We were told the other day—and this brings us to the root of policy—that there had been a momentary flash of courage in the Government, a momentary flash of courage when the Government of India and we here assented to the deportation of two men, and it is made a matter of complaint that they were released immediately. Well, they were not released immediately, but after six or eight months—I forget exactly how many months—of detention. They were there with no charge, no trial, nor intention of bringing them to trial. How long were we to keep them there? Not a day, I answer, nor one hour, after the specific and particular mischief, with a view to which this drastic proceeding was adopted, had abated. Specific mischief, mind you. I will not go into that argument to-night: another day I will. I will only say one thing. To strain the meaning and the spirit of an exceptional law like the old Regulation of the year 1818 in such a fashion as this, what would it do? Such a strain, pressed upon us in the perverse imagination of headstrong men, is no better than a suggestion for provoking lawless and criminal reprisals. ("No.") You may not agree with me. You are kindly allowing me as your guest to say things with which perhaps you do not agree. (Cries of "Go on.") After all, we understand one another—we speak the same language, and I tell you that a proceeding of that kind, indefinite detention, is a thing that would not be endured in this country. (A voice of "Disorder.") Yes, if there were great and clear connection between the detention and the outbreak of disorder, certainly; but as the disorder had abated it would have been intolerable for us to continue the incarceration.

Last Monday, what is called a Press Act, was passed by the Government of India, in connection with, and simultaneously with, an Explosives Act which ought to have been passed, I should think, twenty years ago. What is the purport of the Press Act? I do not attempt to give it in technical language. Where the Local Government finds a newspaper article inciting to murder and violence, or resort to explosives for the purposes of murder or violence, that Local Government may apply to a Magistrate of a certain status to issue an order for the seizure of the Press by which that incitement has been printed; and if the owner of the Press feels himself aggrieved, he may within fifteen days ask the High Court to reverse the order, and direct the restoration of the Press. That is a statement of the law that has been passed in India, and to which I do not doubt we shall give our assent. There has been the usual outcry raised—usual in all these cases. Certain people say, "Oh, you are too late." Others say, "You are too early." I will say to you first of all, and to any other audience afterwards, that I have no apology to make for being a party to the passing of this law now; and I have no apology to make for not passing it before. I do not believe in short cuts, and I believe that the Government in these difficult circumstances is wise not to be in too great a hurry. I have no apology to make for introducing executive action into what would normally be a judicial process. Neither, on the other hand, have I any apology to make for tempering executive action with judicial elements; and I am very glad to say that an evening newspaper last night, which is not of the politics to which I belong, entirely approves of that. It says: "You must show that you are not afraid of referring your semi-executive, semi-judicial action to the High Court." This Act meddles with no criticism, however strong, of Government measures. It discourages the advocacy of no practical policy, social, political, or economic. Yet I see, to my great regret and astonishment, that this Act is described as an Act for judging cases of seditious libel without a Jury. It is contended by some—and I respect the contention—that the Imperial Parliament ought to have been consulted before this Act was passed, and ought to be consulted now. (Cries of "No, no.") My veteran friends lived before the days of household suffrage. Well, it is said that the voice of Parliament ought to be heard in so grave a matter as this. But the principles of the proposals were fully considered, as was quite right, not only by the Secretary of State in Council, but by the Cabinet. It was a matter of public urgency. I stand by it. But it is perfectly natural to ask: Should the Imperial Parliament have no voice? I have directed the Government of India to report to the Secretary of State all the proceedings taken under this Act; and I undertake, as long as I hold the office of Secretary of State, to present to Parliament from time to time the reports of the proceedings taken under this somewhat drastic Act.

When I am told that an Act of this kind is a restriction on the freedom of the Press, I do not accept it for a moment. I do not believe that there is a man in England who is more jealous of the freedom of the Press than I am. But let us see what we mean. It is said, "Oh, these incendiary articles"—for they are incendiary and murderous—"are mere froth." Yes, they are froth; but they are froth stained with bloodshed. When you have men admitting that they deliberately write these articles and promote these newspapers with a view of furthering murderous action, to talk of the freedom of the Press in connection with that is wicked moonshine. We have now got a very Radical House of Commons. So much, the better for you. If I were still a member of the House of Commons, I should not mind for a moment going down to the House—and I am sure that my colleagues will not mind—to say that when you find these articles on the avowal of those concerned, expressly designed to promote murderous action, and when you find as a fact that murderous action has come about, it is moonshine to talk of the freedom of the Press. There is no use in indulging in heroics. They are not wanted. But an incendiary article is part and parcel of the murderous act. You may put picric acid in the ink and pen, just as much as in any steel bomb. I have one or two extracts here with which I will not trouble you. But when I am told that we should recognise it as one of the chief aims of good Government that there may be as much public discussion as possible, I read that sentence with proper edification; and then I turn to what I had telegraphed for from India—extracts from Yugantar. To talk of public discussion in connection with mischief of that kind is really pushing things intolerably far.

I will not be in a hurry to believe that there is not a great body in India of reasonable people, not only among the quiet, humble, law-abiding classes, but among the educated classes. I do not care what they call themselves, or what organisation they may form themselves into. But I will not be in a hurry to believe that there are no such people and that we can never depend on them. When we believe this—that we have no body of organised, reasonable people on our side in India—when you gentlemen who know the country, say this—then I say that, on the day when we believe that, we shall be confronted with as awkward, as embarrassing, and as hazardous a situation as has ever confronted the rulers of any of the most complex and gigantic States in human history. I am confident that if the crisis comes, it will find us ready, but let us keep our minds clear in advance. There have been many dark and ugly moments—see gentlemen around me who have gone through dark and ugly dates—in our relations with India before now. We have a clouded moment before us now. We shall get through it—but only with self-command and without any quackery or cant whether it be the quackery of blind violence disguised as love of order, or the cant of unsound and misapplied sentiment, divorced from knowledge and untouched by any cool consideration of the facts.



V

ON PROPOSED REFORMS

(HOUSE OF LORDS. DECEMBER 17, 1908)

I feel that I owe a very sincere apology to the House for the disturbance in the business arrangements of the House, of which I have been the cause, though the innocent cause. It has been said that in the delays in bringing forward this subject, I have been anxious to burke discussion. That is not in the least true. The reasons that made it seem desirable to me that the discussion on this most important and far-reaching range of topics should be postponed, were—I believe the House will agree with me—reasons of common sense. In the first place, discussion without anybody having seen the Papers to be discussed, would evidently have been ineffective. In the second place it would have been impossible to discuss those Papers with good effect—the Papers that I am going this afternoon to present to Parliament—until we know, at all events in some degree, what their reception has been in the country most immediately concerned. And then thirdly, my Lords, I cannot but apprehend that discussion here—I mean in Parliament—would be calculated to prejudice the reception in India of the proposals that His Majesty's Government, in concert with the Government of India, are now making. My Lords, I submit those are three very essential reasons why discussion in my view, and I hope in the view of this House, was to be deprecated. This afternoon your Lordships will be presented with a very modest Blue-book of 100 or 150 pages, but I should like to promise noble Lords that to-morrow morning there will be ready for them a series of Papers on the same subject, of a size so enormous that the most voracious or even carnivorous appetite for Blue-books will have ample food for augmenting the joys of the Christmas holidays.

The observations that I shall ask your Lordships to allow me to make, are the opening of a very important chapter in the history of the relations of Great Britain and India; and I shall ask the indulgence of the House if I take a little time, not so much in dissecting the contents of the Papers, which the House will be able to do for itself by and by, as in indicating the general spirit that animates His Majesty's Government here, and my noble friend the Governor-General, in making the proposals that I shall in a moment describe. I suppose, like other Secretaries of State for India, I found my first, idea was to have what they used to have in the old days—a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into Indian Government. I see that a predecessor of mine in the India Office, Lord Randolph Churchill—he was there for too short a time—in 1885 had very strongly conceived that idea. On the whole I think there is a great deal at the present day to be said against it.

Therefore what we have done was in concert with the Government of India, first to open a chapter of constitutional reform, of which I will speak in a moment, and next to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the internal relations between the Government of India and all its subordinate and co-ordinate parts. That Commission will report, I believe, in February or March next,—February, I hope,—and that again will involve the Government of India and the India Office in Whitehall in pretty laborious and careful inquiries. It cannot be expected—and it ought not to be expected—that an Act passed as the organic Act of 1858 was passed, amidst intense excitement and most disturbing circumstances, should have been in existence for half a century without disclosing flaws and imperfections, or that its operations would not be the better for supervision, or incapable of improvement.

I spoke of delay in these observations, and unfortunately delay has not made the skies any brighter. But, my Lords, do not let us make the Indian sky cloudier than it really is. Do not let us consider the clouds to be darker than they really are. Let me invite your Lordships to look at the formidable difficulties that now encumber us in India, with a due sense of proportion.

What is the state of things as it appears to persons of authority and of ample knowledge in India? One very important and well-known friend of mine in India says this—

"The anarchists are few, but, on the other hand, they are apparently prepared to go any length and to run any risk. It must also be borne in mind that the ordinary man or lad in India has not too much courage, and that the loyal are terrorised by the ruthless extremists."

It is a curious incident that on the very day before the attempt to assassinate Sir Andrew Fraser was made, he had a reception in the college where the would-be assassin was educated, and his reception was of the most enthusiastic and spontaneous kind. I only mention that, to show the curious and subtle atmosphere in which things now are at Calcutta. I will not dwell on that, because although I have a mass of material, this is not the occasion for developing it. I will only add this from a correspondent of great authority—

"There is no fear of anything in the nature of a rising, but if murders continue, a general panic may arise and greatly increase the danger of the situation. We cannot hope that any machinery will completely stop outrages at once. We must be prepared to meet them. There are growing indications that the native population itself is alarmed, and that we shall have the strong support of native public opinion."

The view of important persons in the Government of India is that in substance the position of our Government in India is as sound and as well-founded as it has ever been.

I shall be asked, has not the Government of India been obliged to pass a measure introducing pretty drastic machinery? That is quite true, and I, for one, have no fault whatever to find with them for introducing such machinery and for taking that step. On the contrary, my Lords, I wholly approve, and I share, of course, to the full the responsibility for it. I understand that I am exposed to some obloquy on this account—I am charged with inconsistency. That is a matter on which I am very well able to take care of myself, and I should be ashamed to detain your Lordships for one single moment in arguing about it. Quite early after my coming to the India Office, pressure was put on me to repeal the Regulation of 1818, under which men are now being summarily detained without trial and without charge, and without intention to try or to charge. That, of course, is a tremendous power to place in the hands of an Executive Government. But I said to myself then, and I say now, that I decline to take out of the hands of the Government of India any weapon that they have got, in circumstances so formidable, so obscure, and so impenetrable as are the circumstances that surround British Government in India.

There are two paths of folly in these matters. One is to regard all Indian matters, Indian procedure and Indian policy, as if it were Great Britain or Ireland, and to insist that all the robes and apparel that suit Great Britain or Ireland must necessarily suit India. The other is to think that all you have got to do is what I see suggested, to my amazement, in English print—to blow a certain number of men from guns, and then your business will be done. Either of these paths of folly leads to as great disaster as the other. I would like to say this about the Summary Jurisdiction Bill—I have no illusions whatever. I do not ignore, and I do not believe that Lord Lansdowne opposite, or anyone else can ignore, the frightful risks involved in transferring in any form or degree what should be the ordinary power under the law, to arbitrary personal discretion. I am alive, too, to the temptation under summary procedure of various kinds, to the danger of mistaking a headstrong exercise of force for energy. Again, I do not for an instant forget, and I hope those who so loudly applaud legislation of this kind do not forget, the tremendous price that you pay for all operations of this sort in the reaction and the excitement that they provoke. If there is a man who knows all these drawbacks I think I am he. But there are situations in which a responsible Government is compelled to run these risks and to pay this possible price, however high it may appear to be.

It is like war, a hateful thing, from which, however, some of the most ardent lovers of peace, and some of those rulers of the world whose names the most ardent lovers of peace most honour and revere—it is one of the things from which these men have not shrunk. The only question for us is whether there is such a situation in India to-day as to warrant the passing of the Act the other day, and to justify resort to the Regulation of 1818. I cannot imagine anybody reading the speeches—especially the unexaggerated remarks of the Viceroy—and the list of crimes perpetrated, and attempted, that were read out last Friday in Calcutta—I cannot imagine that anybody reading that list and thinking what they stand for, would doubt for a single moment that summary procedure of some kind or another was justified and called for. I discern a tendency to criticise this legislation on grounds that strike me as extraordinary. After all, it is not our fault that we have had to bring in this measure. You must protect the lives of your officers. You must protect peaceful and harmless people, both Indian and European, from the blood-stained havoc of anarchic conspiracy. We deplore the necessity, but we are bound to face the facts. I myself recognise this necessity with infinite regret, and with something, perhaps, rather deeper than regret. But it is not the Government, either here or in India, who are the authors of this necessity, and I should not at all mind, if it is not impertinent and unbecoming in me to say so, standing up in another place and saying exactly what I say here, that I approve of these proceedings and will do my best to support the Government of India.

Now a very important question arises, for which I would for a moment ask the close attention of your Lordships, because I am sure that both here and elsewhere it will be argued that the necessity, and the facts that caused the necessity, of bringing forward strong repressive machinery should arrest our policy of reforms. That has been stated, and I dare say many people will assent to it. Well, the Government of India and myself have from the very first beginning of this unsettled state of things, never varied in our determination to persevere in the policy of reform.

I put two plain questions to your Lordships. I am sick of all the retrograde commonplaces about the weakness of concession to violence and so on. Persevering in our plan of reform is not a concession to violence. Reforms that we have publicly announced, adopted, and worked out for more than two years—how is it a concession to violence, to persist in those reforms? It is simply standing to your guns. A number of gentlemen, of whom I wish to speak with all respect, addressed a very courteous letter to me the other day that appeared in the public prints, exhorting me to remember that Oriental countries inevitably and invariably interpret kindness as fear. I do not believe it. The Founder of Christianity arose in an Oriental country, and when I am told that Orientals always mistake kindness for fear, I must repeat that I do not believe it, any more than I believe the stranger saying of Carlyle, that after all the fundamental question between any two human beings is—Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me? I do not agree that any organised society has ever subsisted upon either of those principles, or that brutality is always present as a fundamental postulate in the relations between rulers and ruled.

My first question is this. There are alternative courses open to us. We can either withdraw our reforms, or we can persevere in them. Which would be the more flagrant sign of weakness—to go steadily on with your policy of reform in spite of bombs, or to let yourself openly be forced by bombs and murder clubs to drop your policy? My second question is—Who would be best pleased if I were to announce to your Lordships that the Government have determined to drop the reforms? Why, it is notorious that those who would be best pleased would be the extremists and irreconcilables, just because they know well that for us to do anything to soften estrangement, and appease alienation between the European and native populations, would be the very best way that could be adopted to deprive them of fuel for their sinister and mischievous designs. I hope your Lordships will agree in that, and I should like to add one reason which I am sure will weigh very much with you. I do not know whether your Lordships have read the speech made last Friday by Sir Norman Baker, the new Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, in the Council at Calcutta, dealing with the point that I am endeavouring to present. In a speech of great power and force, he said that these repressive measures did not represent even the major part of the true policy dealing with the situation. The greater task, he said, was to adjust the machinery of government, so that their Indian fellow-subjects might be allotted parts which a self-respecting people could fill, and that when the constitutional reforms were announced, as they would be shortly, he believed that the task of restoring order would be on the road to accomplishment. For a man holding such a position to make such a statement at that moment, is all the corroboration that we need for persisting in our policy of reform. I have talked with Indian experts of all kinds concerning reforms. I admit that some have shaken their heads; they did not like reforms very warmly. But when I have asked, "Shall we stand still, then?" there is not one of those experienced men who has not said, "That is quite impossible. Whatever else we do, we cannot stand still."

I should not be surprised if there are here some who say: You ought to have some very strong machinery for putting down a free Press. A long time ago a great Indian authority, Sir Thomas Munro, used language which I will venture to quote, not merely for the purpose of this afternoon's exposition, but in order that everybody who listens and reads may feel the formidable difficulties that our predecessors have overcome, and that we in our turn mean to try to overcome. Sir Thomas Munro said—

"We are trying an experiment never yet tried in the world—maintaining a foreign dominion by means of a native army; and teaching that army, through a free Press, that they ought to expel us, and deliver their country."

He went on to say—

"A tremendous revolution may overtake us, originating in a free Press."

I recognise to the full the enormous force of a declaration of that kind. But let us look at it as practical men, who have got to deal with the government of the country. Supposing you abolish freedom of the Press or suspend it, that will not end the business. You will have to shut up schools and colleges, for what would be the use of suppressing newspapers, if you do not shut the schools and colleges? Nor will that be all. You will have to stop the printing of unlicensed books. The possession of a copy of Milton, or Burke, or Macaulay, or of Bright's speeches, and all that flashing array of writers and orators who are the glory of our grand, our noble English tongue—the possession of one of these books will, on this peculiar and puerile notion of government, be like the possession of a bomb, and we shall have to direct the passing of an Explosives Books Act. All this and its various sequels and complements make a policy if you please. But after such a policy had produced a mute, sullen, muzzled, lifeless India, we could hardly call it, as we do now the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown. No English Parliament will ever permit such a thing.

I do not think I need go through all the contents of the dispatch of the Governor-General and my reply, containing the plan of His Majesty's Government, which will be in your Lordships' hands very shortly. I think your Lordships will find in them a well-guarded expansion of principles that were recognised in 1861, and are still more directly and closely connected with us now by the action of Lord Lansdowne in 1892. I have his words, and they are really as true a key to the papers in our hands as they were to the policy of the noble Marquess at that date. He said—

"We hope, however, that we have succeeded in giving to our proposals a form sufficiently definite to secure a satisfactory advance in the representation of the people in our legislative Councils, and to give effect to the principle of selection as far as possible on the advice of such sections of the community as are likely to be capable of assisting us in that manner."

Then you will find that another Governor-General in Council in India, whom I greatly rejoice to see still among us, my noble friend the Marquess of Ripon, said in 1882—

"It is not primarily with a view to the improvement of administration, that this measure is put forward, it is chiefly desirable as an instrument of political and popular education"

The doctrines announced by the noble Marquess opposite, and by my noble friend, are the standpoint from which we approached the situation and framed our proposals.

I will not trouble the House by going through the history of the course of the proceedings—that will be found in the Papers. I believe the House will be satisfied, just as I am satisfied, with the candour and patience that have been bestowed on the preparation of the scheme in India, and I hope I may add it has been treated with equal patience and candour here; and the end of it is that, though some points of difference arose, though the Government of India agreed to drop certain points of their scheme—the Advisory Councils, for example—on the whole there was remarkable agreement between the Government of India and myself as to the best way of dealing with these proceedings as to Legislative Councils. I will enumerate the points very shortly, and though I am afraid it may be tedious, I hope your Lordships will not find the tedium unbearable, because, after all, what you are beginning to consider to-day, is the turning over of a fresh leaf in the history of British responsibility to India. There are only a handful of distinguished members of this House who understand the details of Indian Administration, but I will explain them as shortly as I can.

This is a list of the powers which we shall have to acquire from Parliament when we bring in a Bill. I may say that we do not propose to bring in a Bill this session. That would be idle. I propose to bring in a Bill next year. This is the first power we shall come to Parliament for. At present the maximum and minimum numbers of Legislative Councils are fixed by statute. We shall come to Parliament to authorise an increase in the numbers of those Councils, both the Viceroy's Council and the Provincial Councils. Secondly, the members are now nominated by the head of the Government, either the Viceroy or the Lieutenant-Governor. No election takes place in the strict sense of the term. The nearest approach to it is the nomination by the Viceroy, upon the recommendation of a majority of voters of certain public bodies. We do not propose to ask Parliament to abolish nomination. We do propose to ask Parliament, in a very definite way, to introduce election working alongside of nomination with a view to the aim admitted in all previous schemes, including that of the noble Marquess opposite—the due representation of the different classes of the community. Third. The Indian Councils Act of 1892 forbids—and this is no doubt a most important prohibition—either resolutions or divisions of the Council in financial discussions. We shall ask Parliament to repeal this prohibition. Fourth. We shall propose to invest legislative Councils with power to discuss matters of public and general importance, and to pass recommendations or resolutions to the Indian Government. That Government will deal with them as carefully, or as carelessly, as they think fit—just as a Government does here. Fifth. To extend the power that at present exists, to appoint a Member of the Council to preside. Sixth. Bombay and Madras have now Executive Councils, numbering two. I propose to ask Parliament to double the number of ordinary members. Seventh. The Lieutenant-Governors have no Executive Council. We shall ask Parliament to sanction the creation of such Councils, consisting of not more than two ordinary members, and to define the power of the Lieutenant-Governor to overrule his Council. I am perfectly sure there may be differences of opinion as to these proposals. I only want your Lordships to believe that they have been well thought out, and that they are accepted by the Governor-General in Council.

There is one point of extreme importance which, no doubt, though it may not be over diplomatic for me to say so at this stage, will create some controversy. I mean the matter of the official majority. The House knows what an official majority is. It is a device by which the Governor-General, or the Governor of Bombay or Madras, may secure a majority in his Legislative Council by means of officials and nominees. And the officials, of course, for very good reasons, just like a Cabinet Minister or an Under-Secretary, whatever the man's private opinion may be, would still vote, for the best of reasons, and I am bound to think with perfect wisdom, with the Government. But anybody can see how directly, how palpably, how injuriously, an arrangement of this kind tends to weaken, and I think I may say even to deaden, the sense both of trust and responsibility in the non-official members of these councils. Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an attitude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of members of these Legislative Councils.

I know it will be said—I will not weary the House by arguing it, but I only desire to meet at once the objection that will be taken—that these councils will, if you take away the safeguard of the official majority, pass any number of wild-cat Bills. The answer to that is that the head of the Government can veto the wild-cat Bills. The Governor-General can withhold his assent, and the withholding of the assent of the Governor-General is no defunct power. Only the other day, since I have been at the India Office, the Governor-General disallowed a Bill passed by a Local Government which I need not name, with the most advantageous effect. I am quite convinced that if that Local Government had had an unofficial majority the Bill would never have been passed, and the Governor-General would not have had to refuse his assent. But so he did, and so he would if these gentlemen, whose numbers we propose to increase and whose powers we propose to widen, chose to pass wild-cat Bills. And it must be remembered that the range of subjects within the sphere of Provincial Legislative Councils is rigorously limited by statutory exclusions. I will not labour the point now. Anybody who cares, in a short compass, can grasp the argument, of which we shall hear a great deal, in Paragraphs 17 to 20 of my reply to the Government of India, in the Papers that will speedily be in your Lordships' hands.

There is one proviso in this matter of the official majority, in which your Lordships may, perhaps, find a surprise. We are not prepared to divest the Governor-General in his Council of an official majority. In the Provincial Councils we propose to dispense with it, but in the Viceroy's Legislative Council we propose to adhere to it. Only let me say that here we may seem to lag a stage behind the Government of India themselves—so little violent are we—because that Government say, in their despatch—"On all ordinary occasions we are ready to dispense with an official majority in the Imperial Legislative Council, and to rely on the public spirit of non-official members to enable us to carry on the ordinary work of legislation." My Lords, that is what we propose to do in the Provincial Councils. But in the Imperial Council we consider an official majority essential. It may be said that this is a most flagrant logical inconsistency. So it would be, on one condition. If I were attempting to set up a Parliamentary system in India, or if it could be said that this chapter of reforms led directly or necessarily up to the establishment of a Parliamentary system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do with it. I do not believe—it is not of very great consequence what I believe, because the fulfilment of my vaticinations could not come off very soon—in spite of the attempts in Oriental countries at this moment, interesting attempts to which we all wish well, to set up some sort of Parliamentary system—it is no ambition of mine, at all events, to have any share in beginning that operation in India. If my existence, either officially or corporeally, were prolonged twenty times longer than either of them is likely to be, a Parliamentary system in India is not at all the goal to which I would for one moment aspire.

One point more. It is the question of an Indian member on the Viceroy's Executive Council. The absence of an Indian member from the Viceroy's Executive Council can no longer, I think, be defended. There is no legal obstacle or statutory exclusion. The Secretary of State can, to-morrow, if he likes, if there be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Council, recommend His Majesty to appoint an Indian member. All I want to say is that, if, during my tenure of office, there should be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Executive Council, I should feel it a duty to tender my advice to the King that an Indian member should be appointed. If it were on my own authority only, I might hesitate to take that step, because I am not very fond of innovations in dark and obscure ground, but here I have the absolute and the zealous approval and concurrence of Lord Minto himself. It was at Lord Minto's special instigation that I began to think seriously of this step. Anyhow, this is how it stands, that you have at this moment a Secretary of State and a Viceroy who both concur in such a recommendation. I suppose—if I may be allowed to give a personal turn to these matters—that Lord Minto and I have had as different experience of life and the world as possible, and we belong I daresay to different schools of national politics, because Lord Minto was appointed by the party opposite. It is a rather remarkable thing that two men, differing in this way in political antecedents, should agree in this proposal. We need not discuss what particular portfolio should be assigned to an Indian member. That will be settled by the Viceroy on the merits of the individual. The great object, the main object, is that the merits of individuals are to be considered and to be decisive, irrespective and independent of race and colour.

We are not altogether without experience, because a year ago, or somewhat more, it was my good fortune to be able to appoint two Indian gentlemen to the Council of India sitting at the Indian Office. Many apprehensions reached me as to what might happen. So far, at all events, those apprehensions have been utterly dissipated. The concord between the two Indian members of the Council and their colleagues has been unbroken, their work has been excellent, and you will readily believe me when I say that the advantage to me of being able to ask one of these two gentlemen to come and tell me something about an Indian question from an Indian point of view, is enormous. I find in it a chance of getting the Indian angle of vision, and I feel sometimes as if I were actually in the streets of Calcutta.

I do not say there are not some arguments on the other side. But this, at all events, must be common sense—for the Governor-General and the European members of his Council to have at their side a man who knows the country well, who belongs to the country and who can give him the point of view of an Indian. Surely, my Lords, that cannot but prove an enormous advantage.

Let me say further, on the Judicial Bench in India everybody recognises the enormous service that it is to have Indian members of abundant learning, and who add to that abundant learning a complete knowledge of the conditions and life of the country. I propose at once, if Parliament agrees, to acquire powers to double the Executive Council in Bombay and Madras, and to appoint at least one Indian member in each of those cases, as well as in the Governor-General's Council. Nor, as the Papers will show, shall I be backward in advancing towards a similar step, as occasion may require, in respect of at least four of the major provinces.

I wish that this chapter had been opened at a more fortunate moment: but as I said when I rose, I repeat—do not let us for a moment take too gloomy a view. There is not the slightest occasion. None of those who are responsible take gloomy views. They know the difficulties, they are prepared to grapple with them. They will do their best to keep down mutinous opposition. They hope to attract that good will which must, after all, be the real foundation of our prosperity and strength in India. We believe that this admission of the Indians to a larger and more direct share in the government of their country and in all the affairs of their country, without for a moment taking from the central power its authority, will fortify the foundations of our position. It will require great steadiness, constant pursuit of the same objects, and the maintenance of our authority, which will be all the more effective if we have, along with our authority, the aid and assistance, in responsible circumstances, of the Indians themselves.

Military strength, material strength, we have in abundance. What we still want to acquire is moral strength—moral strength in guiding and controlling the people of India in the course on which time is launching them. I should like to read a few lines from a great orator about India. It was a speech delivered by Mr. Bright in 1858, when the Government of India Bill was in another place. Mr. Bright said—

"We do not know how to leave India, and therefore let us see if we know how to govern it. Let us abandon all that system of calumny against natives of India which has lately prevailed. Had that people not been docile, the most governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power there for 100 years? Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are they not, upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian service ever produced, endowed with many qualities which make them respected by all Englishmen who mix with them?... I would not permit any man in my presence without rebuke to indulge in the calumnies and expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth without measure upon the whole population of India.... The people of India do not like us, but they would scarcely know where to turn if we left them. They are sheep, literally without a shepherd."

However, that may be, we at least at Westminster here have no choice and no option. As an illustrious Member of this House wrote—

"We found a society in a state of decomposition, and we have undertaken the serious and stupendous process of reconstructing it."

Macaulay, for it was he, said—

"India now is like Europe in the fifth century."

Yes, a stupendous process indeed. The process has gone on with marvellous success, and if we all, according to our various lights, are true to our colours, that process will go on. Whatever is said, I for one—though I am not what is commonly called an Imperialist—so far from denying, I most emphatically affirm, that for us to preside over this transition from the fifth European century in some parts, in slow, uneven stages, up to the twentieth—so that you have before you all the centuries at once as it were—for us to preside over that, and to be the guide of peoples in that condition, is, if conducted with humanity and sympathy, with wisdom, with political courage, not only a human duty, but what has been often and most truly called one of the most glorious tasks ever confided to any powerful State in the history of civilised mankind.



VI

HINDUS AND MAHOMETANS

(AT THE INDIA OFFICE. JANUARY, 1909)

[A deputation of the London Branch of the All-Indian Moslem League waited upon the Secretary of State, in order to represent to him the views of the Mussulmans of India on the projected Indian reforms.]

I am delighted to meet you to-day, because I have always felt in my political experience, now pretty long, that it is when face answers to face that you come best to points of controversial issue. I have listened to the able speech of my friend Mr. Ameer Ali and to the speech that followed, with close attention, not merely for the sake of the arguments upon the special points raised, but because the underlying feeling and the animating spirit of the two speeches are full of encouragement. Why? Because instead of any hostile attitude to our reforms as a whole, I find that you welcome them cordially and with gratitude. I cannot say with what satisfaction I receive that announcement. If you will allow me, I will, before I come to the special points, say a few words upon the general position.

It is only five weeks, I think, since our scheme was launched, and I am bound to say that at the end of those five weeks the position may fairly be described as hopeful and promising. I do not think that the millennium will come in five more weeks, nor in fifty weeks; but I do say that for a scheme of so wide a scope to be received as this scheme has been received, is a highly encouraging sign. It does not follow that because we have launched our ship with a slant of fair wind, this means the same thing as getting into harbour. There are plenty of difficult points that we have got to settle. But when I try from my conning-tower in this office, to read the signs in the political skies, I am full of confidence. The great thing is that in every party both in India and at home—in every party, and every section, and every group—there is a recognition of the magnitude and the gravity of the enterprise on which we have embarked. I studied very closely the proceedings at Madras, and the proceedings at Amritsar, and in able speeches made in both those places I find a truly political spirit in the right sense of the word—in the sense of perspective and proportion—which I sometimes wish could be imitated by some of my political friends nearer home. I mean that issues, important enough but upon which there is some difference, are put aside—for the time only, if you like, but still put aside—in face of the magnitude of the issues that we present to you in these reforms. On Monday, in The Times newspaper, there was a long and most interesting communication from Bombay, written, I believe, by a gentleman of very wide Indian knowledge and level-headed humour. What does he say? He takes account of the general position as he found it in India shortly after my Despatch arrived. "I might have dwelt," he says, "upon the fact that I have not met a single official who does not admit that some changes which should gratify Indian longings were necessary, and I might have expatiated upon the abounding evidence that Lord Morley's despatch and speech have unquestionably eased a tension which had become exceedingly alarming." That is a most important thing, and I believe Parliament has fully recognised it.

We cannot fold our arms and say that things are to go on as they did before, and I rejoice to see what this gentleman says. He is talking of officials, and I always felt from the beginning that if we did not succeed in carrying with us the goodwill of that powerful service, there would be reason for suspecting that we were wrong upon the merits, and even if we were not wrong on the merits, there would be reason for apprehending formidable difficulties. I have myself complete confidence in them. I see in some journals of my own party suspicions thrown upon the loyalty of that service to his Majesty's Government of the day. It is absurd to think anything of the kind. If our policy and our proposals receive the approval of Parliament and the approval of officials, such as those spoken of in The Times the other day, I am perfectly sure there will be no more want of goodwill and zeal on the part of the Indian Civil Service, than there would be in the officers of his Majesty's Fleet, or his Majesty's Army. It would be just the same. I should like to read another passage from The Times letter:—"It would probably be incorrect to say that the bulk of the Civil Service in the Bombay Presidency are gravely apprehensive. Most of them are not unnaturally anxious"—I agree; it is perfectly natural that they should be anxious—"but the main officials in whose judgment most confidence can be placed, regard the future with the buoyant hopefulness without which an Englishman in India is lost indeed." All that is reassuring, and no sign nor whisper reaches me that any responsible man or any responsible section or creed, either in India or here, has any desire whatever to wreck our scheme. And let me go further. Statesmen abroad showing themselves capable of reflection, are watching us with interest and wishing us well. Take the remarkable utterance of President Roosevelt the other day at Washington. And if we turn from Washington to Eastern Europe, I know very well that any injustice, any suspicion that we were capable of being unjust, to Mahomedans in India, would certainly provoke a severe and injurious reaction in Constantinople. I am alive to all these things. Mr. Ameer Ali said he was sure the Secretary of State would mete out just and equitable treatment to all interests, if their views were fairly laid before him. He did me no more than justice.

The Government are entirely zealous and in earnest, acting in thorough good faith, in the desire to press forward these proposals. I may tell you that our Bill is now quite ready. I shall introduce it at the first minute after the Address is over, and, when it reaches the Commons, it will be pressed forward with all the force and resolution that Parliamentary conditions permit. These are not mere pious opinions or academic reforms; they are proposals that are to take Parliamentary shape at the earliest possible moment; and after taking Parliamentary shape, no time will, I know, be lost in India in bringing them as rapidly as possible into practical operation.

Now the first point Mr. Ameer Ali made was upon the unfairness to the members of the Mahomedan community, caused by reckoning in the Hindu census a large multitude of men who are not entitled to be there. I submit that it is not very easy—and I have gone into the question very carefully—to divide these lower castes and to classify them. Statisticians would be charged with putting too many into either one or the other division, wherever you choose to draw the line. I know the force of the argument, and am willing to attach to it whatever weight it deserves. I wish some of my friends in this country would study the figures of what are called the lower castes, because they would then see the enormous difficulty and absurdity of applying to India the same principles that are excellent guides to us Westerns who have been bred on the pure milk of the Benthamite word—one man one vote and every man a vote. That dream, by the way, is not quite realised even in this country; but the idea of insisting on a principle of that sort is irrational to anybody who reflects on this multiplicity and variety of race and castes.

Then there is the question of the joint electorate—what is called the mixed electoral college. I was very glad to read this paragraph in the paper that you were good enough to send to me. You recognise the very principle that was at the back of our minds, when we came to the conclusion about mixed electoral college. You say:—"In common with other well-wishers of India, the Committee look forward to a time when the development of a true spirit of compromise, or the fusion of the races, may make principles indicated by his Lordship capable of practical application without sacrificing the interests of any of the nationalities, or giving political ascendency to one to the disadvantage of the others. But the Committee venture to think that, however ready the country may be for constitutional reforms, the interests of the two great communities of India must be considered and dealt with separately." Therefore, to begin with, the difference between us in principle about the joint electorate is only this: we are guilty of nothing worse than that we were premature, in the views of these gentlemen—we were impatient idealists. You say to me, "It is very fine; we hope it will all come true; but you are premature; we must wait." Still, though premature, I observe that your own suggestion in one of those papers adopts and accepts the principle of the scheme outlined in our despatch. It is quite true to say, "Oh, but you are vague in your despatch." Yes, a despatch is not a Bill. A Minister writing a despatch does not put in all the clauses and sections and subsections and schedules. It is the business of a Minister composing a despatch like mine of November 27, 1908, to indicate only general lines—general enough to make the substance and body of the scheme intelligible, but still general. I should like to say a word about the despatch. It is constantly assumed that in the despatch we prescribed and ordered the introduction of the joint electoral college. If any of you will be good enough to look at the words, you will find that no language of that sort—no law of the Medes and Persians—is to be found in it. If you refer to paragraph 12 you will see that our language is this:—

"I suggest for your consideration that the object in view might be better secured, at any rate in the more advanced provinces in India, by a modification of the system of popular electorate founded on the principle of electoral colleges."

You see it was merely a suggestion thrown out for the Government of India, not a direction of the Mede and Persian stamp. You say, "That for the purpose of electing members to the Provincial Councils, electoral colleges should be constituted on lines suggested by his Lordship, composed exclusively of Mahomedans whose numbers and mode of grouping should be fixed by executive authority." This comes within the principle of my despatch, and we shall see—I hope very speedily—whether the Government of India discover objections to its practicability. Mark, electoral colleges "composed exclusively of Mahomedans whose members and mode of grouping should be fixed by executive authority"—that is a proposition which is not outside the despatch. Whether practicable or not, it is a matter for discussion between us here and the Government in India.

The aim of the Government and yours is identical—that there shall be (to quote Mr. Ameer Ali's words) "adequate, real, and genuine Mahomedan representation." Now, where is the difference between us? The machinery we commended, you do not think possible. As I have told you, the language of the despatch does not insist upon a mixed electoral college. It would be no departure in substance from the purpose of our suggestion, that there should be a separate Mahomedan electorate—an electorate exclusively Mahomedan; and in view of the wide and remote distances, and difficulties of organisation in consequence of those distances in the area constituting a large province, I am not sure that this is not one of those cases where election by two stages would not be convenient, and so there might be a separate electoral college exclusively Mahomedan. That is, I take it, in accordance with your own proposal. There are various methods by which it could be done. In the first place, an election exclusively Mahomedan might be direct into the legislative council. To this it may be said that it would be impossible by reason of distance. In the second place, you could have an election by separate communities to a local board, and the local board should be the electoral college, the Mahomedans separating themselves from the other members of the board for that purpose. Thirdly, the members of the local board, the communities being separate in the same way, could return a member for the electoral college. Fourthly, you might have a direct election to an electoral college by the community, and this electoral college would return a representative to the legislative council. These, you see, are four different expedients which well deserve consideration for attaining our end.

I go to the next point, the apprehensions lest if we based our system on numerical strength alone, a great injustice would be done to your community. Of course we all considered that, from the Viceroy downwards. Whether your apprehensions are well founded or not, it is the business of those who call themselves statesmen to take those apprehensions into account, and to do the best we can in setting up a working system to allay and meet such apprehensions. If you take numerical strength as your basis, in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal Mahomedans are in a decisive majority. In the Punjab the Moslem population is 53 per cent. to 38 per cent. Hindu. In Eastern Bengal 58 per cent. are Moslem and 37 per cent. are Hindu. Therefore, in those two provinces, on the numerical basis alone, the Mahomedans will secure sufficient representation. In Madras, on the other hand, the Hindus are 89 per cent. against 6 per cent. of Moslems, and, therefore, numbers would give no adequate representation to Moslem opinion. In Bombay the Moslems are in the ratio of 3-3/4 to 14 millions—20 per cent. to 77 per cent. The conditions are very complex in Bombay, and I need not labour the details of this complexity. I am inclined to agree with those who think that it might be left to the local Government to take other elements into view required or suggested by local conditions. Coming to the United Provinces, there the Moslems are 6-3/4 millions to 40-3/4 Hindus—14 per cent. to 85 per cent. This ratio of numerical strength no more represents the proportion in the elements of weight and importance, than in Eastern Bengal does the Hindu ratio of 37 per cent. to 58 per cent. of Moslems. You may set off each of those two cases against the other. Then there is the great province of Bengal, where the Moslems are one-quarter of the Hindus—9 millions to 39 millions—18 per cent. to 77 per cent.

We all see, then, that the problem presents extraordinary difficulty. How are you going in a case like the United Provinces, for example, to secure that adequate and substantial representation, which it is the interest and the desire of the Government for its own sake to secure. No fair-minded Moslem would deny in Eastern Bengal, any more than a fair-minded non-Moslem would deny it in the United Provinces, that there is no easy solution. You see, gentlemen, I do not despair of finding a fair-minded man in a controversy of this kind. From information that reaches me I do not at all despair of meeting fair-minded critics of both communities, in spite of the sharp antagonism that exists on many matters between them. But, whatever may be the case with Mahomedans and Hindus, there is one body of men who are bound to keep a fair mind, and that is the Government. The Government are bound, whatever you may do among yourselves, strictly, and I will even say sternly, to insist on overcoming all obstacles in a spirit of absolute equity. Now, what is the object of the Government? It is that the Legislative Councils should represent truly and effectively, with a reasonable approach to the balance of real social forces, the wishes and needs of the communities themselves. That is the object of the Government, and in face of a great problem of that kind, algebra, arithmetic, geometry, logic—none of these things will do your business for you. You have to look at it widely and away from those sciences, excellent in their place, but not of much service when you are solving awkward political riddles. I think if you allow some method of leaving to a local authority the power of adding to the number of representatives from the Mahomedan community, or the Hindu community, as the case may be, that might be a possible and prudent way of getting through this embarrassment. Let us all be clear of one thing, namely—and I thought of this when I heard one or two observations that fell from Mr. Ameer Ali—that no general proposition can be wisely based on the possession by either community, either of superior civil qualities or superior personal claims. If you begin to introduce that element, you perceive the perils to that peace and mutual goodwill which we hope to emerge by-and-by, though it may take longer than some think. I repeat that I see no harm from the point of view of a practical working compromise, in the principle that population, or numerical strength, should be the main factor in determining how many representatives should sit for this or the other community; but modifying influences may be both wisely and equitably taken into account in allotting the numbers of such representatives.

As regards Indian members on the Executive Council, if you will allow me to say so, I think it was dubious tactics in you to bring that question forward. We were told by those who object, for instance, to my recommending to the Crown an Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive—that it will never do; that if you choose a man of one community, the other will demand a second. The Executive Council in all—this will not be in the Bill—consists of six members. Suppose there were to be two vacancies, and I were to recommend to the Crown the appointment of one Mahomedan and one Hindu, the effect would be that of the six gentlemen one-third would be non-English. You may think that all right, but it would be a decidedly serious step. Suppose you say you will bring in a Bill, then, for the purpose of appointing an extra member always to be an Indian. That is much more easily said than done. I am talking perfectly plainly. You would not get such a Bill. I want to talk even more plainly. I want to say that reference to the Hindu community or the Mahomedan community, in respect to the position of the Viceroy's Executive, is entirely wide of the mark in the view, I know, both of the Viceroy and of myself. If, as I have already said I expect, it may be my duty by-and-by to recommend to the Crown the name of an Indian member, it will not be solely for the sake of placing on the Viceroy's Executive Council an Indian member simply as either a Hindu or a Mahomedan. Decidedly we are of opinion that the Governor-General in Council will be all the more likely to transact business wisely, if he has a responsible Indian adviser at his elbow. But the principle in making such a recommendation to the Crown, would be to remove the apparent disability in practice—for there is no disability in law—of an Indian holding a certain appointment because he is an Indian. That is a principle we do not accept; and the principle I should go upon—and I know Lord Minto would say exactly the same—is the desirability of demonstrating that we hold to the famous promise made in the proclamation of Queen Victoria in 1858, that if a man is fully qualified in proved ability and character to fill a certain post, he shall not be shut out by race or religious faith. There is a very great deal more to be said on this most important subject; but to-day I need only tell you—which I do with all respect, without complaining of what you have said, and without denying that in practical usage some day there may be means of alternation for meeting your difficulty—I see no chance whatever of our being able to comply with your present request.

I have endeavoured to meet you as fairly as I possibly could. I assure you again we are acting in earnest, with zeal and entire good faith; and any suggestion that any member of the Government, either in this office or the Government of India, has any prejudice whatever against Mahomedans, for the purposes of political administration in India, is one of the idlest and most wicked misapprehensions that could possibly enter into the political mind. I am greatly encouraged by having met you. I am sure that you speak in the name of important bodies of your own countrymen and of your own community. I am sure that you are going to look at our proposals in a fair and reasonable spirit, and give us credit for a desire to do the best that we possibly can in the interests of all the communities in India, including also the interests of the British Government. I can only tell you further, that if this action of ours fails, miscarries, and is wrecked, it will be a considerable time before another opportunity occurs. You will never again—I do not care whether the time be long or be short—you will never again have the combination of a Secretary of State and a Viceroy, who are more thoroughly in earnest in their desire to improve Indian government, and to do full justice to every element of the Indian population.



VII

SECOND READING OF INDIAN COUNCILS BILL

(HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 23, 1909)

MY LORDS. I invite the House to take to-day the first definite and operative step in carrying out the policy that I had the honour of describing to your Lordships just before Christmas, and that has occupied the active consideration both of the Home Government and of the Government of India for very nearly three years. The statement was awaited in India with an expectancy that with time became impatience, and it was received in India—and that, after all, is the point to which I looked with the most anxiety—with intense interest and attention and various degrees of approval, from warm enthusiasm to cool assent and acquiescence.

A few days after the arrival of my despatch, a deputation waited upon the Viceroy unique in its comprehensive character. Both Hindus and Mahomedans were represented; and they waited upon the Viceroy to offer warm expressions of gratitude for the scheme that was unfolded before them. A few days later at Madras the Congress met; they, too, expressed their thanks to the Home Government and to the Government of India. The Moslem League met at Amritsar; they were warm in their approval of the policy which they took to be foreshadowed in the despatch, though they found fault with the defects they thought they had discovered in the scheme, and implored the Government, both in India and here, to remedy those defects. So far as I know—and I do beg your Lordships to note these details of the reception of our policy in India—there has been no sign in any quarter, save in the irreconcilable camp, of anything like organised hostile opinion among either Indians or Anglo-Indians.

The Indian Civil Service I will speak of very shortly. I will pass them by for the moment. Lord Lansdowne said truly the other night that when I spoke at the end of December, I used the words "formidable and obscure" as describing the situation, and he desired to know whether I thought the situation was still obscure and formidable. I will not abandon the words, but I think the situation is less formidable and less obscure. Neither repression on the one hand, nor reform on the other, could possibly be expected to cut the roots of anarchical crime in a few weeks. But with unfaltering repression on the one hand, and vigour and good faith in reform on the other, we see solid reason to hope that we shall weaken, even if we cannot destroy, those baleful forces.

There are, I take it, three classes of people that we have to consider in dealing with a scheme of this kind. There are the extremists, who nurse fantastic dreams that some day they will drive us out of India. In this group there are academic extremists and physical force extremists, and I have seen it stated on a certain authority—it cannot be more than a guess—that they do not number, whether academic or physical force extremists, more than one-tenth, or even three per cent. of what are called the educated class in India. The second group nourish no hopes of this sort; they hope for autonomy or self-government of the colonial species and pattern. The third section in this classification ask for no more than to be admitted to co-operation in our administration, and to find a free and effective voice in expressing the interests and needs of their people. I believe the effect of the reforms has been, is being, and will be, to draw the second class, who hope for colonial autonomy, into the ranks of the third class, who will be content with admission to a fair and workable co-operation. A correspondent wrote to me the other day and said:—

"We seem to have caught many discontented people on the rebound, and to have given them an excuse for a loyalty which they have badly wanted."

In spite of all this, it is a difficult and critical situation. Still, by almost universal admission it has lost the tension that strained India two or three months ago, and public feeling is tranquillised, certainly beyond any expectation that either I or the Viceroy ventured to entertain.

The atmosphere has changed from dark and sullen to hopeful, and I am sure your Lordships will allow me to be equally confident that nothing will be done at Westminster to overcloud that promising sky. The noble Marquess the other day said—and I was delighted to hear it—that he, at all events, would give us, with all the reservations that examination of the scheme might demand from him, a whole-hearted support here, and his best encouragement to the men in India. I accept that, and I lean upon it, because if anything were done at Westminster, either by delay or otherwise, to show a breach in what ought to be the substantial unity of Parliamentary opinion in face of the Indian situation, it would be a marked disaster. I would venture on the point of delay to say this. Your Lordships will not suspect me of having any desire to hurry the Bill, but I remember that when Lord Cross brought in the Bill of 1892 Lord Kimberley, so well known and so popular in this House, used language which I venture to borrow from him, and to press upon your Lordships to-day—

"I think it almost dangerous to leave a subject of this kind hung up to be perpetually discussed by all manner of persons, and, having once allowed that, at all events, some amendment is necessary in regard to the mode of constituting the Legislative Councils, it is incumbent upon the Government and Parliament to pass the Bill which they may think expedient as speedily as possible into law."

Considerations of social order and social urgency in India make that just as useful to be remembered to-day, as it was useful then.

The noble Marquess the other day, in a very courteous manner, administered to me an exhortation and an admonition—I had almost said a lecture—as to the propriety of deferring to the man on the spot, and the danger of quarrelling with the man on the spot. I listened with becoming meekness and humility, but then it occurred to me that the language of the noble Marquess was not original. Those noble Lords who share the Bench with him, gave deep murmurs of approval to the homily that was administered to me. They forgot that they once had a man on the spot, the man then being that eminent and distinguished personage whom I may be allowed to congratulate upon his restoration to health and to his place in this Assembly. He said this, which the noble Marquess will see is a fair original for his own little discourse; it was said after the noble Lord had thrown up the reins—

"What I wish to say to high officers of State and members of Government is this, as far as you can trust the man on the spot. Do not weary or fret or nag him with your superior wisdom. They claim no immunity from errors of opinion or judgment, but their errors are nothing compared with yours."

The remonstrance, therefore, of Lord Curzon, addressed to the noble Lords sitting near him, is identical with the warning which I have laid to heart from the noble Marquess.

The House will pardon me if for a moment I dwell upon what by application is an innuendo conveyed in the admonition of the noble Marquess. I have a suspicion that he considered his advice was needed; he expressed the hope that all who were responsible for administration in India would have all the power for which they had a right to ask. Upon that I can—though I am half reluctant to do it—completely clear my character. In December last, shortly before I addressed your Lordships, Lord Minto, having observed there was some talk of my interference with him and his Council, telegraphed these words, and desired that I should make use of them whenever I thought fit—

"I hope you will say from me in as strong language as you may choose to use, that in all our dealings with sedition I could not be more strongly supported than I have been by you. The question of the control of Indian administration by the Secretary of State, mixed up as it is with the old difficulties of centralisation, we may very possibly look at from different points of view. But that has nothing to do with the support the Secretary of State gives to the Viceroy, and which you have given to me in a time of great difficulty, and for which I shall always be warmly grateful."

The MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Viscount will see from the report of my speech, that the part he has quoted had reference to measures of repression, and that what I said was that justice should be prompt, that it was undesirable that there should be appeals from one Court to another, or from provincial Governments to the Government in Calcutta, or from the Government at Calcutta to the Secretary of State for India. I did not mean to imply merely the Viceroy, but the men responsible for local government.

VISCOUNT MORLEY: I do not think that when the noble Marquess refers to the report of his speech he will find I have misrepresented him. At all events, he will, I do believe, gladly agree that, in dealing with sedition, I have on the whole given all the support the Government of India or anybody else concerned had a right to ask for.

I will now say a word about the Indian Civil Service. Three years ago, when we began these operations, I felt that a vital condition of success was that we should carry the Indian Civil Service with us, and that if we did not do this, we should fail. But human nature being what it is, and temperaments varying as they do, it is natural to expect a certain amount of criticism, minute criticism, and observation, I have had that, but will content myself with one quotation from the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, well known to the noble Lord opposite. What did he say, addressing the Legislative Council a few weeks ago?—

"I hold that a solemn duty rests upon the officers of Government in all branches, and more particularly upon the officers of the Civil Service, so to comport themselves in the inception and working of the new measures as to make the task of the people and their leaders easy. It is incumbent upon them loyally to accept the principle that these measures involve the surrender of some portion of the authority and control which they now exercise, and some modifications of the methods of administration. If that task is approached in a grudging or reluctant spirit, we shall be sowing the seeds of failure, and shall forfeit our claim to receive the friendly co-operation of the representatives of the people. We must be prepared to support, defend, and carry through the administrative policy, and in a certain degree even the executive acts of the Government in the Council, in much the same way as is now prescribed in regard to measures of legislation; and we must further be prepared to discharge this task without the aid of a standing majority behind us. We will have to resort to the more difficult arts of persuasion and conciliation, in the place of the easier methods of autocracy. This is no small demand to make on the resources of a service whose training and traditions have hitherto led its members rather to work for the people, than through the people or their representatives. But I am nevertheless confident that the demand will not be made in vain. For more than a hundred years, in the time of the Company and under the rule of the Crown, the Indian Civil Service has never failed to respond to whatever call has been made upon it or to adapt itself to the changing environment of the time. I feel no doubt that officers will be found who possess the natural gifts, the loyalty, the imagination, and the force of character which will be requisite for the conduct of the administration under the more advanced form of government to which we are about to succeed."

These words I commend to your Lordships. They breathe a fine and high spirit; they admirably express the feeling of a sincere man; and I do not believe anybody who is acquainted with the Service doubts that this spirit, so admirably expressed, will pervade the Service in the admittedly difficult task that now confronts them.

The Bill is a short one, and will speak for itself. I shall be brief in referring to it, for in December last I made what was practically a Second-Reading speech. I may point out that there are two rival schools, and that the noble Lord opposite (Lord Curzon) may be said to represent one of them. There are two rival schools, one of which believes that better government of India depends on efficiency, and that efficiency is in fact the main end of our rule in India. The other school, while not neglecting efficiency, looks also to what is called political concession. I think I am doing the noble Lord no injustice in saying that, during his remarkable Vice-royalty, he did not accept the necessity for political concession, but trusted to efficiency. I hope it will not be bad taste to say in the noble Lord's presence, that you will never send to India, and you have never sent to India, a Viceroy his superior, if, indeed, his equal, in force of mind, in unsparing and remorseless industry, in passionate and devoted interest in all that concerns the well-being of India, with an imagination fired by the grandeur of the political problem that India presents—you never sent a man with more of all these attributes than when you sent Lord Curzon. But splendidly designed as was his work from the point of view of efficiency, he still left in India a state of things, when we look back upon it, that could not be held a satisfactory crowning of a brilliant and ambitious career.

I am as much for efficiency as the noble Lord, but I do not believe—and this is the difference between him and myself—that you can now have true, solid, endurable efficiency without what are called political concessions. I know the risks. The late Lord Salisbury, speaking on the last Indian Councils Bill, spoke of the risk of applying occidental machinery in India. Well, we ought to have thought of that before we applied occidental education; we applied that, and a measure of occidental machinery must follow. Legislative Councils once called into existence, then it was inevitable that you would have gradually, in Lord Salisbury's own phrase, to popularise them, so as to bring them into harmony with the dominant sentiments of the people in India. The Bill of 1892 admittedly contained the elective principle, and our Bill to-day extends that principle. The noble Lord (Viscount Cross) will remember the Bill of 1892, of which he had charge in the House of Commons. I want the House to be good enough to follow the line taken by Mr. Gladstone, because I base myself on that. There was an amendment moved and it was going to a division, but Mr. Gladstone begged his friends not to divide, because, he said, it was very important that we should present a substantial unity to India. This is upon the question of either House considering a Bill like the Bill that is now on the Table—a mere skeleton of a Bill if you like. I see it has been called vague and sketchy. It cannot be anything else, on the broad principle set out by Mr. Gladstone—

"It is the intention of the Government [that is, the Conservative Government] that a serious effort shall be made to consider carefully those elements which India in its present condition may furnish, for the introduction into the Councils of India of the elective principle. If that effort is seriously to be made, by whom is it to be made? I do not think it can be made by this House, except through the medium of empowering provisions. The best course we could take would be to commend to the authorities of India what is a clear indication of the principles on which we desire them to proceed. It is not our business to devise machinery for the purpose of Indian Government. It is our business to give to those who represent Her Majesty in India ample information as to what we believe to be sound principles of Government: and it is, of course, the function of this House to comment upon any case in which we may think they have failed to give due effect to those principles."

I only allude to Mr. Gladstone's words, in order to let the House know that I am taking no unusual course in leaving the bulk of the work, the details of the work, to the Government of India. Discussion, therefore, in Parliament will necessarily not, and cannot, turn substantially upon details. But no doubt it is desirable that the main heads of the regulations, rules, and proclamations to be made by the Government of India under sanction of the India Office, should be more or less placed within the reach and knowledge of the House so far as they are complete. The principles of the Bill are in the Bill, and will be affirmed, if your Lordships are pleased to read it a second time. The Committee points, important as they are, can well be dealt with in Committee. The view of Mr. Gladstone was cheerfully accepted by the House of Commons then, and I hope it will be accepted by your Lordships to-day.

There is one very important chapter in these regulations, which I think now on the Second Reading of the Bill, without waiting for Committee, I ought to say a few words to your Lordships about—I mean the Mahomedans. That is a part of the Bill and scheme that has no doubt attracted a great deal of criticism, and excited a great deal of feeling in that important community. We suggested to the Government of India a certain plan. We did not prescribe it, we did not order it, but we suggested and recommended this plan for their consideration—no more than that. It was the plan of a mixed or composite electoral college, in which Mahomedans and Hindus should pool their votes, so to say. The wording of the recommendation in my despatch was, as I soon discovered, ambiguous—a grievous defect, of which I make bold to hope I am not very often in public business guilty. But, to the best of my belief, under any construction the plan of Hindus and Mahomedans voting together, in a mixed and composite electorate, would have secured to the Mahomedan electors, wherever they were so minded, the chance of returning their own representatives in their due proportion. The political idea at the bottom of this recommendation, which has found so little favour, was that such composite action would bring the two great communities more closely together, and this hope of promoting harmony was held by men of high Indian authority and experience who were among my advisers at the India Office. But the Mahomedans protested that the Hindus would elect a pro-Hindu upon it, just as I suppose in a mixed college of say seventy-five Catholics and twenty-five Protestants voting together, the Protestants might suspect that the Catholics voting for the Protestant would choose what is called a Romanising Protestant, and as a little of a Protestant as they could find. Suppose the other way. In Ireland there is an expression, a "shoneen" Catholic—that is to say, a Catholic who, though a Catholic, is too friendly with English Conservatism and other influences which the Nationalists dislike. And it might be said, if there were seventy-five Protestants against twenty-five Catholics, that the Protestants when giving a vote in the way of Catholic representation, would return "shoneens." I am not going to take your Lordships' time up by arguing this to-day. With regard to schemes of proportional representation, as Calvin said of another study, "Excessive study of the Apocalypse either finds a man mad, or makes him so." At any rate, the Government of India doubted whether our plan would work, and we have abandoned it. I do not think it was a bad plan, but it is no use, if you are making an earnest attempt in good faith at a general pacification, to let parental fondness for a clause interrupt that good process by sitting obstinately tight.

The Mahomedans demand three things. I had the pleasure of receiving a deputation from them, and I know very well what is in their minds. They demand the election of their own representatives to these councils in all the stages, just as in Cyprus, where I think, the Mahomedans vote by themselves. They have nine votes and the non-Mahomedans have three, or the other way about. So in Bohemia, where the Germans vote alone and have their own register. Therefore we are not without a precedent and a parallel, for the idea of a separate register. Secondly, they want a number of seats somewhat in excess of their numerical strength. Those two demands we are quite ready and intend to meet in full. There is a third demand that, if there is a Hindu on the Viceroy's Executive Council—a subject on which I will venture to say something to your Lordships before I sit down—there should be two Indian members on the Viceroy's Council and one should be a Mahomedan. Well, as I told them and as I now tell your Lordships, I see no chance whatever of meeting their views in that way.

To go back to the point of the registers, some may be shocked at the idea of a religious register at all, a register framed on the principle of religious belief. We may wish—we do wish—that it were otherwise. We hope that time, with careful and impartial statesmanship, will make things otherwise. Only let us not forget that the difference between Mahomedanism and Hinduism is not a mere difference of articles of religious faith or dogma. It is a difference in life, in tradition, in history, in all the social things as well as articles of belief, that constitute a community. Do not let us forget what makes it interesting and even exciting. Do not let us forget that, in talking of Hindus and Mahomedans, we are dealing with, and are brought face to face with, vast historic issues. We are dealing with the very mightiest forces that through all the centuries and ages have moulded the fortunes of great States and the destinies of countless millions of mankind. Thoughts of that kind, my Lords, are what give to Indian politics and to Indian work extraordinary fascination, though at the same time they impose the weight of an extraordinary burden.

I come to the question which, I think, has excited, certainly in this country, more interest than anything else in the scheme before you—I mean the question of an Indian member on the Viceroy's Executive Council. The noble Marquess said here the other day that he hoped an opportunity would be given for discussing it. "Whether it is in order or not—am too little versed in your Lordships' procedure to be quite sure—but I am told that the rules of order in this House are of an elastic description and that I shall not be trespassing beyond what is right, if I introduce the point to-night." I thoroughly understand Lord Lansdowne's anxiety for a chance of discussion. It is quite true, and the House should not forget it, that this question is in no way whatever touched by the Bill. If this Bill were rejected by Parliament, it would be a grievous disaster to peace and contentment in India, but it would not prevent the Secretary of State the very next morning from advising His Majesty to appoint an Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive Council.

The noble Marquess the other day fell into a slight error, if he will forgive me for saying so. He said that the Government of India had used cautious and tentative words, indicating that it would be premature to decide at once this question of the Indian member until after further experience had been gained. I think the noble Marquess must have lost his way in the mazes of that enormous Blue-book which, as he told us, caused him so much inconvenience, and added so much to his excess luggage during the Christmas holidays. The despatch, as far as I can discover, is silent altogether on the topic of the Indian member of the Viceroy's Council, and deals only with the Councils of Bombay and Madras and the proposed Councils for the Lieutenant-Governorships.

Perhaps I might be allowed to remind your Lordships of the Act of 1833—certainly the most extensive and important measure of Indian government between Mr. Pitt's famous Act of 1784, and Queen Victoria's assumption of the government of India in 1858. There is nothing more important than that Act. It lays down in the broadest way possible the desire of Parliament that there should be no difference in appointing to offices in India between one race and another, and the covering despatch written by that memorable man, James Mill, wound up by saying that—

"For the future, fitness is to be the criterion of eligibility."

I need not quote the famous paragraph in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858. Every Member of the House who takes an interest in India, knows that by heart. Now, the noble Marquess says that his anxiety is that nothing shall be done to impair the efficiency of the Viceroy's Council. I share that anxiety with all my heart. I hope the noble Marquess will do me the justice to remember that in these plans I have gone beyond the Government of India, in resolving that a permanent official majority shall remain in the Viceroy's Council. Lord MacDonnell said the other day:—

"I believe you cannot find any individual native gentleman who is enjoying general confidence, who would be able to give advice and assistance to the Governor-General in Council."

Well, for that matter, it has been my lot twice to fill the not very exhilarating post of Chief Secretary for Ireland, and I do not believe I can truly say I ever met in Ireland a single individual native gentleman who "enjoyed general confidence." And yet I received at Dublin Castle most excellent and competent advice. Therefore I am not much impressed by that argument. The question is whether there is no one of the 300 millions of the population of India, who is competent to be the officially-constituted adviser of the Governor-General in Council in the administration of Indian affairs. You make an Indian a judge of the High Court, and Indians have even been acting Chief Justices. As to capacity, who can deny that they have distinguished themselves as administrators of native States, where a very full demand is made on their resources, intellectual and moral? It is said that the presence of an Indian member would cause restraint in the language of discussion. For a year and a half we have had two Indians on the Council of India, and we have none of us ever found the slightest restraint.

Then there is the question, What are you going to do about the Hindu and the Mahomedan? When Indians were first admitted to the High Courts, for a long time the Hindus were more fit and competent than the Mahomedans; but now I am told the Mahomedans have their full share. The same sort of operation would go on in quinquennial periods in respect of the Viceroy's Council. Opinion amongst the great Anglo-Indian officers now at home is divided, but I know at least one, not at all behind Lord MacDonnell in experience or mental grasp, who is strongly in favour of this proposal. One circumstance that cannot but strike your Lordships as remarkable, is the comparative absence of hostile criticism of this idea by the Anglo-Indian Press, and, as I am told, in Calcutta society. I was apprehensive at one time that it might be otherwise. I should like to give a concrete illustration of my case. The noble Marquess opposite said the other day that there was going to be a vacancy in one of the posts on the Viceroy's Executive Council—that is, the legal member's time would soon be up. Now, suppose there were in Calcutta an Indian lawyer of large practice and great experience in his profession—a man of unstained professional and personal repute, in close touch with European society, and much respected, and the actual holder of important legal office. Am I to say to this man—"In spite of all these excellent circumstances to your credit; in spite of your undisputed fitness; in spite of the emphatic declaration of 1833 that fitness is to be the criterion of eligibility; in spite of the noble promise in Queen Victoria's Proclamation of 1858—a promise of which every Englishman ought to be for ever proud if he tries to adhere to it, and ashamed if he tries to betray or to mock it—in spite of all this, usage and prejudice are so strong, that I dare not appoint you, but must instead fish up a stranger to India from Lincoln's Inn or the Temple?" Is there one of your Lordships who would envy the Secretary of State, who had to hold language of that kind to a meritorious candidate, one of the King's equal subjects? I press it on your Lordships in that concrete way. Abstract general arguments are slippery. I do not say there is no force in them, but there are deeper questions at issue to which both I and the Governor-General attach the greatest importance. My Lords, I thank you for your attention, and I beg to move the Second Reading.



VIII

INDIAN PROBATIONERS

(OXFORD. JUNE 13, 1909)

[The Vice Chancellor of Oxford University and the teachers of the Indian Civil Service probationers gave a dinner to the probationers on Saturday at the New Masonic Hall, Oxford, to meet the Secretary of State for India. The Vice Chancellor was in the chair]

It is a great honour that it should fall to me to be the first Secretary of State to address this body of probationers and others. Personally I am always delighted at any reason, good or bad, that brings me to Oxford. A great deal of Cherwell water has flowed under Magdalen Bridge, since I was an undergraduate here, and I have a feeling of nostalgia, when I think of Oxford and come to Oxford. The reminiscences of one's younger days are apt to have in older times an ironical tinge, but that is not for any of you to-day to consider. I am glad to know that of the fifty odd members of the Civil Service who are going out this autumn, not less than half are Oxford men, nearly all of them, Oxford bred, and even the three or four who are not Oxford bred, are practically, so far as can be, Oxford men. Now I will go a little wider. An Indian Minister is rather isolated in the public eye, amid the press and bustle of the political energies, perplexities, interests, and partisan passions that stir and concentrate attention on our own home affairs. Yet let me assure you that there is no ordinary compensation for that isolation in the breast of an Indian Minister. He finds the richest compensation in the enormous magnitude and endless variety of all the vast field of interests, present and still more future, that are committed to his temporary charge. Though his charge may be temporary, I should think every Secretary of State remembers that even in that fugitive span he may either do some good or, if he is unhappy, he may do much harm.

This week London has been enormously excited by the Imperial Press Conference. I was rather struck by the extraordinarily small attention, almost amounting to nothing, that was given to the Dominion that you here are concerned with. No doubt an Imperial Conference raises one or two very delicate questions, as to whether common citizenship is to be observed, or whether the relations between India and the Colonies should remain what they are. I am not going to expatiate upon that to-night, but it did occur to me in reading all these proceedings that the part of Hamlet was rather omitted, because India after all is the only real Empire. You there have an immense Dominion, an almost countless population, governed by foreign rulers. That is what constitutes an Empire. I observed it all with a rather grim feeling in my mind, that, if anything goes wrong in India, the whole of what we are talking about now, the material and military conditions of the Empire as a whole, might be strangely altered and convulsed. One of the happy qualities of youth—and there is no pleasure greater than to see you in that blissful stage, for one who has passed beyond, long beyond it—is not to be, I think I am right, in a hurry, not to be too anxious either for the present or future measure of the responsibilities of life and a career. You will forgive me if I remind you of what I am sure you all know—that the civil government of 230,000,000 persons in British India is in the hands of some 1,200 men who belong to the Indian Civil Service. Let us follow that. Any member of a body so small must be rapidly placed in a position of command, and it is almost startling to me, when I look round on the fresh physiognomies of those who are going out, and the not less fresh physiognomies of those who have returned, to think of the contrast between your position, and that, we will say, of some of your Oxford contemporaries who are lawyers, and who have to spend ever so many years in chambers in Lincoln's Inn or the Temple waiting for briefs that do not come. Contrast your position with that of members who enter the Home Civil Service, an admirable phalanx; but still for a very long time a member who enters that service has to pursue the minor and slightly mechanical routine of Whitehall. You will not misunderstand me, because nobody knows better than a Minister how tremendous is the debt that he owes to the permanent officials of his department. Certainly I have every reason to be the last man to underrate that. Well, any of you may be rapidly placed in a position of real command with inexorable responsibilities. I am speaking in the presence of men who know better than I do, all the details, but it is true that one of you in a few years may be placed in command of a district and have 1,000,000 human beings committed to his charge. He may have to deal with a famine; he may have to deal with a riot; he may take a decision on which the lives of thousands of people may depend. Well, I think that early call to responsibility, to a display of energy, to the exercise of individual decision and judgment is what makes the Indian Civil Service a grand career. And that is what has produced an extraordinary proportion of remarkable men in that service.

There is another elevating thought, that I should suppose is present to all of you. To those who are already in important posts and those who are by-and-by going to take them up. The good name of England is in your keeping. Your conduct and the conduct of your colleagues in other branches of the Indian Service decides what the peoples of India are to think of British government and of those who represent it. Of course you cannot expect the simple villager to care anything or to know anything about the abstraction called the raj. What he knows is the particular officer who stands in front of him, and with whom he has dealings. If the officer is harsh or overbearing or incompetent, the Government gets the discredit of it; the villager assumes that Government is also harsh, overbearing, and incompetent. There is this peculiarity which strikes me about the Indian Civil servant. I am not sure that all of you will at once welcome it, but it goes to the root of the matter. He is always more or less on duty. It is not merely when he is doing his office work; he is always on duty. The great men of the service have always recognised this obligation, that official relations are not to be the beginning and the end of the duties of an Indian administrator. It has been my pleasure and privilege during the three or four years I have been at the India Office, to see a stream of important Indian officials. I gather from them that one of the worst drawbacks of the modern speeding up of the huge wheels of the machine of Indian government is, that the Indian Civil servant has less time and less opportunity than he used to have of bringing himself into close contact with those with whose interests he is concerned. One of these important officials told me the other day this story. A retired veteran, an Indian soldier, had come to him and said, "This is an odd state of things. The other day So-and-so, a commissioner or what not, was coming down to my village or district. We did the best we could to get a good camping-ground for him. We were all eagerly on the look-out for him. He arrived with his attendants. He went into his tent. He immediately began to write. He went on writing. We thought he had got very urgent business to do. We went away. We arrived in the morning soon after dawn. He was still writing, or he had begun again. So concerned was he both in the evening and in the morning with his writing that we really had nothing from him but a polite salaam." This may or may not be typical, but I can imagine it is possible, at all events. That must be pure mischief. If I were going to remain Indian Secretary for some time to come, my every effort would be devoted to an abatement of that enormous amount of writing. You applaud that sentiment now, and you will applaud it more by-and-by.

Upon this point of less time being devoted to writing and more time to cultivating social relations with the people, it is very easy for us here, no doubt, to say you ought to cultivate social relations. Yet I can imagine a man who has done a hard day's office work—I am sure I should feel it myself—is not inclined to launch out upon talk and inquiries among the people with whom he is immediately concerned. It may be asking almost in a way too much from human nature. Still, that is the thing to aim at. The thing to aim at is—all civilians who write and speak say the same—to cultivate social amenities so far as you can, I do not mean in the towns, but in the local communities with which many of you are going to be concerned. I saw the other day a letter from a lady, not, I fancy, particularly sentimental about the matter, and she said this: "There would be great improvement if only better social relations could be established with Indians personally. I do wish that all young officials could be primed before they came out with the proper ideas on this question." Well, I have no illusions whatever as to my right or power of priming you. I think each of us can see for himself the desirability of every one who goes out there, having certain ideas in his head as to his own relations with the people whom he is called upon to govern. That is the mission with which we have to charge you, and it is as momentous a mission as was ever confided to any great military commander or admiral of the fleet—this mission of yours to place yourself in touch with the people whom you have to govern. I am under no illusions that I can plant new ideas in your minds compared with the ideas that may be planted by experienced heads of Indian Government. The other day I saw a letter of instructions from a very eminent Lieutenant-Governor to those of the next stage below him, as to the attitude that they were to take to the new civilians when they arrived, and you 24 or 25 gentlemen will get the benefit of those instructions if you are going to that province. I do not think there is any reason why I should not mention his name—it was Sir Andrew Fraser, the retired Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal—and those instructions as to the temper that was to be inculcated upon newcomers, were marked by a force, a fulness, and a first-hand aptitude that not even the keenest Secretary of State could venture to approach. I know that exile is hard. It is very easy for us here to preach. Exile is and must be hard, but I feel confident that under the guidance of the high officers there, under whom you will find yourselves, you will take care not to ignore the Indian; not to hold apart and aloof from the Indian life and ways; not to believe that you will not learn anything by conversation with educated Indians. And while you are in India, and among Indians, and responsible to Indians, because you are as responsible to them as you are to us here, while you are in that position, gentlemen, do not live in Europe all the time. Whether or not—if I may be quite candid—it was a blessing either for India or for Great Britain that this great responsibility fell upon us, whatever the ultimate destiny and end of all this is to be, at any rate I know of no more imposing and momentous transaction than the government of India by you and those like you. I know of no more imposing and momentous transaction in the vast scroll of the history of human government.