e regretting that feeling and the prejudice that often mingles with
it, let those interested in India at least understand the feeling. It is
the natural outcome of the new national consciousness. Even educated
natives are in general too ignorant of India, past and present, to
appreciate the debt of India to Britain, and how great a share of the
administration of India they themselves--the educated Indians--actually
enjoy. For every subordinate executive position in the vast imperial
organisation is held by a native of India, and "almost the entire
original jurisdiction of Civil Justice has passed out of the hands of
Europeans into those of Indians."[42] But the anti-British bias, let us
on our part understand. The attitude of educated Indians to the British
Government of India, and to Anglo-Indians as a body, is that of a
political opposition, ignorant of many pertinent facts, divided from the
party in power by racial and religious differences, and with no visible
prospect of succeeding to office. The National Congress is the permanent
Opposition in India. A permanent Opposition cannot but be biassed, and
its press will seize at everything that will justify the feeling of
hostility.

[Sidenote: Illustrations of the bias: Famines.]

An outstanding illustration of the anti-British spirit is the frequently
expressed opinion that the Indian famines are a result of British rule,
or at all events have been aggravated thereby. The reasoning is that
India is being financially drained to the amount of between thirty and
forty millions sterling a year, and that the people of India have thus
no staying fund to keep them going when famine comes. Having said this,
we ought perhaps to quote the opinion (1903), on the other side, of Mr.
A.P. Sinnett, ex-editor of one of the leading Indian newspapers, and, as
a theosophist, very unlikely to be prejudiced in favour of Britain. He
insists "that loss of life in famine time is infinitesimal compared with
what it used to be." "As for impoverishment," he goes on to say, "we
have poured European capital into the country by scores of millions for
public works and the establishment of factories, and we have enriched
India instead of impoverishing it to an extent that makes the Home
Charges--of which such agitators as Digby always exaggerate the
importance--a mere trifle in the balance." Lord Curzon's statement of
three or four years back was that there were eight hundred and
twenty-five crores