Krishna Kant

The same mistake that Germany made when she executed Edith Cavell, a British magistrate in Bombay made last week. Outside a Bombay store a small, impertinent child shrilly shouted to purchasers to buy nothing but Indian goods. Brandishing their long lathis, policemen swooped down, arrested the child as a picketer and hauled him off to court where a short tempered magistrate sentenced him to four years imprisonment. The child's name was Krishna Kant. He was nine years old. Snapped the magistrate:

"If you disobey orders in the reformatory you will be whipped."

"I am ready to die for Gandhi," said Krishna Kant.

Half of India had heard of Krishna Kant next day. Nationalist agitators thanked their stars for an easy martyr. Wholesale arrests continued. Indian papers printed page-long lists of political convictions. In Bombay, crowds searched houses for British cloth, built bonfires of it in the streets. Bengal police fired into a crowd, killed one, wounded two.

Even so India was of great service to Britain last week. In one day $9,000,000 in gold bullion left Bombay for London to bolster the British pound. Reporters discovered that since Britain went off the gold standard over $100,000,000 in Indian gold had been sent to Britain. St. Gandhi was fully aware of the importance of this.

Just before his imprisonment he wrote: "If the outflow of gold continues India will soon become bankrupt. England is bankrupt and she is sure to pounce upon our gold reserves by all means, fair or foul. Moreover we are at war with England and we are not bound to help her at present."

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