But the present crisis is too acute to allow of waiting for a change of heart. Upon our immediate action will depend the terms under which we must maintain our position in India: whether we are to hold the new spirit fairly on our side, and to cooperate with it for the progress of the country in enlightenment and self-government; or whether we are to have our rule confronted by impenetrable resentment, and our best efforts thwarted by indifference or suspicion. In any case, India has a long and bitter road to travel. The gulf between her educated and uneducated classes is wider even than in our own country. She has many divisions of thought, and caste, and race to overcome. But, as to the growth of her new spirit, we need have no fear. It is one of the most hopeful signs of our hopeful time. Every act of injustice on our part, and every attempt at political suppression, have only promoted India’s sense of unity and hastened her progress in self-reliance. If injustice and suppression continue, their effect will be the same. Whatever course our action may now take, the new spirit has already breathed a fresh life into large classes of the Indian peoples, and it will continue to afford a high motive for self-devotion, and for the moral courage and love of freedom in which the Indian character has hitherto been lacking. For India herself the present unrest holds out a promise of the highest possibilities, no matter how much she may suffer in realizing them. But for us the brief interval left for decision is momentous. On our decision it will depend whether, in contempt of the freedom we have with such obstinate labour secured for ourselves, we shall sink, step by step, from suppression into persecution, and from persecution into atrocities that now we should shudder at; or whether we shall display strength enough to welcome the spirit of freedom and nationality which we have done so much to create, and strength enough to advance with it hand-in-hand for the furtherance of India’s welfare as a self-respecting country, and so to redeem our reputation for the love of a freedom which others may enjoy, as we enjoy it. FOOTNOTES: [72] This subject of “moral poverty” was treated in a paper Prof. C. F. Andrews of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, read before the Pan-Anglican Congress in London (1908), and published in “The Indian Review” for June. The success of Prof. Rudra, a Bengali economist and historian, as Principal of that College, with a staff that includes First Class Cambridge men, one of them a Fellow of his College, is one of the many disproofs of the theory that Indians are incapable of initiative and leadership. Even Mohammedan men of learning are glad to serve under him gratuitously. [73] See Introduction, p. 10. INDEX Abkari, excise, 121 Act, Land Alienation, 2; Official Secrets, 4; Universities, 4 Adamson, Sir Harvey, 119-171 Afghanistan, agreement with Russia about, 24 Agnew, Mr., Deputy Commissioner, 18