INDIA: If It Be War--

"If It Be War—"

Two little milch goats stood on a pier at Bombay, last week, bleating in a melancholy rain. Over the edge of the tossing Arabian Sea a boat was dropping out of sight, headed into the teeth of a monsoon. Aboard the boat were 27 discouraged Indian delegates bound for the Federal Structures Committee meeting—a preliminary to the second Round Table conference on Indian Affairs—to be held in distant London on Sept. 5. What dampened the spirits of the delegates more thoroughly than the dripping sky was the fact that the two little goats, and their owner who had planned to drink their milk in England, were not among their company. At the eleventh hour, strange, quibblesome little Mahatma Gandhi, who rules the largest (Nationalist) party in India and without whose support it will be virtually impossible for the London conference to effect its aims, had refused to sail. Another monsoon threatened the political jungle of India.

St. Gandhi's latest grievance against the British Raj was this: In return for the Nationalists dropping their civil disobedience campaign, one of the things retired Viceroy Baron Irwin promised was that the Government would not coerce impoverished natives to pay taxes, would force no evictions (TIME, March 2 et seq.). When the Mahatma learned that there had been coercive tax collections in the district of Gujarat, he protested. Viceroy Lord Willingdon had two pat answers: 1) that there had been no coercion on the part of Government agents; 2) that 95% of the Gujarat revenue had already been collected, proving that Gujarat was able to pay its tax bill. Lord Willingdon saw no way of acceding to St. Gandhi's demand that the Government refund the disputed taxes, but he strongly urged that St. Gandhi "would not allow any disputes over present details to prevent your serving India by participating in the momentous discussion of the future constitution which may determine the destiny of the country."

Once more cast in the role of peacemaker, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, the intermediary in the Gandhi-Irwin discussions who distinguished himself at the last Round Table conference, rushed to Bombay. He shook the little brown man awake from his mattress, argued with him all night. It was no use. When the ship sailed two days later for London, St. Gandhi had already departed for Ahmadabad where he declared he would remain "until the Government puts me in prison." There, addressing his followers, he sounded an ominous note: "Do not expect anything from London. If it be peace, do not disturb it. If it be war, the people will not be slow to respond." Apprehensive of a return of the civil disobedience campaign and boycott on British goods, shares and commodities dipped responsively in Indian markets. At Cawnpore on the eve of the Viceroy's visit, four men with an automobile full of bombs and firearms were arrested, suspected of plotting the Viceroy's assassination.