"Hail, Motherland!"

Fanatical Indian mobs surged in the streets of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, last week, chanting the Swaraj (NonCooperation) party song "Bonde Mataram!" ("Hail, Motherland!"). Their excitement, which rapidly rose to the pitch of violence, was due to the landing at Bombay of the Indian Statutory Commission (TIME, Jan.

9, Jan. 30), headed by that great Liberal barrister Sir John Simon, and empowered to investigate how great a measure of self government it is to the advantage of Great Britain to extend to India.

Because no one of the members* of the Commission is an Indian, there have been roused such furies of resentment and misunderstanding that mild, humanitarian Sir John Simon had to be escorted last week by a guard of soldiers.

Violence. Since the well-guarded Commission was not actually attacked, the points of significance with regard to violence were that at Madras British police were obliged to fire upon the mobs, killing two Indians, in order to restore order; that in Calcutta a mob of 10,000 students hurled brickbats and battled with police and soldiers who did not fire; and that throughout India numerous instances were reported in which the automobiles of British private citizens were attacked and partially smashed, though no Briton was reported killed.

Hartal. Comfort for Britons lay in the small success achieved by Swarajist leaders, last week, in organizing a hartal or "strike in mourning" against the Commission. Most industrial workers who struck at all struck for only part of one day, and a large majority of Indian shop-keepers ignored the call to close their shops. Many riots were characteristically not between Indians and the police but between Non-Co-operators and other Indians who preferred to go about their business.

Somewhat premature, however, were the smug comments of the London press.

Wrote famed James Louis Garvin, editor of the Observer (and also, incidentally, of the Encyclopaedia Britannica): "Significant is the failure of the hartal.

For the first time in recent Indian history the demonstrative exuberance which has so often moved Indian opinion and achieved results superficially impressive has been recognized for the froth that it is.

"Helped or impeded, the Commission will go forward with its work. Justification of our authority in India lies in the work we have accomplished." Exuberance. Individually the hartal groups "frothed" by burning Sir John Simon and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin repeatedly in effigy, and by sending out to greet the S. S. Rawalpindi, on which the Commission reached Bombay, several "mourning barges," draped in black, flying black flags, and topheavy with zealots who screamed: "Go back! Go back!"

New Delhi. From Bombay, whither sped the Seven Wise Men, plunging 700 miles into the interior, on a special, troop-guarded train? Naturally their objective was New Delhi, the superb Viceregal Capital of British India, on which some $150,000,000 has already been spent, so that the more important of its sumptuous white stone buildings already tower and glisten in the Indian sun.

There the Commission was welcomed by an officially august but personally modest host, His Excellency the Right Hon. Baron Irwin, Viceroy and Governor General of India, and heir of Edward of Wales' Groom of the Bedchamber, Viscount Halifax.

Since Lord Irwin became Viceroy (TIME, April 12, 1926) he has waxed greatly in Indian popularity by displaying a wise and ready tact in conciliating the claims of Indian nationalism. He rose to a great moment, last Spring, in dedicating the great Council House, at New Delhi, a circular structure surrounded by 144 white stone columns and housing the Indian National Assembly, the Chamber of Indian Princes, and the Viceregal Council of State. Said Lord Irwin, fervently on that occasion: "Let us pray that men of every race and class and creed may here unite in a single resolve to guide India to fashion her future well!"

Before the arrival of the Commission, last week, Viceroy Irwin had vigorously exerted himself to forestall the hartal, both by conferences with Indian leaders and by an address to the Indian National Assembly, during which only the extreme Swarajist members absented themselves. When the Commission reached New Delhi they found this quiet, energetic representative of the King-Emperor still resident in a mansion of simple pretensions some distance from the site on which a splendid Viceregal Palace will eventually rise.

*They are, in addition to Chairman Sir John Simon: Viscount Burnham, until recently owner of the London Daily Telegraph; Baron Strathcona, Unionist peer; Lieut. Col. George Richard Lane-Fox, recently resigned Under-Secretary of State for Mines; the Hon. Edward Cecil Cadogan, author-barrister-M. P.; Major Clement Richard Attlee, Laborite M. P. and the Rt. Hon.

Stephen Walsh, Secretary for War in the MacDonald Labor Cabinet.