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What Indian Independence Means to America EXTENSION OP REMARKS or HON. JOSEPH E. TALBOT OF CONNECTICUT IN THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, December 9, 1943 Mr. TALBOT. Mr. Speaker, under leave to extend my remarks In the Rec ord, I desire to insert an address delivered by Hon. Clare Boothe Luce, at the con ference on the Pacific area, sponsored by : the Institute of Pacific Relations and the 1 University of Rochester, on November I 18, 1943: One-fifth of the human race lives In India. One out of every five people Is an Indian, Ho inhabits a country vast In size— all of continental Europe, excluding Russia, would tuck comfortably Into It. India is a country of prodigious physical variety, like her neigh bor China, which Is also vast and houses one more fifth of the human race. India has a far-flung seacoast, studded with fine harbors,; She has rivers nearly as great as our M is-' sissippi. She knows torrential rains and d e v -! astatlng droughts. She has Impenetrable Jungles and deserts a3 flat, stale, and un-j profitable as the Mojave. Her people live by! low-lying swamps, on broad fertile plains, and' In the rich soft valleys of mountains eternally' crested with snow as mighty as our Rockies. There are, broadly speaking, 12 major Indian] dialects. Although some of the most learned) men In the world are Indians, more than 83: percent of the people are Illiterate. Some of' the richest men in the world are Indians. 1943 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— A P P E N D IX A5793 has been able to hold Hong Kong, Burma, national prudence require us first to ask an Singapore, control the whole Middle East Among her 563 princes are rulers whose birth other. What would the Immediate loss—the and the Arab worlds, dominate Suez and day gifts from their subjects are their own outright loss of India—in short, uncondi -the Mediterranean, and defend Australia and weight in gold. But 61 percent of India's tional Indian Independence at the victorious Inhabitants live at a bare subsistence level; New Zealand and her smaller, though also close of the war, mean to the British Empire? rich, possessions In the Southwest Pacific. In 25.4 percent at a semistarvation level. Sev It Is only fair to a s k t h i s q u e s t i o n b e c a u s e enty-eight percent of the people of Bengal short, the mere strategic loss of India as t o d a y India belongs to t h e B r i t i s h Empire. are undernourished. Great famines are the a British-controlled sea and air base of mili Let us take the short view of what uncon frequent percursors of great plagues. And tary operations and a vast recruitment center ditional Independence might mean to the yet the cruel economic paradox Is that this for Empire troops, would not only split the British Empire, if there were no compensa vast land of 390,000,000 souls, ruled today by Empire structure in twain, It would shatter tions for that loss of an economic, territorial, not more than 150,000 white men, Is, next to It to pieces. This, far more than the econom or spiritual nature. While it Is well n.gh the United States and the Soviet Union, the ic liquidation involved, Is what Churchill impossible to obtain accurate figures on India country with the most abundant natural re meant when he said he did not Intend to even from official sources, it is estimated preside over the liquidation of the British sources In the world. that before the war, under Imperial prefer India has one of the greatest Iron-ore fields Empire. , Any soldier will tell you that the ence tariffs. 7.2 percent of United Kingdom In tbe world, with conservatively estimated day India becomes free of the British officer, exports went to India, and 34 percent of reserves-of more than 3,000,000,000 tons, av even though the British banker should stay Indian experts—with far less favorable eraging more than 60 percent iron content. and should even thrive, that day the sun tariffs— went in turn to the United Kingdom. Her coal resources range from thirty-six bil will set forever on a groat many places which Fifty and eight-tenths percent of the mer lion to seventy-seven billion tons. She pos are now British soil. India Is the one and chandise Imported Into India before the war sesses large quantities of bauxite, manganese, only indispensable strategic keystone of the came from the rest of the Empire. Fifty-two chromite, mica, and other minerals and whole arch of the British Colonial Empire. and five-tenths percent of all Indian exports crude elements upon which industry de Churchill Is a soldier, a British soldier. That went to the Commonwealth. It is safe to as pends Her potential hydroelectrical power Is why he Is an unreconstructed and unresume that with unconditional Independence, constructable Imperialist where matters con is second only to that of the United States, India herself, so naturally endowed to do so, though she uses only 3 percent of It. She Is cern India. would begin to manufacture many of the arti the world’s second largest cotton producer. So here Is the problem which confronts cles she imported before the war from the rest every American who plunks for Immediate She has almost a monopoly of Jute produc of the Empire. Certainly India would manu and unconditional Indian Independence: As tion. She once grew the most tobacco, could facture at home all her own cotton goods, a things stand today, the outright severance of rival the world In the production of sugar no more difficult matter for her than It was India’s political ties with Great Britain could cane has vast forests and wheat and rice for Japan. In any case It Is reasonably cer fields, tea, linseed, rubber, coffee, Indigo, do two things to the United Kingdom and tain thatf, once free to manufacture and sell Commonwealth: First, It would utterly col maize, barley, castor seed. She Is a leading into her own markets, India would for some producer of hides and skins, tanning mate lapse the British Empire structure strategi years import far less from the Commonwealth cally: and, second, the loss of British eco rial turpentine, and bamboo pulp. of anything she could manufacture at home. Her people are historically exquisite crafts nomic control of India could seriously reduce Commonwealth export trade would be cer men and hard workers. They were once the living standards of many a Britisher. tain to suffer. great forgers of fine steel—from India came Now there Is one thing which cannot be Bsfore the war British capital investment the Damascus blade. And yet this land of said too often or too clearly In this historic In India was estimated at approximately incalculable potential wealth In manpower moment when Americans have at last decided £1,000,000,000,.o r approximately one-quarter and raw materials today houses one of the not to bo Isolationists— that Is, when they of Britain’s total overseas investments. Wltn poorest people on earth. Sunk In a quag have decided to participate to a greater extent Independence might come expropriation slow mire of debt, disease, and poverty, 80 per In worjd politics and world business: The or rapid/ Great Britain would certainly lose cent of their work largely agricultural, the United Kingdom has no choice If she wishes some millions of pounds which she in the vast majority of Indians live on from 2 to 4 to maintain her present economic way of past has received in annual payments, trans cents a day. Or rather they die. The aver life; to live by past living standards she must ferred in one way or another, from India. age life expectancy of an Indian 13 about 25 export and export and export—sho must England emerged from the last world de years compared to our 62. And In some cities export comparatively more productlonwlse pression in better shape than the rest of the their Infant mortality rate is tho highest In than any other great power In order to earn world This was managed partly because, the world. , _ . the money with which to Import food com from 1931 to 1935, about £203,000,000 In gold India can continue to be the world s most modities, and still have a balance to pay for went to London from India. England can. tragic and gigantic economic paradox, or the tho consumption at home of- her own manu and does, manipulate the exchange rate of benevolent dynamism of modern Industri factured products. British domestic liv.ng Indian currency because she almost com alization can resolve that paradox In our standards, yesterday, today, and tomorrow pletely controls Its banking structure. In the are almost wholly dependent on th3 volume time. last world depression millions upon millions For here Is a country which beyond dispute of her export trade and on how advantage of Indians sold even their tiniest gold trinkets for those who bow only In argument to facts ously It Is handled. I am told that the United to pay their long-ln-arrears taxes. Naturally, and figures, could not only feed and clothe Kingdom has remaining today only 5 percent most of this gold flowed Into the economic and house herself, but with modern machine of her pre-war world export trade. When the blood stream of India, which Is largely British, tools made by her own people In her own war Is over she has somehow to get that other and debouched eventually into the Thames. 95 percent back— and a large part of It she factories, could possibly feed and clothe and Come unconditional Indian Independence, supply With commodities and manufactured must necessarily be counting on getting back Great Britain’s hold on India's banking struc via her preferential exports to India. products much of Asia. ture would be weakened to an Incalculable What Japan did industrially, India can do If Great Britain doesn’t get her Indian extent. To reestablish herself from the eco on a hundredfold scale, since her natural export trade back, where will she make up nomic rigors of this war, she would have to Industrial resources are far greater. The the difference In the years ahead? Will we find her gold elsewhere. successful Industrialization of India, which Americans cheerfully allow Great Britain a No argument the British can present could surely follow Indian Independence, still larger share than she has so far claimed against immediate and unconditional Indian could raise the living standards of the whole of the potential post-war European and Afri Independence Is so sound and overwhelming Orient unbelievably, and In so doing, raise can and South American and Russian and as the one they seldom offer—It could be a the living standards, and therefore the buy Chinese markets? In the Halls of Congress very serious economic blow to every Inhab today one hears many a complaint even now ing power of the whole world. itant of the United Kingdom and Common about Great Britain’s anxious efforts to de Quickly you ask, will only the Independence wealth No less an authority than Winston velop new export markets. Shall we Ameri of India guarantee the certain industrializa Churchill himself said in a broadcast on India cans then say to Great Britain: ’’You must tion of India? Again, you ask, can the Inde in 1935: ‘‘If we lose India, 2,000,000 bread givo up India now, and thus risk the loss of pendence of India ever be .achieved short of winners In this country would be tramping one great and safe haven of export trade revolution against the British Raj? Will only the street and queuing up at the labor exyou had before the war; you cannot compete bloodshed purge India’s backwardness from In our domestic markets; and you must also her before she, too, can rise, as Russia did But there is one other aspect which, from a fight us every inch of the way in the rest after Its revolution against the Imperialist British point of view, would be even more of the world's markets, including India?" To Czars, to become one of the mightiest coun serious than the economic one: The strategic urge this harsh course upon her would surely tries of the Far East, perhaps of the world? aspect of unconditional Indian Independence. doom Great Britain to a far worse Indus These are pregnant questions, fraught with With the physical loss of India, Great Brit trial depression than the one she knew after enormous historic meaning for tho whole ain would lose her whole strategic base of the First World War. Some economic ex world, and, therefore, for America. But they global operations. India is the precious tremists, arguing the British economic case are not the question of the evening. For our pivotal point of British dominance o f the against Indian Independence, claim that Im topic is not how India gets her Independence Near, the Far and the Middle East. It is mediate Indian independence would result but what would It mean to all of us If onefrom territorial India and Indian naval bases not only In socialism In Great Britain but fifth of the human race came Into Its own? and ports, and In a great measure with In might even In the end reduce the whole But, even before we can essay a partial andian troobs. that Great Britain In the past that, nuestion. common courtesy and A5794 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— A P P E N D IX United Kingdom to the status of an agricul tural community. England, they say, would then become a little green Island with a_ vegetable vengeance. To state the Indlan-independence problem thus In realistic economic terms Is to cut through all the sentimental persuasions by which the British, In their natural pride, try to conceal Its true nature from us. When the British talk of their humanitarian obli gations to India, many of them are utterly sincere. But I question deeply how seriously Great Britain’s statesmen, or, for that matter, the statesmen of any nation, Including our own, ever accept sheer humanitarian obli gations toward people of another race and culture If those obligations did not over whelmingly coincide with their nation's own economic and political self-interest. Therefore. I think the time has come to state the facts as they are: If American moral and diplomatic pressure helps 390,000,000 Indians to obtain their natural de sire— Independence—America risks condem ning 45,000,000 of the greatest people on earth, In one of the greatest democracies on earth. Great Britain, to a severe economic de pression. And If, furthermore, Indian In dependence results, as it must, In the retire ment of all British troops from India and the end of British control of India as a base of mllltury operations— we risk the accom plishment of what the Germans and Japs failed to do— the destruction of the British world power structure. Dare we Americans who urge Indian inde pendence take this risk, even In the name of freedom? And what do wo Americans stand to gain-—what does the world stand* to gain, which will olfset the physical and eco nomic dangers to Great Britain and the Commonwealth Implicit In unconditional In dian Independence? Well, obviously we W1U gain a better world—to the extent that it will be a better world for one-fifth of the human race, who will then bo free at long last to work out their own cultural, spiritual, and economic destiny. And If such nose counting of free men Is wrong, then there is no morality on this globe, and the dream of universal freedom, the Idea of raising woild living standards is a mockery. And yet and yet, this simple arithmetic of how many men are free and thriving and how many slaves and Impoverished is not an swer enough. It plainly Is not. For our own self interest, we Americans dare not danger ously weaken the British Commonwealth. We dare not destroy an economic and politi cal power structuro which, In spite of all the evils of Its Imperialism, has helped to keep order and decency In the* world, and spread techniques of Industrialization. For tho Em pire has been not only a power structuro, but u power line, on which has been transmitted ideas of freedom and progress around the globe. What are the answers? There must be an swers; for the heart cries out, and the head argues, too, 390,000,000 men who want to be free and self providing and prosperous, must be free and self providing. And If It Is not good that they should be free and prosperous, then all notions of progress and lreedom are lies, and religion itself Is a He, and surely all the great spiritual things we claim we are fighting for in this war are lies. And that - Just cannot be so. I believe there are answers. But these an swers will be wholeheartedly Accepted only by those who are sincere In their desire for Indian independence as a means to a better and more prosperous world. If we want In dian independence, and want that Indepen dence to be fruitful to ourselves and man kind, America must bo prepared to do three things. First, we must compensate Great Britain for any Immediate and disastrous loss of ex port trade and revenue from India by open ing to her and to the Commonwealth far D ecember 9 In the end not only they, but we shall benefit. freer markets than ever before in our own For Indian Independence, peacefully con ■country, and we must aid her to share in all summated and guaranteed for a decent the new markets that can be opened else.-, length of time by the great nations who will where on the most generous terms. win this war, would mean they really had Are Americans prepared to do this? I be won the greatest war In the world for de lieve Americans should be prepared to do so, mocracy, and that* we had at last taken a wherever, and however it does not depress 'great step in raising the living standards of our own living standards, for It Is my unthe world by helping one-fifth of the human shakeable credo that any policy .which weak race to help itself out of its own economic ens America, weakens the world. quagmire. Secondly, if we want the independence of If America has neither the wish nor the India— and I repeat I think we should want will to play her part In this noble and also it, because nothing else Is consonant with American ideas of expanding areas of politi 'profitable venture, then Insensibly America will be conspiring in the continuation of cal freedom and the benevolent dynamism of human slavery and exploitation and in the the industrial age— we must aid the Com depression a wide area of economy. We will monwealth to the utmost to accomplish the be condoning what we claim to hate— po achievement of Indian Independence by litical and economic imperialism, simply be means as peaceful and smooth as possible. cause we have not the brains nor the will to I believe that this could best be done by giv liquidate It Intelligently. ing India a date line in the not too distant In the final analysis, the future physical future for complete Independence, as we gave safety, the spiritual safety and the economlo the Philippines. safety of America rest in a great measure on It must have none of the tricky strings America’s ability to help In the creation of a tied to it, such as have been tied to every strong, progressive China and a strong, offer of self-government which the British progressive India—in order that almost onehave made to India, because she feared half o f the world’s population may be, In Indian independence for the two reasons I the years to come, friendly to America’s wide have outlined. and prosperous Pacific shores and able to And thirdly, we must guarantee Jointly traffic profitably with her, as Is the custom of with the Commonwealth the continuation free men, with money of their own making of the strategic and political independence in their pockets. of the free India we so profoundly want. Are we up to this vast task of constructing We must be willing to guarantee conjointly a better and a safer and a vastly more pros with the Russians and Chinese, that a free perous world? I do not doubt it, if wo will India shall not fall a prey to aggressive and see the problem without racial prejudice or greedy powers, while in her early stages she national passion or blind sentiment or eco is working out her economic and political destiny. America must, in short, take over nomic selfishness. the* problem of keeping the military peace in tho whole Pacific. Short of such participation on our part, the consummation of unconditional Indian Rural Electrification independence would merely destroy Great Britain and the Commonwealth strategically and economically, and short of it we would EXTENSION OP REMARKS, have no certainty that in the end we would or not be helping to create in a free .India a political and Industrial Frankenstein such as we helped to create when we set mili o r M is s is s ip p i taristic, totalitarian, and undemocratic Japan on the road to Industrialization a century IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ago. Wednesday, December 8, 1943 I leave this great problem, having, at best, skimmed Its surface more lightly than any Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Speaker, under bird ever skimmed the shark-infested waves permission granted me to extend my re of the Indian Ocean. Essentiallylt is the marks in the R ecord, I am inserting the problem of how America can help to pass address of Hon. Clyde T. Ellis, a former on to one-fifth of the human race the great torch of freedom, while not, at the same time, Member of this House, and now executive causing that great torch of freedom, which manager of the National Rural Electric has never burned brighter anywhere In all Cooperative Association. the world In all history than in the British As every Member of the House knows, Isles themselves, to flicker and die down. rural electrification has been my dream. How to help give 390,000,000 Indians the great In my opinion, it is one of the greatest chance to be self-supporting and self-gov economic movements of modern times. erning without damaging material safety and the living standards of 43,000,000 Britishers? Its development will mark a turning In short, America’s problem in the so-called point in the history of our civiUzatlon, Indian question is how to help spread eco and will have a more far-reaching ef nomic unlversals everywhere without curtail fect on the future of this Nation than ing them anywhere, Including our own dear any of its advocates originally contem country. Meanwhile, let us have an end to the cant, plated. I hope every Member will take the whether expressed by British or American, of ’’the white man’s burden,” and of our hu time to read Mr. Ellis’ speech, and that manitarian obligations to rule people who we may have the full cooperation of every plainly wish to rule themselves. Let us all Member of this body in the promotion of have the courage to say that we must find our program for rural electrification, now other ways to keep our Industrial machinery and in the post-war period. at home going at Its highest level of efficiency The matter referred to follows: than by oiling It with the sweat and blood of millions of men of other races overseas. T h e R u r a l E l e c t r ic C o - o p s a t W a r a n d A f t e r And let us agree that if we urge upon our America’s rural electric cooperatives are friends of the United Kingdom and the Com playing a major role In one of our most dra monwealth that they take the great risk, em matic war production records. For ‘‘food will bark on the great adventure of giving India be the dominant world problem In 1944." her freedom, that we must then play our It cannot be said that food is more essential part and pay our share in underwriting for than bullets, any more than 'it can be said them the great transition period from im that oil U more essential than battleships, perialism to world democracy in order that HON. JOHN E. RANKIN
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