India won the esteem of the ancient world as the land of light and learning, in the glorious days of her pristine power and prosperity by sending her children abroad as the sacred messengers of her divine culture and religion. But it may well be said of her at the present day that, as a nation that has fallen from her proud position of yore to that of the helot and the menial, since many of her children are now reduced to the pitiable condition of seeking foreign lands in search of food and other necessaries of life. Thanks to the steady impoverishment of the country under alien rule and the loss of employment to many among the masses by the decay of indigenous industries, India has been turned into a profitable field for recruiting cheap labour to the European planter and capitalist, engaged in the exploitation of the adjoining lands. The consequences of this menial type of this national expansion into foreign lands is injurious alike to the prestige, and welfare, of moral as well as material, of the individuals going and the nations sending them out. Nor is the treatment meted to these Indians in the countries they are invited for labour, in any way consistent with our national honour and self-respect.
