is, and has long been, the chief stronghold of protection in Australia. Indeed, the overwhelming political supremacy exercised by the capital cities, where the manufacturing industries are principally carried on, is the prime cause of the present discontent. A condition of things under which two over-grown cities possess a greater share of representation in the most powerful chamber of the Legislature than three States collectively embracing more than one-half of the entire area of a continent is not conducive to good government and social peace. The evil of urbanisation has now reached most dangerous extremes in the Commonwealth, and its politically demoralising effects are becoming only too clearly visible. The capital cities of the Commonwealth at the end of the year 1925 contained altogether, according to official figures, rather more than 2,738,277 inhabitants out of a total of 5,992,084* for the whole Commonwealth. Sydney's population alone was estimated at 1,039,390, and that of Melbourne at 912,130. Unfortunately, the rapidity of the growth of the urban population in Australia seems to be increasing rather than diminishing in comparison with that of the rural districts, and grave trouble must ensue unless the natural equipoise of classes, industries and interests be soon restored.

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For years past the two Australian States which depend most largely on primary industries for their prosperity have suffered severely from the political predominance bestowed by the Federal Constitution on the States where the secondary industries have been chiefly developed. Roughly speaking, the value of manufactured goods produced per head of population is now £30 in Victoria and £25 in New South Wales, but only £17 in West Australia and £15 in Tasmania. A high tariff, therefore, specially

*Figures given in the Quarterly Summary of Australian Statistics, Bulletin, No. 103, March, 1926.

favours the two first-mentioned States; but such a tariff necessarily operates to the disadvantage of States engaged principally in primary production. In obedience to the commands of the omnipotent dual alliance of manufacturers and trade unionists, very high duties have been imposed by Parliament on nearly all the chief requirements of the agricultural, mining, and pastoral industries, which, excepting only the specially favoured sugargrowing industry of Queensland, derive hardly any benefit from the tariff. The farmer has to pay from 30 to 50 per cent. more for everything he needs, from his harvester to his trousers, to enable the Melbourne manufacturer to make high profits and his employees to receive high wages. The Australian mining industry has been subjected to crushing imposts, and its present languishing condition, particularly in the two malcontent States, is mainly to be ascribed to the pernicious effects of the continual scramble for increased advantages at the public expense by the manufacturers supported by the tariff, and by the trade unionists supported by the Arbitration Court. Whenever the latter eccentric tribunal raises wages, a demand is at once made by the manufacturers for increased duties, the result, of course, being correspondingly increased prices. Since it is beyond the power either of the Federal Parliament or of the judges of the Arbitration Court to raise the prices of wheat, wool and metals in foreign markets, the classes engaged in the three vital industries of Australia suffer all the disadvantages resulting from a system of high protection, while not enjoying a single one of its ephemeral benefits.

Feelings of resentment arising from the causes just mentioned, and certain others, became at length so strong in the States of West Australia and Tasmania that the Federal Government was obliged to take action. In November, 1924, a Royal Commission, consisting of three members, was appointed to investigate the grievances complained of by West Australia, and early this year a distinguished Federal civil servant, Sir Nicholas Lockyer, was charged with the duty of inquiring into those of Tasmania. In each case the local government submitted to the commission an official statement setting forth the disabilities imposed on the

*The only duties that really assist the primary producers are those on imported maize and bananas. Trade with Fiji and South Africa has suffered materially through their operation.

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