Great Britain -- Colonies -- Asia -- Administration; India
Now to India. I observed the other day that the Bishop of Lahore
said--and his words put in a very convenient form what is in the minds
of those who think about Indian questions at all--"It is my deep
conviction that we have reached a point of the utmost gravity and of
far-reaching effect in our continued relations with this land, and I
most heartily wish there were more signs that this fact was clearly
recognised by the bulk of Englishmen out here in India, or even by our
rulers themselves." Now you and the democratic constituencies of this
kingdom are the rulers of India. It is to you, therefore, that I come
to render my account. Just let us see where we are. Let us put the
case. When critics assail Indian policy or any given aspect of it, I
want to know where we start from? Some of you in Arbroath wrote to
me, a year ago, and called upon me to defend the system of Indian
Government and the policy for which I am responsible. I declined, for
reasons that I stated at the moment. I am here to answer to-night,
when the time makes it more fitting in anticipation all those
difficulties which some excellent people, with whom in many ways I
sympathise, feel. Again, I say, let us see where we start from. Does
anybody want me to go to London to-morrow morning, and to send a
telegram to Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief in India, and tell
him that he is to disband the Indian army, to send home as fast as we
can despatch transports, the British contingent of the army, and bring
away the whole of the Civil servants? Suppose it to be true, as
some people in Arbroath seem to have thought--I am not arguing the
question--that Great Britain loses more than she gains; supposing it
to be true that India would have worked out her own salvation without
us; supposing it to be true that the present Government of India has
many defects--supposing all that to be true, do you want me to send
a telegram to Lord Kitchener to-morrow morning to clear out bag and
baggage? How should we look in the face of the civilised world if we
had so turned our back upon our duty and sovereign task? How should we
bear the smarting stings of our own consciences, when, as assuredly
we should, we heard through the dark distances the roar and scream of
confusion and carnage in India? Then people of this way of thinking
say "That is not what we meant." Then what is it that is meant,
gentlemen? The outcome, the final outcome, of British rule in India
may be a profitable topic for the musings of meditative minds. But we
are not here to muse. We have the duty of the day to perform, we have
the tasks of to-morrow spread out before us. In the interests of
India, to say nothing of our own national honour, in the name of duty
and of common sense, our first and commanding task is to keep order
and to quell violences among race and creed; sternly to insist on the
impartial application of rules of justice, independent of European or
of Indian. We begin from that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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