But the present movement in India will be very poorly understood if it
be regarded only in connexion with the movement in the East. The
awakening of Asia is part of a world-movement, which has been quickened
into marvellous rapidity by the world-war. The world-movement is towards
Democracy, and for the West dates from the breaking away of the American
Colonies from Great Britain, consummated in 1776, and its sequel in the
French Revolution of 1789. Needless to say that its root was in the
growth of modern science, undermining the fabric of intellectual
servitude, in the work of the Encyclopædists, and in that of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Thomas Paine. In the East, the swift
changes in Japan, the success of the Japanese Empire against Russia, the
downfall of the Manchu dynasty in China and the establishment of a
Chinese Republic, the efforts at improvement in Persia, hindered by the
interference of Russia and Great Britain with their growing ambitions,
and the creation of British and Russian "spheres of influence,"
depriving her of her just liberty, and now the Russian Revolution and
the probable rise of a Russian Republic in Europe and Asia, have all
entirely changed the conditions before existing in India. Across Asia,
beyond the Himalayas, stretch free and self-ruling Nations. India no
longer sees as her Asian neighbours the huge domains of a Tsar and a
Chinese despot, and compares her condition under British rule with those
of their subject populations. British rule profited by the comparison,
at least until 1905, when the great period of repression set in. But in
future, unless India wins Self-Government, she will look enviously at
her Self-Governing neighbours, and the contrast will intensify her
unrest.

But even if she gains Home Rule, as I believe she will, her position in
the Empire will imperatively demand that she shall be strong as well as