wherever inner freedom and self-mastery are highly valued, there we have true Swaraj. The people of India have at last realised that the old state of subjection was an intolerable form of slavery, and the desire for Swaraj can no longer be stifled either by a foreign bureaucracy which has lost its moral right to rule nor by those politicians who plead for caution and compromise.
It is, however, more than ever necessary to discover a practical policy which shall be an outward expression of that true independence which is a proof of character and is the outcome of self-respect and discipline.
The present flood of profound love and enthusiasm for the Motherland, which rejoices the heart of all true lovers of India, would be a dangerous symptom it it were not accompanied by wisdom of purpose and steadfast self-sacrifice. Nothing has encouraged me personally more than the action of the students in going out into the villages to work for the people and to serve the sick and uneducated. But enthusiasm alone is apt to wane, and in order that the noble work of these young men of Bengal may bear its fullest fruits it is necessary to find ways in which its effects may be made permanent.
Every contribution to this problem must be welcome, and it is for this reason that I am writing this account of a remarkable book which I feel has a message for India at the present time when her young men are seeking for ways of serving their country in the spirit of free self-surrender. The book is entitled “The National Being: Some thoughts on an Irish Polity.” The author, Mr George Russell, “A. E.”, is one of the noblest living Irishmen. He has done much to help Sir Horace Plunkett in the development of the Co-operative Movement in Agricultural districts of Ireland, and is one of those rare idealists who is at the same time a practical man.
There is such a close parallel between Ireland and India, not only in the fact of her political subjection, but also in the nature of her national problems, that the solution offered by “A. E.” in this book seems as if it were specially written for India. The problems of Ireland are largely agricultural, so are those of India. Her needs, as are those of India also, are the needs of the rural population and not those of the towns.
Early in this book the author deals with the danger among politicians of attempting to model their form of Self-government on lines borrowed from the “Mother of Parliaments”. “A. E.” points out that this danger should be strenuously avoided, for if there is anything in the theory of nationality then each country ought to apply to its national problems its own original principles, as they are from time to time discovered to be fundamental to the character of the nation in question. Further he argues that the parliamentary form of government has proved itself ineffective. There can be no doubt that India has its original contribution to make to the theory and practice of government, and that she has too long believed in government by parliament as truly democratic. She has discovered by bitter experience the hollow futility of Parliamentary rule, and it is time that she ceases to trust in a system which has, even in the country of its birth, proved itself bankrupt and self-condemned. For representative government has ceased to exist in England. G. K. Chesterton has said of it that,
“Parliament has abdicated in favour of the Cabinet, and the Cabinet has abdicated in favour of Mr David Lloyd George.”
This age is often spoken of as the age of Democracy, but as “A. E.” says,
“We have no more a real democracy in the world to-day. Democracy in politics has in no country led to Democracy in its economic life.”
In fact in countries, such as England and America, which boast of their democratic principles, the people are the slaves of an oligarchy. Capitalistic and industrial interests rule. The old Panchayat system of India was more truly democratic in practice than either the republican system of America or the parliamentary system of Great Britain. And it may well be that the new form of Government in
