Malaviya, Madan Mohan, A criticism of Montagu-Chelmsford proposals of Indian constitutional reform

(Allahabad :  Printed by C.Y. Chintamani,  [1918])

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able of representing the illiterate masses as our friend
the official.

A Contrast—Progress in Japan.

20. It is regrettable to have to note that the British
electorate and its responsible agent, the bureaucracy,
which has held absolute power during the period in
question has responded but little to the representations
of the educated Indian. In the same period ithe Japa¬
nese, who were in not half so good a position as India
so far as material resources and administrative organi¬
zation were concerned, have achieved enormous pro¬
gress ; they have made education universal in their
country, given technical and scientific education to
their youth to fit them to play their part successfully
in every branch—civil, military and naval —of the
activity of a civilized country, developed their indus¬
tries,—built up their manufactures, promoted national
banking and credit,—enhanced the prosperity and
strength of their people, and raised their country
to the position of a first class world-power whose
manufactures are pouring into Europe and India,
whose steamers are carrying on its own export and
import trade, and whose friendship has been of incal¬
culable value to the British Government in the present
crisis. Educated Indians feel that if the British elec¬
torate and Parliament had agreed to admit 'them
to a share of power as they asked for in 1886, they
too would have been able to achieve a considerable
degree of similar progress in their country, and they
are naturally anxious that that power should not be
withheld any longer from them. The failure of the
bureaucracy to do much of what it should have done
to build up the national strength and prosperity of the
Indian people during the last thirty-three years, in spite
of the repeated  representations of educated  Indians,
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