Under the auspices of Sri Panduranga Sabha Triplicane, Mr. A. Rangaswami Iyengar delivered a lecture in Tamil on “Social Condition in England” on Wednesday last when the Hon’ble Mr. B.V. Narasimha Iyer presided. In the course of his lecture he drew pointed attention to the ordered civil life in England as contrasted with our own undeveloped and irregular civic consciousness. Given a sound education in the public school at their early age, brought up in the healthy atmosphere of freedom with an innate sense of equality of man to man, the “get up” and behaviour of even the commonest individual in England is something arresting. In public places like the market and railway stations, the self-imposed discipline and order is equally remarkable. Adverting to club life, he said, the freest interchange of thought on subjects like politics, party polemics and sociology was characteristic and the influence it exerts on men and things is great and potential. The hospitality, wholesome and voluntary which is characteristic of Indian homes is a thing impossible in England. Each man is sufficient unto himself and thought of the neighbour cannot disturb the tenor of an Englishman’s daily routine. Even a domestic servant freely discussed politics with a feeling that he was one among the democracy.
The Chairman, in bringing the proceedings to a close agreed, with the lecturer in all that he had said and said that the rigorous rules against foreign travelling, etc., should be relaxed by our Acharyas Matams.
With a vote of thanks to the lecturer and Chair, the meeting terminated.