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
It is a mistake, however, in politics to look too far ahead. Sufficient
unto the day. For the time being we may be certain of one thing, and
that is that we cannot break the Indian connection and leave India. Both
our interests and our obligations demand that we should remain at the
helm of Indian affairs for many years to come. That being so, let us
accept our part cheerfully and with goodwill as in the past. Let us try
to give India of our best, as we have done heretofore. Let us regive and
regain, above all things, goodwill. Let us not resent the loss of past
privilege, the changes in our individual status, and let us face the
position in a practical and good-humoured spirit. Let us abandon all
talk of holding India by the sword, as we won it by the sword--because
both propositions are fundamentally false. Let us realise that we have
held India by integrity, justice, disinterested efficiency--and, above
all, by goodwill--and let us continue to co-operate with India in India
for India on these same lines.
EGYPT
BY J.A. SPENDER
Editor of the _Westminster Gazette_, 1896 to 1922; Member of the Special
Mission to Egypt, 1919-1920.
Mr. Spender said:--The Egyptian problem resembles the Indian and all
other Eastern problems in that there is no simple explanation or
solution of it. Among the many disagreeable surprises which awaited us
after the war, none was more disagreeable than the discovery in March,
1919, that Egypt was in a state of rebellion. For years previously we
had considered Egypt a model of imperial administration. We had pulled
her out of bankruptcy and given her prosperity. We had provided her with
great public works which had enriched both pasha and fellah. We had
scrupulously refrained from exploiting her in our own interests. No man
ever worked so disinterestedly for a country not his own as Lord Cromer
for Egypt, and if ever a Nationalist movement could have been killed by
kindness, it should have been the Egyptian. Nor were the Egyptian people
ungrateful. I have talked to Egyptian Nationalists of all shades, and
seldom found any who did not handsomely acknowledge what Great Britain
had done for Egypt, but they asked for one thing more, which was that
she should restore them their independence. "We won it from the Turks,"
they said, "and we cannot allow you to take it from us."
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