Now, gentlemen, I have referred to the speeches to show to you how
unreasonable in spirit, how violent in language those speeches were.
But what is their claim? Why is it that just after the declaration
of this policy by the Secretary of State in August and the speech of
the Viceroy in September that they should assemble in a meeting and
oppose that policy tooth and nail. The declaration contained only this:
that some sort of responsible government is to be introduced in this
country--nothing beyond that. Why is it that all the Anglo-Indians
gathered together and began to denounce that policy before the details
are published or worked out? What is the claim which they make? I shall
read to you from the speech of Sir Archy Birkmyre which puts forward
what that claim is. This worthy gentleman says:
"The greater part of the commerce of India the basis of her prosperity
is controlled and financed by Britishers."
Mark the word gentlemen, "Britishers" not the Anglo-Indian community
alone but the Britishers. He goes on:
"All the progress that India has made in recent generations is due
almost entirely to British direction, British capital and British
enterprise. The men who are responsible for the vast interests created
by the British in India cannot sit down voiceless and idle when the
danger confronts us that these interests will be sacrificed to appease
the political appetites of mob orators and Home Rulers."
Does it stand to this that the introduction of any kind of
self-government in this country, however safeguarded the different
interests may be, means such a disregard of the interests of these
Anglo-Indian Agitators that the Government must be forced to give
up its honest desire of introducing such a government? I ask in all
seriousness does the claim go so far as this?--The Anglo-Indian claim
which is put forward at this meeting does it go so far to insist
that no kind of self-government, however limited it may be, however
safeguarded the different interests in the country may be, that no
kind of self-government is to be introduced at all into this country
because these Anglo-Indians brought money in the shape of capital to
this country--a statement which requires examination--because they
brought capital to this country that India must forever be destitute,
must forever be deprived of any measure of self-government? If this is
their claim, it is so preposterously unreasonable that it requires no
refutation at all. But gentlemen, the claim is curiously worded.