Mr. Keir Hardie!

The _Sahaik_, of Lahore, furnishes an apt illustration of the scurrilous
abuse and calumny which constitute one of the favourite weapons of Hindu
writers. Referring to the Malaria Conference held last year, it begins
by remarking that when a famine occurs--

relief works are opened only when the sufferings of the famine-stricken
become acute, and their supervision is entrusted
to a fat-salaried Englishman who swallows up half the collections,
which amount could have fed hundreds of the poor
people. Thus also with the forthcoming inquiries concerning
malarial fever, which is spreading all over the country.
Every Indian knows that, like the plague, this form of fever
is due to the poverty and consequent physical weakness
of the people. It is, however, to the mosquito that the
authorities went for the causes of the disease, just as to
the rats for the causes of plague. Different medicines
and instruments were invented for extirpating the insect,
doctors were also employed, and rewards paid for the writing
of books. In this way crores of rupees went into the pockets
of English shopkeepers and others. A trial is now being
given to quinine, and lakhs-worth sold to Indians, English
quinine manufacturers being thus enriched. Again a commission
is about to sit on the heights of Simla. The commissioners
will enjoy feasts and dances and drink brandy which
will cost poor natives lakhs of rupees, and afterwards they
will devise means to develop the trade in quinine or other
drugs.