ophthalmic diseases previously noted, but that they were in a filthy, neglected condition, many of them suffering from sores and abrasions, ringworm, and other skin eruptions. This convent was at that time under the nuns of a foreign Order, who were replaced by an English sisterhood of a very different type. The fact, however, that foreign Orders can settle in England and be free from the control and supervision they have to undergo in their own country should be emphasised.

Further, Mr. Kindersley declares that all Roman Catholic laundries and workshops are under the same inspection as are commercial laundries, and subject to the same regulations of the Factory Acts. He concludes the sentence, however, with these significant words: 'with a few unimportant concessions made on account of their different circumstances.' That is a very important point. There should be no difference between conventual and commercial factories and laundries, and Mr. Kindersley's statement that the foreign Orders who come over to us pay their rates and taxes should be modified, because convent laundries are taxed as charitable institutions, they have not to pay the income tax borne by traders, and they have thus an advantage over other laundries with which they are in commercial competition. Mr. Kindersley charges me with inaccuracy in alleging that the competition of convents is injurious to other workers, and states that the prices charged at convent laundries are higher than at commercial ones. This is not the case, and every woman knows that underclothing and white embroidered needle-work are offered cheaply, at sales especially, as 'convent work.'

In the latter part of his article Mr. Kindersley accuses me of other 'inaccurate statements' which I should like to deal with. In reference to my contention that cloistered nuns are cut off from their relations, he gives his own personal experience,' and describes the freedom with which social intercourse, even telephonic communication, is carried on with a near relative in a cloistered Order. He does not, however, state what position this person holds in the Roman Catholic Church. If a MotherSuperior, she would be a privileged person. On the other hand, possibly Mr. Kindersley can command favour. But no one can deny that the rules issued to ordinary nuns discourage and even forbid their association with kindred, that a system of espionage is rigidly enforced which extends to the correspondence of the nuns. The nun must yield unquestioning obedience. Mr. Kindersley declares that the Vow of Obedience simply means obedience to all lawful commands.' My 'inaccuracy' on this point can be disproved by the following quotations: Obey blindly in all things your present director, even if he should

order you to leave your cell' (The True Spouse of Christ, vol. ii. p. 431). Whilst the Rev. Arthur Devine, in writing of Convent Life or the Duties of Nuns, says (p. 165) the retention of any portion of their own will is a denial of their vocation.' Let obedience be internal, universal, and uniform.' 'Let us remember that in doing the will of the Superior we do the will of God.' The Superior may or may not be a woman of high type. A Roman Catholic paper, in reviewing a book on convents, says: 'It is admitted that petty tyranny may exist in some communities. Some Superiors may be harsh and overbearing.' Instances of worse than harshness and petty tyranny are on record in the annals of the Church. See the Bishop of Nancy's Report to Rome as a result of inquiry into the conditions of an Order of the Good Shepherd in France.

The convent question is a woman's question, and it is not until women form public opinion that legislation for the inspection of convents can be anticipated. I do not care to deal with the moral aspect of the problem, but I recognise that it exists. It is sufficient to state that the various foreign Orders which have been compelled to leave other countries as a result of inquiry and exposure of a hideous condition of affairs, are permitted without question to settle in England, secure that they are free from inspection and supervision by the State. Let us give the women in our convents simply the same protection that Roman Catholic States have found it necessary to provide. Why should the Roman Catholic Church resist so moderate a demand if convents are so well organised as they are stated to be? We are told that these institutions are inspected by the Ordinary of the Diocese or his delegate, but Episcopal inspection has in the past proved inadequate, and it does not meet the needs of the case. We must ask for State jurisdiction, State supervision and State protection for all conventual and monastic institutions. Nothing less can satisfy a humanitarian demand which ought to meet with the sympathy of Catholics as well as Protestants, because the question should be above denominational bitterness and party strife.

Mr. Kindersley's concluding words infer that I suggest that differential treatment is to be extended to nuns as distinct from priests. But he is mistaken. Any legislation will necessarily deal with the inspection of monastic institutions as well as convents, but the convent question is especially a woman's question, and should compel the attention of all women interested in the welfare of their sex and in the protection of those who are unable to protect themselves.

ELIZABETH SLOAN CHESSER.

THE MESSAGE OF HOPE FOR INDIA

IN a recent letter to The Times I drew attention to the unique opportunity afforded by the removal of the Imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi for establishing a sounder principle of architectural design in Government buildings throughout India. The importance of this question for the future development of Indian art and craft will, I think, be obvious to most people. The example set by the Imperial Government in public buildings must always have a potent influence for good or evil, not only with all Indian craftsmen engaged in the construction of them, but with all the Indian aristocracy who look to Government for correct models of taste and fashion. And the close connexion between craft and architectural style need not be enlarged upon. If architectural styles in India are wholly based upon the more or less mechanical imitation of foreign models, it follows as the night the day that the same Philistine influence will permeate all the crafts directly or indirectly connected with architecture and tend to destroy their artistic vitality. It is useless to declaim against the injury done to Indian art by the Ruling Princes building their palaces in debased Western styles and upholstering them according to the catalogues of Tottenham Court Road and the Bon Marché, when by doing so they are only following the example set by the highest representatives of the Imperial and local Governments. Neither is the mischief in any way diminished by sending our best architects to provide better models for Indian builders to copy.

But the very obvious artistic principle here involved is only one aspect of a much larger sociological and economic question in which the whole policy of British administration is deeply concerned. Is British rule in India', as a tremendous sociological experiment, only to stand for those modern economic and industrial developments which overspread the West in the nineteenth century? Are we, ignoring their concomitant evils with which all the energies of modern statesmen and sociologists are trying to grapple, and the risk of propagating those evils on a vastly greater scale in the fecund soil of the tropics, to continue to use these same developments as a battering ram for pulverising

the effete social and industrial organisation of Hinduism? Are we to regard our present economic system, represented by the great industrial cities of Europe and America-the product of a new experimental science which is constantly changing the basis of its action, still investigating unknown forces and creating new social problems-as a solid and permanent foundation on which we can safely build up the future of our Indian Empire?

To those who have followed closely the economic and industrial policy of Indian administration since Calcutta became the seat of the Imperial Government it must indeed seem that this is the case. Just as in educational matters the Macaulay view of Oriental learning has dominated the whole scheme of the Anglo-Indian universities, so the views of the enterprising merchants who control the trade of the great Indian seaports have dominated the councils of the Government of India in all matters relating to Indian commerce and industry. In many departments of the Civil Service, especially those connected with the revenue and courts of justice, the long experience gained by district officers in close touch with the people-an intimacy, unfortunately, much less close now than in former days-has created an administrative tradition more or less in harmony with Indian social customs and ways of thinking. In matters relating to trade and industry a tradition has also been created; but it is a tradition in which the predominance of Western commercialism has been overwhelming. Indian commerce, in a departmental sense, means only the trade between Europe and India. Indian industry means the adaptation of Western machinery and the methods of modern capitalism to the exploitation of Indian labour. Technical education means not the application of scientific and artistic knowledge to the organisation and development of indigenous handicrafts, but the effort to supersede Eastern handicraft by Western machinery. Art education means not the development of the creative faculties and the revival of Indian culture, but the teaching of freehand and model drawing, geometry, perspective, anatomy and design according to the formularies of South Kensington.

Theoretically, of course, departmentalism takes a deep paternal interest in indigenous industries and in Indian art. There have been commissions, conferences, committees, exhibitions, despatches, Government resolutions and orders on the subject. But the net result of these discussions has been to confirm the official mind in the belief that Indian handicraft is useless and out of date, that Indian art is based upon wrong principles, that everything that could be reasonably expected of a paternal Government is being done, and that it is best to leave well alone. Still, in order that the official

conscience and the public mind may be quite at ease, of late years the departmental machinery has been strengthened by the appointment of many more European experts, who make sure that the old policy is continued on the most approved European principles. Any attempt on their part to vary the departmental tradition by going a little deeper into the cause of things is promptly suppressed, as no doubt it should be-from a departmental standpoint.

There is, however, another side of the question, and a more excellent way which the Imperial Government, in their new environment among the historic traditions of the ancient capital of Hindustan, might well take into consideration. Here in Europe legislators and social reformers are made too well aware of the dark side of modern industrialism to look upon it as an unmitigated blessing to humanity at large, as the administrators of India are inclined to regard it from the cool heights of Simla and Darjeeling and among the luxuries of Calcutta society. For the last fifty years the aim of most European legislation has been directed towards mitigating the evils, the waste of human life, the moral and spiritual degradation, and the physical suffering which have accompanied the growth of capitalism and improvements in mechanical science. The struggle between capital and labour, which sometimes seems to threaten the very foundations of society, is largely the struggle of the workman for emancipation from the servitude of the machine which capitalism has imposed upon him.

It is not only the artistic temperament which sees in the rapid extinction of handicraft a great social danger. All sociologists agree that the success of the efforts now being made to stem the flow of the agricultural population to the already overcrowded industrial cities must depend largely upon the revival of village handicraft as an adjunct to agriculture. All of them agree that the substitution of machinery for handicraft, both from an economic and sociological as well as from an artistic standpoint, has been carried too far. Mr. G. K. Chesterton, in his emphatic manner, declared lately that all intelligent people in England, Tory and Radical alike, have long come to the conclusion that the mere mechanical expansion of commercialism carried on in our great industrial cities is not civilisation, but a very sad sort of savagery. Such illumination has certainly not penetrated far into the heights and depths of Anglo-Indian officialdom, but autocracy in Russia, bureaucracy in Germany, Austria and Great Britain have joined with democracy in France and America and with individualists all over the Western world in upholding, within their own special limitations and capacities, the gospel of handicraft preached and practised by Ruskin and