Their opposition, we know, is a
danger to the movement towards Freedom, and even when they have failed
to impress England--as they are evidently failing--they will try to
minimise or smother here the reforms which a statute has embodied. The
Minto-Morley reforms were thus robbed of their usefulness, and a similar
attempt, if not guarded against, will be made when the Congress-League
Scheme is used as the basis for an Act.
The Re-action on England.
We cannot leave out of account here the deadly harm done to England
herself by this un-English system of rule in India. Mr. Hobson has
pointed out:
As our free Self-Governing Colonies have furnished hope,
encouragement, and leading to the popular aspirations in Great
Britain, not merely by practical success in the art of
Self-Government, but by the wafting of a spirit of freedom and
equality, so our despotically ruled Dependencies have ever
served to damage the character of our people by feeding the
habits of snobbish subservience, the admiration of wealth and
rank, the corrupt survivals of the inequalities of
feudalism.
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