was Prime Minister of an Indian State, I knew the Prime Minister
of another Indian State (Junagarh), who could hardly sign his
own name but who was a very remarkable man and managed
the state wonderfully. He knew just who were the right people to
advise him and took their advice. When I spoke to your own
Prime Minister about the exchange value of the rupee, he said to
me, that he knew nothing about exchange values, that the Prime
Minister had of course to do things in his own name but had
really to depend on experts. We have had experience in
governing in the past and we could do equally well.’
I did not think it worthwhile to pursue the political topic or
to point out the political chaos of India when the British entered
on the scene, as my main object was to secure from Mr Gandhi
the withdrawal of his statement about literacy. I ended up the
interview by saying that I was a man of peace, and had no desire
to enter on a controversy but that I must state the facts in the
Journal of International Affairs, and to this I understood Mr
Gandhi to assent. I wished him a pleasant journey back to India
and said I hoped I had not tired him. He replied that it had been
a real pleasure to see me, and that he hoped to keep in touch
with me.
There were present during the conversation Mr Desai, a tall
young man whose name I did not know, Miss Slade to whom I
was introduced, but who was in a kind of back drawing room for
most of the time, and another young Englishwoman, who
brought Mr Gandhi some fruit at the end of the interview. No one
intervened in the conversation, but once or twice Mr Gandhi
asked Mr Desai for information. It appeared that Mr Desai had
been asked by Mr Gandhi to try to get information from the
British Museum, but that he had been unable to get the books
he had wanted and had not been able to find any facts to
support Mr Gandhi’s statements. Mr Desai accompanied me
downstairs and showed me his British Museum slips for one
book dated 1859, another book of 1867-8, and a book by Wilmot
on “‘he Indigenous System of Education in India’, of which he
had not the date.
I find I have omitted one statement of some importance. Mr
Gandhi said that he had not accused the British Government of
having destroyed the indigenous schools, but they had let them
die for want of encouragement. I said that they had probably let
them die because they were so bad that they were not worth
keeping up. In the United Provinces Mahomedan witnesses had
told my Committee that the Mahomedan schools not organised
by Government were not an aid but a hindrance to Mahomedan
progress and I knew there were many voluntary schools in other