Let me say one more word about deportations. It is true that there is no definite charge that could be produced in a court of law. That is the very essence of the whole transaction. Then it is said--"Oh, but you look to the police; you get all your evidence from the police." That is not so. The Government of India get their information, not evidence in a technical sense--that is the root of the matter--from important district officers. But it is said then, "Who is to decide the value of the information?" I heard that one gentleman in the House of Commons said privately in ordinary talk, "If English country gentlemen were to decide this, we would not mind." Who do decide? Do you think this is done by a police sergeant in a box? On the contrary, every one of these nine cases of deportation has been examined and investigated--by whom? By Lord Minto, by the late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, by the present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, by two or three members of the Viceroy's Executive Council. Are we to suppose for a minute that men of this great station and authority and responsibility are going to issue a _lettre de cachet_ for A.B., C.D., or E.F., without troubling themselves whether that _lettre de cachet_ is wisely issued or not? Then it is said of a man who is arrested under this law, "Oh, he ought not to be harshly treated." He is not harshly treated. If he is one of these nine deported men, he is not put into contact with criminal persons. His family are looked after. He subsists under conditions which are to an Indian perfectly conformable to his social position, and to the ordinary comforts and conveniences of his life. The greatest difference is drawn between these nine men and other men against whom charges to be judicially tried are brought. All these cases come up for reconsideration from time to time. They will come up shortly, and that consideration will be conducted with justice and with firmness. There can be no attempt at all to look at this transaction of the nine deported men otherwise than as a disagreeable measure, but one imposed upon us by a sense of public duty and a measure that events justify. What did Mr. Gokhale, who is a leader of a considerable body of important political opinion in India, say? Did he move a vote of censure? He said in the Legislative Council the other day in Calcutta, that Lord Minto and the Secretary of State had saved India from drifting into chaos. I owe you an apology, Mr. Vice-Chancellor and gentlemen, for pressing upon your attention points suggested by criticisms from politicians of generous but unbalanced impulse. But they are important, and I am glad you have allowed me to say what I have said upon them. APPENDIX A _Extract from the dispatch of the Board of Directors of the East India Company to the Government of India, December 10, 1834, accompanying the Government of India Act_, 1833.[1]