complete equality in the family and social surroundings in which they
are brought up. All that the citizens of the freest countries are
entitled to claim is that there shall be no denial of right to them on
the score of birth to equal opportunities for bringing their own
individual qualities by their own effort to the largest possible
fruition within the lawful limits prescribed to prevent injury being
done to others or to the community at large. Does not the same hold good
for nations and for races? The principle of equality thus understood
must clearly prevail between Asiatics and Europeans in India, for all
racial discrimination between them has long been ruled out by our own
statutes, and now more than ever by a Constitution which calls India to
partnership in the British Empire. It is, however, one thing to lay down
a principle, and another to put it consistently into practice. There
are questions in front of us in India which it will be difficult to
solve if Indians and Englishmen approach them in a spirit of racial
antagonism. They should not be insoluble if approached on the lines of
equal opportunity for both races. Other and still more difficult
questions are likely to produce divergencies of views and interests
between India and other parts of the Empire, including the United
Kingdom itself. The questions that affect the status and rights of
Indians in the Dominions and Colonies go to the root of racial
discrimination. When such questions arise their solution, in a sense
that will give even the barest and most undeniably legitimate
satisfaction to Indian views and Indian interests, will not be achieved
merely through the co-operation of the Government of India, or of every
Englishman, official or non-official, in India, however heartily these
may identify themselves with Indian views and Indian interest. Their
solution will rest with the British people all over the Empire. Will the
British Government and the Dominion Governments and the free peoples
behind them approach all questions in which India is concerned in the
same spirit which they have already learnt to bring to bear upon
questions in which not India but other partners of the Empire are
concerned? Will they be prepared to approach them in the same spirit in
which India was welcomed in times of stress and storm to the War
Councils and Peace Councils of the Empire? That spirit was the spirit of
equal partnership in a common danger, of co-operation on