28 SEPTEMBER 1907, Page 13

THE SITUATION IN INDIA.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—The village people make up ninety per cent. of India's population; but Dr. Macphail is seriously in error in thinking that the village people of Fergana Chakai whom he describes in his letter which appeared on September 14th are at all representative of the other two hundred and fifty Pargana Chakai, for instance, is not in Bengal proper, which it adjoins. As its inhabitants do not know Bengali, they cannot read or understand the Bengali news- papers, besides being far below the forty million Bengali- speaking village people in education and intelligence. There are in a different way still greater differences between them and the village people of the Punjab. The object with which Dr. Macphail (whose work in Chakai has long been known to me) wrote his letter is not clear, but I cannot see that it throws any light on the situation of unrest in India.-1 am,