Essays in Liberalism: Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the; Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922Various
General
Essays in Liberalism: Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the; Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922
Various
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1910-1936; Liberalism -- Great Britain
There are and must be breakers ahead. Some we can see, and there are
doubtless others still bigger which we cannot yet glimpse over the
welter of troubled waters. What we can see is this: first, there is a
danger that unless Government and the Councils together can before the
next elections in 1923-24 take definite steps towards the industrial
development and the self-defence of India, the extremist party are
likely to come in in full force and to create a deadlock in the
administration; second, unless the Councils continue to accept a fiscal
policy in accordance with the general interests of Great Britain and the
Empire, there will be trouble. The fiscal position is obscure, but it is
the crux, for the Councils can indirectly stultify any policy
distasteful to them, and this too may mean a deadlock; third, there is a
danger that the Indianisation of the Services will advance much more
rapidly than was ever contemplated, or than is desirable in the
interests of India for many years to come, for the simple reason that
capable young Englishmen of the right stamp will not, without adequate
guarantees for their future, accept employment in India. Those
guarantees can be given satisfactorily by one authority alone, and that
is by the Indian Legislatures voicing popular opinion. For a complex
administration bristling with technical questions, administrative,
political, and economic, it is essential that India should have for many
years to come the assistance of highly-educated Britons with the
tradition of administration in their blood. The Councils will be wise to
recognise this and make conditions which will secure for them in the
future as in the past the best stamp of adventurous Briton.
Finally, the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme, though a capable and
conscientious endeavour to give gradual effect to a wise and generous
policy, has of necessity its weak points. The system of diarchy--of
allotting certain matters to the bureaucratic authority of the Viceroy
and of the Provincial Governors and other matters to the representatives
of the people--is obviously a stop-gap, which is already moribund. The
attempt to fix definite periods at which further advances towards
self-government can be considered is bound to fail: you cannot give
political concessions by a stop-watch; the advance will either be much
more rapid or much slower than the scheme anticipates. Again, the
present basis of election is absurdly small, but any attempt to broaden
it must tend towards adult suffrage, which in itself would appear
impracticable with a population of over 200 millions.
OUR DUTY TO INDIA
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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