Page:Indian independence.djvu/34

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Indian Independence

gical revolt in the minds of the Indian people. To repeat the passage from Sir John Seeley:—“If the feeling of a common nationality began to exist in India only feebly; if, without any active desire to drive out the foreigner, it only created a notion that it was shameful to assist the foreigner in maintaining his domination, from that day, almost, our Empire would cease to exist.”

There is another passage written by an Englishman, whose name I have failed to discover, which expresses the same sentiment in a different form. “Indians,” he says, “have only to refuse to work for Europeans, and the whole White Empire would be brought to an end within a month.”

Thus the verdict of the most sober English historians is this, that India, without a single hand being lifted to strike a single blow, can determine her own destiny. The sheer weight of numbers,—three hundred and twenty millions against a few thousands,—is so great that if these numbers

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