flexible organisations of democratic
Peoples. They must be proved failures before the world, so that the
glamour of superficial successes may be destroyed for ever. They have
had their day and their place in evolution, and have done their
educative work. Now they are out-of-date, unfit for survival, and must
vanish away.

When Great Britain sprang to arms, it was in defence of the freedom of a
small nation, guaranteed by treaties, and the great principles she
proclaimed electrified India and the Dominions. They all sprang to her
side without question, without delay; they heard the voice of old
England, the soldier of Liberty, and it thrilled their hearts. All were
unprepared, save the small territorial army of Great Britain, due to the
genius and foresight of Lord Haldane, and the readily mobilised army of
India, hurled into the fray by the swift decision of Lord Hardinge. The
little army of Britain fought for time; fought to stop the road to
Paris, the heart of France; fought, falling back step by step, and
gained the time it fought for, till India's sons stood on the soil of
France, were flung to the front, rushed past the exhausted regiments who
cheered them with failing breath, charged the advancing hosts, stopped
the retreat, and joined the British army in forming that unbreakable
line which wrestled to the death through two fearful winters--often,
these soldiers of the tropics, waist-deep in freezing mud--and knew no
surrender.

India, with her clear vision, saw in Great Britain the champion of
Freedom, in Germany the champion of Despotism. And she saw rightly.
Rightly she stood by Great Britain, despite her own lack of freedom and
the coercive legislation which outrivalled German despotism, knowing
these to be temporary, because un-English, and therefore doomed to
destruction; she spurned the lure of German gold and rejected German
appeals to revolt. She offered men and money; her educated classes, her
Vakils, offered themselves as Volunteers, pleaded to be accepted. Then
the never-sleeping distrust of Anglo-India rejected the offer, pressed
for money, rejected men. And, slowly, educated India sank back,
depressed and disheartened, and a splendid opportunity for knitting
together the two Nations was lost.

Early in the War I ventured to say that the War could not end until
England recognised that autocracy and bureaucracy must perish in India
as well as in Europe. The good Bishop of Calcutta, with a courage w