Secretaries) for their infringements of the principles of Magna Carta. The film rights of such a scene alone ought to be worth something.

But bishops having proved to be such hardened and reckless law-breakers, it is to general education one must turn. It is comforting to reflect that two countries at least do perform their plain duty in teaching the elements of their respective constitutions to scholars in primary schools-France and the United States. In the British Isles an elementary scholar who could recite by heart even the four fundamental clauses of Magna Carta would be worth going miles to hear. Perhaps a dozen members of an average House of Commons (apart from lawyers) might be possible starters in such a contest, but we doubt it. The Defence of the Realm Act was evidently passed by a set of men contemptuously and invincibly ignorant of their country's dear-bought liberties.

An inverse process seems to be taking place in India. There being presumably no liberties to be taught, the Rowlatt Legislation appears to the official mind to be a suitable mental food, according to the letter of Mr. C. F. Andrews, which was published in India' of August 22, 1919. May we say politely that the Rowlatt Legislation is not

quite a model course in civics? Nevertheless, even this gallant adventure in constitutionalism (or its negation) is more than is attempted in some schools here, where the writer has found flourishing in full vigour such ideas as that Adam Bede and the Venerable Bede were one and the same person, and that Columbus was a relative of Columba.

Indians do well to insist upon the transfer of the whole of the subject of education to their direction, and we would urge with all emphasis that, whatever be not taught, the elements of personal freedom should from a part of the curriculum of every school, however elementary, and be an irreducible minimum in those adult village schools whose establishment Sir Michael Sadler so well urged as a concomitant of the franchise and the reforms.

We have already mentioned the other specific for the preservation of liberty: definite laws imposing definite penalties on judges or other officials infringing upon civil liberties. The Habeas Corpus. Acts, although not yet perfect, are good types of what is meant. A remedy for the wronged person and a punishment for the wrongdoer (official, judicial, or otherwise) are alike necessary, official human nature being the sorry thing it is beneath every sky.

succes

The last and most glorious necessity is a sion of men or women who will realise freedom in the soul and be prepared to suffer to gain and retain it. There is, fortunately, every reason to conclude from India's past and present roll of heroes that this boon will continue to be hers. But a widespread diffusion of constitutional information and definite remedial laws may prevent much suffering and breaking-up of their noble lives, so it is well to strive to achieve these things. For India, as for every other country, one of the prices of liberty will be eternal vigilance. It is urgently necessary to obtain the inclusion of a Declaration of Rights in the Government of India Bill. Recent events have proved it beyond all question. It is a thousand times more necessary that, when obtained, it must be guarded as the heart's blood of the new Indian Constitution. August 29, 1919.

E

VI

TRUSTEES AND TRIMMERS

WHILE the world lasts there will always be two types of workers in the political field. The one type has fixed principles and steers his course by them. The other is the Trimmer. The most that can be said for the latter was put at its best in the book bearing that name as title by Viscount Halifax, whose own life furnished so complete an example of the political ruin in which the Trimmer's career ultimately dissolves. The worst lives for ever in Dryden's immortal lines upon the veering Shaftesbury, who

Restless, unfixed in principles or place,

Unpleased in power, impatient in disgrace,
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,

Was everything by starts and nothing long. No doubt the man who is guided by fixed principles may have the defects of his qualities and the disadvantages of his relative immovability. But friend and foe must admit that stability, endurance and loyal trusteeship are gains so great that one can afford to pay this price to secure them.

One is moved to these reflections by a perusal of various comments furnished as news to the Indian

Press which have been passed upon the official delegates of the Indian National Congress, and which centre chiefly upon its two spokesmen before the Joint Select Committee.

To cite these comments in detail and to trace their authorship would be a task as wearying to the reader as distaseful to the writer, but it is no unfair summary of them to say that they are illnatured emanations from the Moderate camp, and their obvious intention is to discount in advance of their return the work done by the Congress Delegates in this country. That conclusion is all the more inevitable in that the Moderates describe each others' work and performances in the most glowing way, and in almost the same breath as that in which they disparage the Congress Delegation. No witnesses made such good impressions upon the Joint Select Committee as the Moderates. They themselves say so! For mutual admiration exuberantly expressed one need only turn to the pages of the various Moderate organs, wherein each takes up the wondrous tales of the others' statesmanship, and miraculously delicate powers of negotiation. We much regret that independent testimony in the principal organs of the English Press to this effect has hitherto escaped our notice. It is indeed