Unity Day messages

Lahore, Saturday, October 11, 1924

THE Statesman of Calcutta has rendered a service to India by publishing special messages from the leaders of various communities in India as well as certain high officials, including the Viceroy and the Secretary of State, on the occasion of the Unity Day. More important than these messages, however, is the article contributed by the Metropolitan. The brief extract quoted from it in an Associated Press telegram is sufficient to show its general character and tendency. It has been urged, among others by The Statesman itself, that the plea for religious tolerance on the part of the Hindu and Mahomedan leaders at the conference was simply the result of the present political situation, it being recognised that Swaraj was impossible to attain so long as the present bitter antagonism existed. The argument is an old, old one. It is invariably urged by a class of critics whenever a serious attempt is made to unite Hindus and Mussalmans. Everyone remembers how during the conspiracy trials in the Martial Law days, an attempt was made to twist an innocent and so laudable a thing as the drinking out of the same cups by Hindus and Mussalmans into a convincing proof of their antagonism to the British generally and the British Government in particular. Hitherto, this argument has been variously answered by Indians from the Indian point of view. It was reserved for the Metropolitan, the accredited leader of the British Christian community in India, to give an effective and, in our opinion, conclusive answer to it from the point of view of England herself.