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.