most of
them the idea of ever having to take orders from an Indian superior
officer, as out of the feelings, even if they be mere prejudices, of the
existing class of native officers and of the rank and file who belong to
the old and have no liking for the new India. Most of the politically
minded Indians are beginning, too, to measure the demands made upon
India for her military contribution to the needs of the Empire by those
that are made upon the self-governing Dominions. "We are quite willing,"
they say, "to bear our share of the military burdens of the Empire as
equal partners in it, and"--as some at any rate add--"we recognise that
in view of our geographical position, which lays us almost alone amongst
the Dominions open to the dangers of invasion on our land frontiers, we
require a larger army for our own defence. But even taking that into
account, as well as our inability at present to make any contribution in
kind to the naval defence of the Empire, can we be expected to submit to
military expenditure absorbing almost half our revenues? Can you point
to a single Dominion that is asked to make an annual sacrifice
comparable to that? Are we not at least entitled to claim that the
Indian tax-payer's money should not be spent merely on the maintenance
of British garrisons that are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and of an
Indian army that is so constituted as to lack all the essentials of a
national army, but should go to the building up of an army really worthy
to take its place on equal terms when India attains to self-government
with the other armies of a commonwealth of free nations?"

The racial issue dominates in a far graver form the whole question of
the status and treatment of Indians in the Dominions and Crown Colonies.
For there it enters a much larger field which extends far beyond India.
In India so far, in speaking of the racial issue, Indians and Europeans
alike have hitherto had in mind chiefly the relations between the ruling
and the subject race. When the rulers all belong to one race and come
from a far distant country not to settle permanently but chiefly to
maintain, each one in his own sphere and during his appointed time, the
continuity of rulership over millions of subjects of another and very
different race with a different civilisation, an additional element of
discord is introduced into their relations. But since Great Britain
achieved dominion over India the main issue between rulers an