I believe I have defended myself from ignoring the principle that there is a difference between the Western European and the Indian Asiatic. There is vital difference, and it is infatuation to ignore it. But there is another vital fact--namely, that the Indian Asiatic is a man with very vivid susceptibilities of all kinds, and with living traditions of a civilisation of his own; and we are bound to treat him with the same kind of respect and kindness and sympathy that we should expect to be treated with ourselves. Only the other day I saw a letter from General Gordon to a friend of mine. He wrote-- "To govern men, there is but one way, and it is eternal truth. Get into their skins. Try to realize their feelings. That is the true secret of government." That is not only a great ethical, but a great political law, and we shall reap a sour and sorry harvest if it is forgotten. It would be folly to pretend to any dogmatic assurance--and I certainly do not--as to the course of the future in India. But for to-day anybody who takes part in the rule of India, whether as a Minister or as a Member of the House of Commons, participating in the discussion on affairs in India--anyone who wants to take a fruitful part in such discussions, if he does his duty will found himself on the assumption that the British rule will continue, ought to continue, and must continue. There is, I know, a school,--I do not think it has representatives in this House--who say that we might wisely walk out of India, and that the Indians would manage their own affairs better than we can manage affairs for them. Anybody who pictures to himself the anarchy, the bloody chaos, that would follow from any such deplorable step, must shrink from that sinister decision. We, at all events--Ministers and Members of this House--are bound to take a completely different view. The Government, and the House in all its parties and groups, is determined that we ought to face all these mischiefs and difficulties and dangers of which I have been speaking with a clear purpose. We know that we are not doing it for our own interest alone, or our own fame in the history of the civilised world alone, but for the interest of the millions committed to us. We ought to face it with sympathy, with kindness, with firmness, with a love of justice, and, whether the weather be fair or foul, in a valiant and manful spirit. II TO CONSTITUENTS (ARBROATH. OCTOBER 21, 1907)