Indian Independence
crushing burden of military expenditure, is growing steadily worse. The Esher Report, which is already being acted upon in important details, shows the limit of Indian helplessness. A military budget which exhausts nearly half the national income in a country so desperately poor as India, reveals still further the deadlock reached in Indian affairs.
I have confessed that, for very many years, I had still kept fast, as an anchor to my mental thinking, the belief in a purely normal and gradual process of development,—a belief which might be taken as coinciding with that of the Indian National Liberals to-day. I have had sympathy with those thoughtful and patriotic Indian leaders, whose courage and integrity I had learnt deeply to respect, —men like Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Mr. Paranjpye, Mr. Sastri, Mr. Jinnah and Dr. Sapru, to mention a few names only,—who maintained the belief that regeneration could come slowly to India, step by step, chiefly by appeals to
