ill
be a disaster if we have not acquired the ability to protect ourselves
against robbers and thieves. But I suggest that when we are ready to
call out the military and the police on an extensive scale we would find
ourselves in a position to defend ourselves. If the police and the
military resign from patriotic motives, I would certainly expect them to
perform the same duty as national volunteers, not has hirelings but as
willing protectors of the life and liberty of their countrymen. The
movement of non-co-operation is one of automatic adjustment. If the
Government schools are emptied, I would certainly expect national
schools to come into being. If the lawyers as a whole suspended
practice, they would devise arbitration courts and the nation will have
expeditions and cheaper method of setting private disputes and awarding
punishment to the wrong-doer. I may add that the Khilafat Committee is
fully alive to the difficulty of the task and is taking all the
necessary steps to meet the contingencies as they arise.

Regarding the leaving of civil employment, no danger is feared, because
no one will leave his employment, unless he is in a position to find
support for himself and family either through friends or otherwise.

Disapproval of the proposed withdrawal of students betrays, in my
humble opinion, lack of appreciation of the true nature of
non-co-operation. It is true enough that we pay the money wherewith our
children are educated. But, when the agency imparting the education has
become corrupt, we may not employ it without partaking of the agents,
corruption. When students leave schools or colleges I hardly imagine
that the teachers will fail to perceive the advisability of themselves
resigning. But even if they do not, money can hardly be allowed to count
where honour or religion are at the stake.

As to the boycott of the councils, it is not the entry of the Moderates
or any other persons that matters so much as the entry of those who
believe in non-co-operation. You may not co-operate at the top and
non-co-operate at the bottom. A councillor cannot remain in the council
and ask the _gumasta_ who cleans the council-table to resign.

MR. PENNINGTON'S OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

I gladly publish Mr. Pennington's letter with its enclosure just as I
have received them. Evidently Mr. Pennington is not a regular reader of
'Young India,' or he would have noticed that no one has condemned mob
outrages more than I have.