CANADA AND INDIA 628
66
Vol. 1.
A Journal of Information and Conciliation.
The Strongest of all British Bonds are Knowledge and Sympathy."
Poem (Whitman)
The Unity of Civilization..
India
Canada
Great Britain
OCTOBER, 1915
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9
9, 10
Indian National Congress.13, 14 Indian Aspirations to-day.. 15 Dr. J. C. Bose at Calcutta.. 15 Canada (Poem)
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16
10, 11, 12 12, 13 India (Poem by Tagore)... 13
In this broad Earth of ours,
Education of Girls....、、、 What Friends May Do.... 16
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe within its central heart Nestles the seed Perfection.
By every life a share, or more or less, None born but it is born-concealed or unconcealed,
the seed is waiting.
Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow, Out of the bad majority--the varied, countless
frauds of men and States,
Electric, antiseptic yet-cleaving, suffusing all, Only the good is universal.
All, all for Immortality!
Love, like the light, silently wrapping all! Nature's amelioration blessing all!
The blossoms, fruits of ages-orchards divine and
certain;
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual
Images ripening.
-Walt Whitman.
THE UNITY OF CIVILIZATION.
Mr. F. S. Marvin in the Hibbert Journal writes: "If we assume, as the Stoics assumed, as the Chris- tian Church has always preached, as the greatest modern prophets have foreseen from Pascal and Turgot, from Kant and Goethe to this day, that man is born for ultimate unity and that all real pro- gress consists in an approach to it, then a clear prin- ciple appears of which we can understand the roots and by which we may judge the tendency and the validity of all the isolated movements in history.
And we shall see that beneath the turmoil of conflict the outbreaks of savagery and the just cer- tainty of heavy retribution there are uniting forces still at work, stronger than ever in the world, and a closer texture of international unity in science, commerce, and the arts of life, which may be torn, but cannot be destroyed."
Dr. J. Chunder Bose, of Calcutta, speaking of the results of his world-famed scientific experiments in the borderland of physics and physiology, and which have opened up a new field in scientific research and have demonstrated the unity of all matter, says:
"It was when I came upon the mute witness of these self-made records, and perceived in them one plan of a pervading unity that bears within it all things: the mote that quivers in ripples of light, the teeming life upon our earth, and the radiant sun that shines above us-it was then that I understood for the first time a little of that message proclaimed by my ancestors on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago:
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"They who see but one in all the changing mani- festations of this universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth-to none else, unto none else.''
No. 2
INDIA, CANADA, AND THE EMPIRE.
These are days of heart searchings, in spite of the unwonted calls to action. Pulpit, press, and private individuals are alike sifting causes and asking ques- tions. Why are Christian nations plunged into war in this 20th century of the Christian era? Why are their wealth, knowledge of science, power of organization-fruits of human industry and experi- ence which wisely employed might make this world very fair-now turned to the uses of destruction, senseless destruction, of human life and human achievement? How was the point reached when this could happen? Is it not that the teaching and ordinary life were separated, that it was said prac- tically, and often actually, that they must be separ- ated? Thus has been built up the structure which now is crumbling, nay, violently falling, into ruins because its foundations are unequal to the weight imposed. Is there any salvation for the nations but to dig deeper until they have reached that basic principle of the unity of humanity which has been taught by all the great teachers and great religions of the world?
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also the same to them," is an in- junction of the Christ. Can we call a civilization Christian which ignores it in the general manage- ment of its material concerns, which puts in its place the practical dictum of competition, "Get as much as you can for as little as you can give"? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna also teaches the evil of sel- fishness in different words: "The impious who dress food for their own sakes, they verily eat sin.'
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It is useless to say, as the West has long said, this is religion and not business. If there is one thing which this terrible war is proving, it is that religion -spiritual laws-and the common business of this life cannot be separated without an awful aftermath of suffering and destruction.
The time is one of self-revelation to individuals and nations. It also holds the glorious opportunity for self-realization along higher and truer lines of thought and action based upon the "old Wisdom."
INDIA.
RECIPROCITY WITH THE COLONIES.
Reciprocity with the colonies is a topic of para- mount importance to which very rightly at the last session of the Indian National Congress considerable attention was devoted. The United Provinces Con- gress Committee has submitted a representation on the subject to the Government of India. It be- hooves every Indian citizen to give careful thought to this question.
Theoretically I do not care for the second best. But practical politics mean concessions, and I quite realize that, if the self-governing colonies do not admit freely men from the Mother Country, they are not likely to concede to the Indian an unrestricted right of emigration. It is also easy to understand that, if we agree to send only a limited number of our men under prescribed conditions to these colonies, they may admit them. But will that secure to us all that we are fairly entitled to? What has embittered feelings very much in the past is the dif- ferential treatment accorded to the Indian. Other Orientals are treated better. Being a member of
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