OTHER BOOKS BY LAJPAT RAI
YOUNG INDIA
An Interpretation and a History of theNationalist Movement from Within
Price $1.50 net
ENGLAND'S DEBT TO INDIA
A Historical Narrative of Britain'sFiscal Policy in India
Price $2.00 net
THE ARYA SAMAJ
An Account of its Origins,Doctrines and Activities
Price $1.75 net
OBTAINABLE FROM ALL BOOKSELLERS
AN OPEN LETTER
TO
THE RIGHT HONORABLE
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN
BY
LAJPAT RAI
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH
MCMXVII
Copyright, 1917, by Lajpat Rai
Printed in the United States of America
AN OPEN LETTER
TO
THE RIGHT HONORABLE
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN
AN OPEN LETTER
TO
THE RIGHT HONORABLE
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
Prime Minister of Great Britain
Sir: I am an Indian who has, by the fear ofyour Government in India been forced to seekrefuge in the United States, at least for theperiod of the war. In 1907, when Lord Minto'sGovernment decided to put into operation anobsolete Regulation of the East India Company(III of 1818) against me, in order to put meout of the way, for a while, without even theform of a trial, Lord Morley, the then Secretaryof State for India, defending his action, gaveme the highest testimonial as far as my privatecharacter was concerned. You must have heardthat speech though it would be presumptuous toimagine that you remember it.
Even my worst enemies have not been able topoint out anything in my life which would giveany one even the shadow of a reason to say that,in my private life, I have not been as good andhonorable a person as any British politician ordiplomat or proconsul, is or has been or can be.My record as a wage-earner is as clean and ashonorable as that of the best of Britishers engagedin governing India.
Mr. H. W. Nevinson, than whom a more truthfuland honorable publicist is not known inBritish life, has said in his work, "The NewSpirit in India," that once when he told a highAnglo-Indian official that I was a good manheld in great esteem by my countrymen, thelatter remarked, that because I had a high characterin private life, I was the more dangerousas an agitator.
I am reciting all this as evidence of mycredentials to speak on behalf of my countrymen.Just now I am a mere exile. For thepresent, I cannot think of