The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1909. BRITISH RULE IN INDIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2447, 11 March 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1909. BRITISH RULE IN INDIA.

In a speech delivered on January 18tli, on the occasion of the diamond, jubilee of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, President Roosevelt paid high praise to the British for their methods of rule .in India. “In India (said the Preident) we encounter the most colossal etxample history affords of the most successful administration by men of -European blood of a thickly populated region in another continent. It is the. greatest feat of the kind that has been performed since the break-up of the Roman Empire. Indeed, it is a- greater feat than was performed under the Roman Empire. . Unquestionably mistakes have been made; it wouM indicate qualities literally superhuman if so gigantic a task had been accomplished without mistakes. It as easy enough to point -out shortcomings.; but the fact remains that the suceesful administration of the Indian' Empire by the English lias been one off the. most notable and most adSmirable achievements, of tlio white race during the past two. centuries. On the whole it has been tor the immeasurable benefit of the natives of India-themselves.

“England doe not draw a penny from India for English purposes; she spends for India the revenues raised' in India; and they aro spent for the benefit -of the Indians themselves. If the English control were now .withdrawn from India the whole peninsula would become a chaos of bloodshed and violence; all the weaker peoples and tlhe most industrious and law-abicl_ ing would be plundered and forced to submit to indescribable wrong and oppression ; and the only beneficiaries among the natives would be the lafyless, the violent, and the. bloodthirsty.. “But the great' salient fact is thatthe presence of the’ English in India, like the presence of the. English in Egypt and the Sudan, of ,tho French in Algiers,, of the Russians in Turkcistan, of the Germans in South-West and East Africa—and of-' all those people's and of other, wifi to peoples 1 ’ in many other places—has been for tllC •advantage of mankind.’’' y. • ' *• - ■ ■

Commenting on this utterance the London “Times” says:—“The tribute which President Roosevelt has paid to our rule in India is grateful to us, because we believe it to be deserved. There is no achievement of which we are prouder than of this—‘the greatest feat of the kind that has been performed since the break-up of tlic Roman Empire.’ We have long been conscious what a monument it is to our highest qualities as a,, nation—to our justice, to our humanity, and to our power to bear rule. But it is now to m to have its greatness, moral and political, proclaimed in unhesitating accents by the Chief-Magistrate of the people whose esteem arid good opinion we prize beyond those of any other foreigners.”'