Gandhi Ultimatum, Bargain

To small, nut-brown Mahatma Gandhi came last week that slightly florid human mountain, the House of Commons. In effect a special meeting of the House convened around him, using for this purpose the historic Grand Committee Room. Barefoot and barelegged as usual, Mr.

Gandhi pattered to the rostrum, squatted beneath his tentlike shawl, submitted him self to heckling by some of the world's most talented hecklers, Britain's best. "What I want to know," drawled the first Parliamentary questioner, "is what does this term Mahatma mean? What is a Mahatma?" To catch the little man's low answer everyone strained forward, especially Miss Megan Lloyd George, buxom M. P. "Mahatma, sir," smiled Mr. Gandhi, "means 'an insignificant person.' " Hastily the British chairman interjected, "I am sure we all know that Mahatma is an Indian term meaning 'the embodiment of a great soul.' " "What do you think would happen," came the next question, "if we gave India her independence and got out? Don't you know, Mr. Gandhi, that civil war would start and that the Moslems of India would whip the Hindus!" Mr. Gandhi is a Hindu. Nine-tenths and more of his followers are Hindus. Yet at this telling question he shot back, "Even should the Moslems of India eat up all the Hindus they would still be Indians. It would not be too great a price to pay for Indian liberty!" Three Freedom Tests, Aside from answering the Commoners' questions, Mr. Gandhi made a two-hour-long speech in conversational tones, told the House roundly that he, speaking for the Indian National Congress, will not accept those "safeguards" and "reservations" with which British statesmen are trying to hedge the new Indian Constitution now being drafted in London. "The tests by which Indians will know whether they are free," postulated St. Gandhi, "are whether they have been granted control of Indian defense, the Indian Civil Service and Indian finance" --these being precisely the things Britons are trying to reserve while granting to India something called Independence, "I will not accept the husks of Independence," ultimatumed Nationalist Gandhi amid dead silence. "Rather, would I declare myself a rebel. We know what that means, but thousands of Indian Nationalists have rid themselves of the fear of Death." Chaplin & Gandhi. Fortunately no test of strength between India and Britain was possible last week. Talk was all anyone could do, and Mahatma Gandhi even talked to Charlie Chaplin--at the cinemactor's request. When told by his Indian friend Mrs. Sarojini Naidu that "the famous Mr. Chaplin wants to see you," St. Gandhi seemed puzzled, asked: "What is he famous for? Who is this Mr. Chaplin?" Sensitive Cinemactor Chaplin had been stopping the week-end with pugnacious Winston Churchill, M. P., public foe of Indian Independence. Mr. Churchill has called Mr. Gandhi "a half-naked, seditious fakir!" Mr. Chaplin, possibly primed by Mr. Churchill, fired the following question at Mr. Gandhi soon after he was introduced : "Why do you champion such a crude device as the hand spinning wheel? Inventions are the inheritance of mankind and should be .allowed to relieve the burdens of mankind. I am diametrically opposed," wound up Cinemactor Chaplin with a Churchillian flourish, "to the abolition of machinery!" "The hand wheel and the hand loom," answered Spinner Gandhi, "are necessary to provide occupation for India's millions. Modern machinery installed in India would leave our people too much leisure. Also we would produce more than we need and thus enforce idleness upon some other part of the world as a result of our overproduction." Abruptly St. Gandhi jerked out his dollar watch, announced that it was 7 p.m.--time to pray. Mr. Chaplin was moved to kneel and he scarcely wobbled during the long Hindu prayer. Departing after some further talk with the Mahatma, Charlie Chaplin gasped to reporters: "Gandhi is a tremendous personality, tremendous! He is a great international figure! More, he is A GREAT DRAMATIC FIGURE." Gandhi to Lancashire, Climax of the Gandhi week was the Mahatma's pilgrimage to cotton-spinning, overproducing Lancashire. Intensely practical, Mr. Gandhi had no idealistic notion that he could relieve unemployment in this distressed British area by inducing capitalists to scrap their textile machinery, or unemployed workers to adopt the hand loom. What the small brown man was after was to drive a shrewd bargain in business-plus-politics. Before leaving London in a third-class smoking compartment, Non-Smoker Gandhi let it be known that if the powerful industrialists of Lancashire and other depressed British textile areas will bring pressure upon the British Government to grant India her independence, he, Gandhi, will move to end India's present "boycott" of British cloth and goods. Mr. Gandhi proposed more. Without mentioning Japan or the U.S., he let it be known that he favors a reciprocal Anglo-Indian agreement under which India's surplus needs (over and above what she can produce herself) would be supplied exclusively by Britain--this agreement to be, of course, in return for complete Indian independence. "Tear His Eyes Out!" St. Gandhi had set out for Lancashire to drive a bargain by which he thought both sides would gain--but would hungry, workless Lancashire understand? Was the 76-lb. Mahatma's life safe? Scotland Yard sent with him four detectives (each over 200 lb.), just in case. Darwen, black focus of Lancashire depression, was Inspector Gandhi's objective, but Scotland Yard bundled him off his train at nearby Springvale Village. There the Mahatma slept safely, with a local constable stationed every 50 yards on all approaching roads. In Darwen next day the well-guarded Mahatma was both booed ("Tear his eyes out!") and cheered ("Good old Gandhi!"). He met the Mayor, visited shut factories, gloomy homes. "It distresses me," said St. Gandhi, "that in all this unemployment I have had some kind of share. ... It is the result of a step I took as my duty to the largest army of unemployed anywhere--the starving millions of India. ... I have come in search of a way out of the difficulty. ... I am powerless without the active co-operation of Lancashire and Englishmen" (i.e. in freeing India).

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