t discouraging features of the present situation is that
so few among the "moderate" politicians who are known to share and
approve the views expressed by the Princes of India have had the moral
courage to endorse them publicly.

The fearless response made by the ruling Chiefs to Lord Minto's appeal
for advice and support in the repression of sedition conveys at the same
time another lesson which we may well take to heart. The Government of
India consulted them after the danger had arisen and become manifest. Is
it not possible that, had we maintained closer touch with them in the
past, had we appreciated more fully the value of their knowledge and
experience, the danger might never have arisen or would never have
attained such threatening proportions? At any rate, now that the
consciousness of a common danger has drawn Princes and Government closer
together, no time should be lost in establishing some machinery which
would secure for the future a more sustained and intimate co-operation
between them.

CHAPTER XVI

CROSS CURRENTS

The political aspects of Indian unrest have compelled me to dwell
chiefly upon the evil forces which it has generated. But contact with
the West has acted as a powerful ferment for good as well as for evil
upon every class of Indian society that has come more or less directly
under its influence. Were it otherwise we should indeed have to admit
the moral bankruptcy of our civilization. The forces of unrest are made
up of many heterogeneous and often conflicting elements, and even in
their most mischievous manifestations there are sometimes germs of good
which it should be our business to preserve and to develop. Largely as
the classes touched, however superficially, by Western education have of
late years been invaded by a spirit of reaction and of revolt against
all for which that education stands, they have not yet by any means been
wholly conquered by it. It is the breath of the West that has stirred
the spiritual and intellectual activity of which Hindu revivalism and
political disaffection, glorified under the name of Nationalism, are
unfortunately the most prominent and the most recent but not the only
outcome. Another and much healthier outcome is the sense of social duty
and social service which has grown up amongst many educated Indians of
all races and creeds, and amongst none more markedly than amongst the
Hindus. Traditions of mutual helpfulness are indeed deep-rooted i