It will be seen that the Secondary Reasons for the demand for Home Rule
are of the weightiest nature in themselves, and show the necessity for
its grant if India is to escape from a poverty which threatens to lead
to National bankruptcy, as it has already led to a short life-period and
a high death rate, to widespread disease, and to a growing exhaustion of
the soil. That some radical change must be brought about in the
condition of our masses, if a Revolution of Hunger is to be averted, is
patent to all students of history, who also know the poverty of the
Indian masses to-day. This economic condition is due to many causes, of
which the inevitable lack of understanding by an alien Government is
only one. A system of government suitable to the West was forced on the
East, destroying its own democratic and communal institutions and
imposing bureaucratic methods which bewildered and deteriorated a people
to whom they were strange and repellent. The result is not a matter for
recrimination, but for change. An inappropriate system forced on an
already highly civilised people was bound to fail.
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