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.