army as a
reserve force available for Imperial purposes; that it has
uniformly detached European regiments from the garrison
of India to take part in Imperial wars whenever it has been
found necessary or convenient to do so; and, more than this,
that it has drawn not less freely upon the native army of
India, towards the maintenance of which it contributes
nothing, to aid in contests outside of India with which the
Indian Government has had little or no concern.

All these are, however, but secondary issues to the much larger one
which the creation of the new Councils must tend to bring to the front
with all the force of the increased weight given to them by the recent
reforms. For that issue will raise the whole principle of our fiscal
relations with India, if it results in a demand for the protection of
Indian industries against the competition of imported manufactures by an
autonomous tariff. It must be remembered that the desire for Protection
is no new thing in India. Whether we like it or not, whether we be Free
Traders or Tariff Reformers, we have to reckon with the fact that almost
every Indian is a Protectionist at heart, whatever he may be in theory.
The Indian National Congress has hitherto fought shy of making
Protection a prominent plank of its platform, lest it should offend its
political friends in England. Yet as far back as 1902 a politician as
careful as Mr. Surendranath Banerjee to avoid in his public utterances
anything that might alienate British Radicalism, declared in his
inaugural address at the 18th session of the Congress that "if we had a
potential voice in the government of our own country there would be no
question as to what policy we should follow. We would unhesitatingly
adopt a policy of Protection." This note has been accentuated since the
political campaign in favour of militant Swadeshism, and when English
Radicals sympathize with the _Swadeshi_ boycott as a protest against
the Partition of Bengal, they would do well to recollect that, before
Indian audiences, the most violent forms of _Swadeshi_ are constantly
defended on the ground that British industrial greed, of which Free
Trade is alleged to be the highest expression, has left no other weapons
to India for the defence of her material interests. Mr. Lala Lajpat Rai,
who has the merit of often speaking with great frankness, addressed
himself once in the following terms to "those estimable gentlemen in
Ind