Page:Gregg - Gandhiism versus socialism.pdf/16

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will create and maintain their own amount of trustworthiness by their own quality and quantity of service.

When Gandhi left prison in 1924, gave up politics and devoted himself entirely to social and economic public service, many British politicians said: “Gandhi has shot his bolt. He will no longer be a force in politics.” But his work was building up an immense fund of confidence among the masses. When in 1930 he called upon them—drew upon this fund of moral credit—the world was astounded at the response. Who were the greater politicians and statesmen, the British or Gandhi?

Thus we have evidence that Gandhi’s program, if fully carried out by individuals everywhere, will result in constructive work for the poor in villages and cities every where. It will generate immense funds of mutual trust and harmony among and between all groups, classes and com munities, and thus provide the foundation for a finer, wealthier and greater nation. This explains the remark made by some one that what the Indian National Congress now wants is not leaders but workers. The program lays stress upon the importance of village life. In small groups people can readily know each other well, and mutual trust is easier and more prevalent. In the villages, where 90 per cent of the population of India lives, the traditions of intergroup service and barter and payment in kind are still strong and therefore this new form of trust will be understood and used to its full worth. Thus Gandhi’s full program will tend to alter or at least to supplement in India that part of the capitalistic money system which tends to canalize all trust into the form of money credit and tries to put that in the control of financiers and governments. Money, now the most powerful of all modern symbols and schemes of value, will be weakened and will be corrected or supplemented by symbols, values and modes of activity that are nearer to human realities. Money tokens will