ghtly typify the character of British rule,
must also typify the character of British rulers; and that community of
character expressed in their institutions and worked into the fibre
of their life may be a stronger bond between nations than any mere
considerations of interest. Educated Indians would find it hard to explain
exactly why, on the outbreak of the war, they found themselves eager to
help to defend British rule. But it seems clear that what stirred them most
was not any consideration of English as against German culture, or any
merely material calculations, but a sudden realisation of the character of
that new India which the union between Great Britain and India, between
Western civilisation and Eastern culture, is bringing into being, and a
sense of the indispensable need for the continuance of that partnership.[1]

[Footnote 1: The reader will again understand that it is British aims
rather than British achievements which are spoken of. That British rule
is indispensable to Indian civilisation is indeed a literal fact to which
Indian opinion bears testimony; and it is the conduct and character of
generations of British administrators which have helped to bring this sense
of partnership about. But individual Englishmen in India are often far
from understanding, or realising in practice, the purpose of British rule.
Similarly, the growth of a sense of Indian nationality, particularly in the
last few years, is a striking and important fact. But it would be unwise to
underestimate the gigantic difficulties with which this growing national
consciousness has to contend. The greatest of these is the prevalence
of caste-divisions, rendering impossible the free fellowship and social
intercourse which alone can be the foundation of a sense of common
citizenship. Apart from this there are, according to the census,
forty-three races in India, and twenty-three languages in ordinary use.]

It is just this intimate union between different nations for the
furtherance of the tasks of civilisation which it seems so difficult
for the German mind to understand. "Culture," with all its intimate
associations, its appeal to language, to national history and traditions,
and to instinctive patriotism, is so much simpler and warmer a conception:
it seems so much easier to fight for Germany than to fight for Justice in
the abstract, or for Justice embodied in the British Commonwealth. That is
why even serious German thinkers, blinded