Canada and India
A Journal of Information and Conciliation.
"THE STRONGEST Of all british bonDS ARE KNOWLEDGE and SYMPATHY."
VOL. II.
Poem
Principle of Unity. India
India National Congress.
Canadia
Volanta Society
MARCH, 1916
Canada India Committee Great Britain
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The Hindu University.
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To India
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Australia and India
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Indian Drama.
No. 1
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Before beginning and without end,
As space eternal and as surety sure,
fixed a Power divine, which moves to good, Only its laws endure.
-Edwin Arnold.
Much suffering shall cleanse thee;
But thou, through the flood,
Shall win to Salvation,
To Beauty through blood.
-Robert Bridges.
Oh, doubt not, wrong, oppression, and violence and
tears,
The ignorance and anguish and folly of the years,
Must pass and leave a mind
More sane, a soul more kind,
As the slow ages shall evolve a loftier mankind, When over lust and carnage the great white peace
appears.
By sea and plain and mountain will spread the larger
creed,-
The love that knows no border, the bond that knows
no breed;
For the little word of right
Must grow with truth and might,
Till monster-hearted Mammon and his sycophants
take flight,
And vex the world no longer with rapine and with
greed.
-Bliss Carman.
Principle of Unity.
Whatever new wisdom, whatever vision of the weak spot in civilization is coming to ourselves as a result of the war, we may be very sure that the same wisdom, the same vision is coming to our enemies. Realizing this, may we not believe that beneath the fierce and armed oppositions of the hour a pro- founder principle of unity is at work?--Hibbert Journal.
INDIA.
NATIONAL WEEK.
Christmas week in India brings together such a large number of All-India organizations for their annual meetings that it has earned the title of National Week. Bombay was the great centre of these activities for 1915, and there, in the last week of December, was held a series of gatherings of great import to India. First in importance stood the National Congress and the All-India Muslim League. Others were the Social and Industrial Conferences, the All-India Hindu Conference, the Theistic Confer- ence, the Arya Samaj Anniversary, the All-India Temperance Conference, the Theosophical Conven- tion and the newly formed Commercial Congress and Press Association.
THE NATIONAL CONGRESS. The thirtieth session of the National Congress met in a huge structure capable of holding 10,000 people, which had been erected for the occasion. It was attended by 2,250 delegates from all parts of India, the largest attendance on record since this national body first began, in 1885, to voice the hopes and aspi- rations of the Indian people. There were also 5,000 visitors and 750 lady delegates and visitors.
The hall was furnished with electric lights and fans, and profusely decorated with flags and mottoes expressing loyalty to the King-Emperor and devo- tion to the Motherland, such as "God Bless the King-Emperor, Protector of India's Rights,” “India Aspires to Have Her Right Place in the Empire," "In the Service of the Motherland," etc. The dec- orative colors of the hall were yellow and black- the black in commemoration of the two beloved patriots who had passed away during the year— Mr. Gokhale and Sir Pherozshah Mehta-whose per- traits were conspicuously placed. Picturesqueness was added by the variety of costumes from the dif- ferent Provinces.
The president and a number of delegates from the All-India Muslim League were on the platform. There were also well-known patriots, such as Gandhi of South African fame, Surendranath Bannerji from Bengal, Pandit Malavya from the United Provinces, and there was Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, “the beautiful and loved singing bird of India." Men and women, Parsees, Mohammedans, Hindus and Christians, from North, East, West and South, had gathered in thousands as Indians, under the flag of one nation- ality and having one goal in view-"Self-Rule With- in the British Empire.
""
The proceedings began with a patriotic song of welcome by a choir of Indian girls. The address of welcome was by Mr. D. E. Wacha, well known for his long political experience, his wide knowledge of Indian affairs and deep study of economics. Sir S. P. Sinha, a successful lawyer, who has been a Cabinet Minister in the Viceroy's Executive Council, gave a scholarly and comprehensive Presidential address dealing with questions especially vital to his country at the present time.
LOYAL RESOLUTIONS.
The first three resolutions passed were those of loyalty. Of this phase of the proceedings, St. Nihal Singh writes thus: "The session of the Indian Na- tional Congress that has just closed in Bombay has given fresh proof of India's desire to do her utmost to aid the British Empire during this crisis. Thou- sands of men, differing from one another in race and creed and gathered from all the Presidencies and Provinces comprising the Indian Empire, have resolved with perfect unanimity to support the British arms by all means possible and at all hazard. The keynote of many important addresses was an appeal to Britain to employ a far larger number of Indian soldiers than she is doing at present."
Resolutions also were passed unanimously in re- gard to the Arms Act, the Press Act, and the Swa- deshi Movement, and for the military training of Indians, the Abolition of Indentured Labor and the Separation of Executive and Judicial Functions.
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