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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 4 (September 1, 1931.)

[section]

A Loin Cloth in London—Do East and West Meet?—Western Materialism Creaks—Britain Off Gold Standard.

Dark-Skinned potentates often went to Old Rome in chains to adorn a Roman triumph, but never was there such an entry into Rome, ancient or modern, as the entry of Gandhi into London. He of the loin cloth—“a self-made shawl” was added at Marseilles—came in what is now his habitual simplicity of attire, strange contrast to the evening dress he wore in London about the end of the last century. But if there is a limit to his wardrobe, there seems to be little limit to the moral authority he claims. It may be that the calibre of prophets is still estimated to be in inverse proportion to their raiment. Actually Gandhi will speak at the India Round Table Conference on behalf of the Indian Congress, an Assembly which claims to represent some of India's many millions. But, over and above such political credentials, his whole demeanour impresses the plea that he moves on spiritual tides. He comes West to champion Eastern culture and spirituality in a way that even Kipling, brilliant as he was in picturing the Indian mind, could not (would not!) have conceived.