“The government of a people by itself has a meaning and a reality; but such a thing as government of one people by another does not, and cannot exist. One people may keep another for its own use, a place to make money in, a human cattle-farm to be worked for the profits of its own inhabitants. “It is an inherent condition of human affairs that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others, can make it safe or salutary to tie up their hands. By their own hands only can any positive and durable improvement of their circumstances in life be worked out.”[37] Mr. Wm. Digby remarks on this account: “Thus England’s unbounded prosperity owes its origin to her connection with India, whilst it has, largely, been maintained--disguisedly--from the same source, from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present time. ‘Possibly, since the world began, no investment has ever yielded the profits reaped from the Indian plunder’ (Brooks Adams). “What was the extent of the wealth thus wrung from the East Indies? No one has been able to reckon adequately, as no one has been in a position to make a correct tally of the treasure exported from India. Estimates have been made which vary from five hundred million pounds sterling to nearly one billion pounds sterling. Probably between Plassey (1757) and Waterloo the last-mentioned sum was transferred from Indian hoards to English banks.... Modern England has been made great by Indian wealth, wealth never proffered by its possessor, but always taken by the might and skill of the stronger. The difference between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries is simply that the amount received now is immensely larger and is obtained ‘according to law’....”[38] Let me quote Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the “nightingale of India,” as to the effect of British rule in India: “Our arts have degenerated, our literatures are dead, our beautiful industries have perished, our valor is done, our fires are dim, our soul is sinking.” All this has actually happened. Yet the world believes that England’s mission in India is unselfish and holy, that she is there to save the souls of a demoralized people and to educate an ignorant and unprogressive nation. The nations have been made to believe that without her influence there would be social and religious tyranny in India, and that the weak would be left without a champion. The facts, however, read differently. The people are poor and weak. They are to a degree fanatic, and local conflicts occur occasionally between religious groups. But do the English rulers of India prevent these divisions or do they foster them? This is the important question.