Indian speeches (1907-1909) Part 3

"We are trying an experiment never yet tried in the world--maintaining a foreign dominion by means of a native army; and teaching that army, through a free Press, that they ought to expel us, and deliver their country."

He went on to say--

"A tremendous revolution may overtake us, originating in a free Press."

I recognise to the full the enormous force of a declaration of that kind. But let us look at it as practical men, who have got to deal with the government of the country. Supposing you abolish freedom of the Press or suspend it, that will not end the business. You will have to shut up schools and colleges, for what would be the use of suppressing newspapers, if you do not shut the schools and colleges?

Nor will that be all. You will have to stop the printing of unlicensed books. The possession of a copy of Milton, or Burke, or Macaulay, or of Bright's speeches, and all that flashing array of writers and orators who are the glory of our grand, our n.o.ble English tongue--the possession of one of these books will, on this peculiar and puerile notion of government, be like the possession of a bomb, and we shall have to direct the pa.s.sing of an Explosives Books Act. All this and its various sequels and complements make a policy if you please. But after such a policy had produced a mute, sullen, muzzled, lifeless India, we could hardly call it, as we do now the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown. No English Parliament will ever permit such a thing.

I do not think I need go through all the contents of the dispatch of the Governor-General and my reply, containing the plan of His Majesty's Government, which will be in your Lordships' hands very shortly. I think your Lordships will find in them a well-guarded expansion of principles that were recognised in 1861, and are still more directly and closely connected with us now by the action of Lord Lansdowne in 1892. I have his words, and they are really as true a key to the papers in our hands as they were to the policy of the n.o.ble Marquess at that date. He said--

"We hope, however, that we have succeeded in giving to our proposals a form sufficiently definite to secure a satisfactory advance in the representation of the people in our legislative Councils, and to give effect to the principle of selection as far as possible on the advice of such sections of the community as are likely to be capable of a.s.sisting us in that manner."

Then you will find that another Governor-General in Council in India, whom I greatly rejoice to see still among us, my n.o.ble friend the Marquess of Ripon, said in 1882--

"It is not primarily with a view to the improvement of administration, that this measure is put forward, it is chiefly desirable as an instrument of political and popular education"

The doctrines announced by the n.o.ble Marquess opposite, and by my n.o.ble friend, are the standpoint from which we approached the situation and framed our proposals.

I will not trouble the House by going through the history of the course of the proceedings--that will be found in the Papers. I believe the House will be satisfied, just as I am satisfied, with the candour and patience that have been bestowed on the preparation of the scheme in India, and I hope I may add it has been treated with equal patience and candour here; and the end of it is that, though some points of difference arose, though the Government of India agreed to drop certain points of their scheme--the Advisory Councils, for example--on the whole there was remarkable agreement between the Government of India and myself as to the best way of dealing with these proceedings as to Legislative Councils. I will enumerate the points very shortly, and though I am afraid it may be tedious, I hope your Lordships will not find the tedium unbearable, because, after all, what you are beginning to consider to-day, is the turning over of a fresh leaf in the history of British responsibility to India. There are only a handful of distinguished members of this House who understand the details of Indian Administration, but I will explain them as shortly as I can.

This is a list of the powers which we shall have to acquire from Parliament when we bring in a Bill. I may say that we do not propose to bring in a Bill this session. That would be idle. I propose to bring in a Bill next year. This is the first power we shall come to Parliament for. At present the maximum and minimum numbers of Legislative Councils are fixed by statute. We shall come to Parliament to authorise an increase in the numbers of those Councils, both the Viceroy's Council and the Provincial Councils. Secondly, the members are now nominated by the head of the Government, either the Viceroy or the Lieutenant-Governor. No election takes place in the strict sense of the term. The nearest approach to it is the nomination by the Viceroy, upon the recommendation of a majority of voters of certain public bodies. We do not propose to ask Parliament to abolish nomination. We do propose to ask Parliament, in a very definite way, to introduce election working alongside of nomination with a view to the aim admitted in all previous schemes, including that of the n.o.ble Marquess opposite--the due representation of the different cla.s.ses of the community. Third. The Indian Councils Act of 1892 forbids--and this is no doubt a most important prohibition--either resolutions or divisions of the Council in financial discussions. We shall ask Parliament to repeal this prohibition. Fourth. We shall propose to invest legislative Councils with power to discuss matters of public and general importance, and to pa.s.s recommendations or resolutions to the Indian Government. That Government will deal with them as carefully, or as carelessly, as they think fit--just as a Government does here. Fifth. To extend the power that at present exists, to appoint a Member of the Council to preside. Sixth. Bombay and Madras have now Executive Councils, numbering two. I propose to ask Parliament to double the number of ordinary members. Seventh.

The Lieutenant-Governors have no Executive Council. We shall ask Parliament to sanction the creation of such Councils, consisting of not more than two ordinary members, and to define the power of the Lieutenant-Governor to overrule his Council. I am perfectly sure there may be differences of opinion as to these proposals. I only want your Lordships to believe that they have been well thought out, and that they are accepted by the Governor-General in Council.

There is one point of extreme importance which, no doubt, though it may not be over diplomatic for me to say so at this stage, will create some controversy. I mean the matter of the official majority. The House knows what an official majority is. It is a device by which the Governor-General, or the Governor of Bombay or Madras, may secure a majority in his Legislative Council by means of officials and nominees. And the officials, of course, for very good reasons, just like a Cabinet Minister or an Under-Secretary, whatever the man's private opinion may be, would still vote, for the best of reasons, and I am bound to think with perfect wisdom, with the Government.

But anybody can see how directly, how palpably, how injuriously, an arrangement of this kind tends to weaken, and I think I may say even to deaden, the sense both of trust and responsibility in the non-official members of these councils. Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an att.i.tude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of members of these Legislative Councils.

I know it will be said--I will not weary the House by arguing it, but I only desire to meet at once the objection that will be taken--that these councils will, if you take away the safeguard of the official majority, pa.s.s any number of wild-cat Bills. The answer to that is that the head of the Government can veto the wild-cat Bills. The Governor-General can withhold his a.s.sent, and the withholding of the a.s.sent of the Governor-General is no defunct power. Only the other day, since I have been at the India Office, the Governor-General disallowed a Bill pa.s.sed by a Local Government which I need not name, with the most advantageous effect. I am quite convinced that if that Local Government had had an unofficial majority the Bill would never have been pa.s.sed, and the Governor-General would not have had to refuse his a.s.sent. But so he did, and so he would if these gentlemen, whose numbers we propose to increase and whose powers we propose to widen, chose to pa.s.s wild-cat Bills. And it must be remembered that the range of subjects within the sphere of Provincial Legislative Councils is rigorously limited by statutory exclusions. I will not labour the point now. Anybody who cares, in a short compa.s.s, can grasp the argument, of which we shall hear a great deal, in Paragraphs 17 to 20 of my reply to the Government of India, in the Papers that will speedily be in your Lordships' hands.

There is one proviso in this matter of the official majority, in which your Lordships may, perhaps, find a surprise. We are not prepared to divest the Governor-General in his Council of an official majority.

In the Provincial Councils we propose to dispense with it, but in the Viceroy's Legislative Council we propose to adhere to it. Only let me say that here we may seem to lag a stage behind the Government of India themselves--so little violent are we--because that Government say, in their despatch--"On all ordinary occasions we are ready to dispense with an official majority in the Imperial Legislative Council, and to rely on the public spirit of non-official members to enable us to carry on the ordinary work of legislation." My Lords, that is what we propose to do in the Provincial Councils. But in the Imperial Council we consider an official majority essential. It may be said that this is a most flagrant logical inconsistency. So it would be, on one condition. If I were attempting to set up a Parliamentary system in India, or if it could be said that this chapter of reforms led directly or necessarily up to the establishment of a Parliamentary system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do with it.

I do not believe--it is not of very great consequence what I believe, because the fulfilment of my vaticinations could not come off very soon--in spite of the attempts in Oriental countries at this moment, interesting attempts to which we all wish well, to set up some sort of Parliamentary system--it is no ambition of mine, at all events, to have any share in beginning that operation in India. If my existence, either officially or corporeally, were prolonged twenty times longer than either of them is likely to be, a Parliamentary system in India is not at all the goal to which I would for one moment aspire.

One point more. It is the question of an Indian member on the Viceroy's Executive Council. The absence of an Indian member from the Viceroy's Executive Council can no longer, I think, be defended. There is no legal obstacle or statutory exclusion. The Secretary of State can, to-morrow, if he likes, if there be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Council, recommend His Majesty to appoint an Indian member. All I want to say is that, if, during my tenure of office, there should be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Executive Council, I should feel it a duty to tender my advice to the King that an Indian member should be appointed. If it were on my own authority only, I might hesitate to take that step, because I am not very fond of innovations in dark and obscure ground, but here I have the absolute and the zealous approval and concurrence of Lord Minto himself. It was at Lord Minto's special instigation that I began to think seriously of this step. Anyhow, this is how it stands, that you have at this moment a Secretary of State and a Viceroy who both concur in such a recommendation. I suppose--if I may be allowed to give a personal turn to these matters--that Lord Minto and I have had as different experience of life and the world as possible, and we belong I daresay to different schools of national politics, because Lord Minto was appointed by the party opposite. It is a rather remarkable thing that two men, differing in this way in political antecedents, should agree in this proposal. We need not discuss what particular portfolio should be a.s.signed to an Indian member. That will be settled by the Viceroy on the merits of the individual. The great object, the main object, is that the merits of individuals are to be considered and to be decisive, irrespective and independent of race and colour.

We are not altogether without experience, because a year ago, or somewhat more, it was my good fortune to be able to appoint two Indian gentlemen to the Council of India sitting at the Indian Office. Many apprehensions reached me as to what might happen. So far, at all events, those apprehensions have been utterly dissipated. The concord between the two Indian members of the Council and their colleagues has been unbroken, their work has been excellent, and you will readily believe me when I say that the advantage to me of being able to ask one of these two gentlemen to come and tell me something about an Indian question from an Indian point of view, is enormous. I find in it a chance of getting the Indian angle of vision, and I feel sometimes as if I were actually in the streets of Calcutta.

I do not say there are not some arguments on the other side. But this, at all events, must be common sense--for the Governor-General and the European members of his Council to have at their side a man who knows the country well, who belongs to the country and who can give him the point of view of an Indian. Surely, my Lords, that cannot but prove an enormous advantage.

Let me say further, on the Judicial Bench in India everybody recognises the enormous service that it is to have Indian members of abundant learning, and who add to that abundant learning a complete knowledge of the conditions and life of the country. I propose at once, if Parliament agrees, to acquire powers to double the Executive Council in Bombay and Madras, and to appoint at least one Indian member in each of those cases, as well as in the Governor-General's Council. Nor, as the Papers will show, shall I be backward in advancing towards a similar step, as occasion may require, in respect of at least four of the major provinces.

I wish that this chapter had been opened at a more fortunate moment: but as I said when I rose, I repeat--do not let us for a moment take too gloomy a view. There is not the slightest occasion. None of those who are responsible take gloomy views. They know the difficulties, they are prepared to grapple with them. They will do their best to keep down mutinous opposition. They hope to attract that good will which must, after all, be the real foundation of our prosperity and strength in India. We believe that this admission of the Indians to a larger and more direct share in the government of their country and in all the affairs of their country, without for a moment taking from the central power its authority, will fortify the foundations of our position. It will require great steadiness, constant pursuit of the same objects, and the maintenance of our authority, which will be all the more effective if we have, along with our authority, the aid and a.s.sistance, in responsible circ.u.mstances, of the Indians themselves.

Military strength, material strength, we have in abundance. What we still want to acquire is moral strength--moral strength in guiding and controlling the people of India in the course on which time is launching them. I should like to read a few lines from a great orator about India. It was a speech delivered by Mr. Bright in 1858, when the Government of India Bill was in another place. Mr. Bright said--

"We do not know how to leave India, and therefore let us see if we know how to govern it. Let us abandon all that system of calumny against natives of India which has lately prevailed. Had that people not been docile, the most governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power there for 100 years? Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are they not, upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian service ever produced, endowed with many qualities which make them respected by all Englishmen who mix with them?... I would not permit any man in my presence without rebuke to indulge in the calumnies and expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth without measure upon the whole population of India.... The people of India do not like us, but they would scarcely know where to turn if we left them. They are sheep, literally without a shepherd."

However, that may be, we at least at Westminster here have no choice and no option. As an ill.u.s.trious Member of this House wrote--

"We found a society in a state of decomposition, and we have undertaken the serious and stupendous process of reconstructing it."

Macaulay, for it was he, said--

"India now is like Europe in the fifth century."

Yes, a stupendous process indeed. The process has gone on with marvellous success, and if we all, according to our various lights, are true to our colours, that process will go on. Whatever is said, I for one--though I am not what is commonly called an Imperialist--so far from denying, I most emphatically affirm, that for us to preside over this transition from the fifth European century in some parts, in slow, uneven stages, up to the twentieth--so that you have before you all the centuries at once as it were--for us to preside over that, and to be the guide of peoples in that condition, is, if conducted with humanity and sympathy, with wisdom, with political courage, not only a human duty, but what has been often and most truly called one of the most glorious tasks ever confided to any powerful State in the history of civilised mankind.

VI

HINDUS AND MAHOMETANS

(AT THE INDIA OFFICE. JANUARY, 1909)

[A deputation of the London Branch of the All-Indian Moslem League waited upon the Secretary of State, in order to represent to him the views of the Mussulmans of India on the projected Indian reforms.]

I am delighted to meet you to-day, because I have always felt in my political experience, now pretty long, that it is when face answers to face that you come best to points of controversial issue. I have listened to the able speech of my friend Mr. Ameer Ali and to the speech that followed, with close attention, not merely for the sake of the arguments upon the special points raised, but because the underlying feeling and the animating spirit of the two speeches are full of encouragement. Why? Because instead of any hostile att.i.tude to our reforms as a whole, I find that you welcome them cordially and with grat.i.tude. I cannot say with what satisfaction I receive that announcement. If you will allow me, I will, before I come to the special points, say a few words upon the general position.

It is only five weeks, I think, since our scheme was launched, and I am bound to say that at the end of those five weeks the position may fairly be described as hopeful and promising. I do not think that the millennium will come in five more weeks, nor in fifty weeks; but I do say that for a scheme of so wide a scope to be received as this scheme has been received, is a highly encouraging sign. It does not follow that because we have launched our ship with a slant of fair wind, this means the same thing as getting into harbour. There are plenty of difficult points that we have got to settle. But when I try from my conning-tower in this office, to read the signs in the political skies, I am full of confidence. The great thing is that in every party both in India and at home--in every party, and every section, and every group--there is a recognition of the magnitude and the gravity of the enterprise on which we have embarked. I studied very closely the proceedings at Madras, and the proceedings at Amritsar, and in able speeches made in both those places I find a truly political spirit in the right sense of the word--in the sense of perspective and proportion--which I sometimes wish could be imitated by some of my political friends nearer home. I mean that issues, important enough but upon which there is some difference, are put aside--for the time only, if you like, but still put aside--in face of the magnitude of the issues that we present to you in these reforms. On Monday, in _The Times_ newspaper, there was a long and most interesting communication from Bombay, written, I believe, by a gentleman of very wide Indian knowledge and level-headed humour. What does he say? He takes account of the general position as he found it in India shortly after my Despatch arrived. "I might have dwelt," he says, "upon the fact that I have not met a single official who does not admit that some changes which should gratify Indian longings were necessary, and I might have expatiated upon the abounding evidence that Lord Morley's despatch and speech have unquestionably eased a tension which had become exceedingly alarming." That is a most important thing, and I believe Parliament has fully recognised it.

We cannot fold our arms and say that things are to go on as they did before, and I rejoice to see what this gentleman says. He is talking of officials, and I always felt from the beginning that if we did not succeed in carrying with us the goodwill of that powerful service, there would be reason for suspecting that we were wrong upon the merits, and even if we were not wrong on the merits, there would be reason for apprehending formidable difficulties. I have myself complete confidence in them. I see in some journals of my own party suspicions thrown upon the loyalty of that service to his Majesty's Government of the day. It is absurd to think anything of the kind. If our policy and our proposals receive the approval of Parliament and the approval of officials, such as those spoken of in _The Times_ the other day, I am perfectly sure there will be no more want of goodwill and zeal on the part of the Indian Civil Service, than there would be in the officers of his Majesty's Fleet, or his Majesty's Army. It would be just the same. I should like to read another pa.s.sage from _The Times_ letter:--"It would probably be incorrect to say that the bulk of the Civil Service in the Bombay Presidency are gravely apprehensive. Most of them are not unnaturally anxious"--I agree; it is perfectly natural that they should be anxious--"but the main officials in whose judgment most confidence can be placed, regard the future with the buoyant hopefulness without which an Englishman in India is lost indeed." All that is rea.s.suring, and no sign nor whisper reaches me that any responsible man or any responsible section or creed, either in India or here, has any desire whatever to wreck our scheme. And let me go further. Statesmen abroad showing themselves capable of reflection, are watching us with interest and wishing us well. Take the remarkable utterance of President Roosevelt the other day at Washington. And if we turn from Washington to Eastern Europe, I know very well that any injustice, any suspicion that we were capable of being unjust, to Mahomedans in India, would certainly provoke a severe and injurious reaction in Constantinople. I am alive to all these things. Mr. Ameer Ali said he was sure the Secretary of State would mete out just and equitable treatment to all interests, if their views were fairly laid before him. He did me no more than justice.

The Government are entirely zealous and in earnest, acting in thorough good faith, in the desire to press forward these proposals. I may tell you that our Bill is now quite ready. I shall introduce it at the first minute after the Address is over, and, when it reaches the Commons, it will be pressed forward with all the force and resolution that Parliamentary conditions permit. These are not mere pious opinions or academic reforms; they are proposals that are to take Parliamentary shape at the earliest possible moment; and after taking Parliamentary shape, no time will, I know, be lost in India in bringing them as rapidly as possible into practical operation.

Now the first point Mr. Ameer Ali made was upon the unfairness to the members of the Mahomedan community, caused by reckoning in the Hindu census a large mult.i.tude of men who are not ent.i.tled to be there. I submit that it is not very easy--and I have gone into the question very carefully--to divide these lower castes and to cla.s.sify them.

Statisticians would be charged with putting too many into either one or the other division, wherever you choose to draw the line. I know the force of the argument, and am willing to attach to it whatever weight it deserves. I wish some of my friends in this country would study the figures of what are called the lower castes, because they would then see the enormous difficulty and absurdity of applying to India the same principles that are excellent guides to us Westerns who have been bred on the pure milk of the Benthamite word--one man one vote and every man a vote. That dream, by the way, is not quite realised even in this country; but the idea of insisting on a principle of that sort is irrational to anybody who reflects on this multiplicity and variety of race and castes.

Then there is the question of the joint electorate--what is called the mixed electoral college. I was very glad to read this paragraph in the paper that you were good enough to send to me. You recognise the very principle that was at the back of our minds, when we came to the conclusion about mixed electoral college. You say:--"In common with other well-wishers of India, the Committee look forward to a time when the development of a true spirit of compromise, or the fusion of the races, may make principles indicated by his Lordship capable of practical application without sacrificing the interests of any of the nationalities, or giving political ascendency to one to the disadvantage of the others. But the Committee venture to think that, however ready the country may be for const.i.tutional reforms, the interests of the two great communities of India must be considered and dealt with separately." Therefore, to begin with, the difference between us in principle about the joint electorate is only this: we are guilty of nothing worse than that we were premature, in the views of these gentlemen--we were impatient idealists. You say to me, "It is very fine; we hope it will all come true; but you are premature; we must wait." Still, though premature, I observe that your own suggestion in one of those papers adopts and accepts the principle of the scheme outlined in our despatch. It is quite true to say, "Oh, but you are vague in your despatch." Yes, a despatch is not a Bill.

A Minister writing a despatch does not put in all the clauses and sections and subsections and schedules. It is the business of a Minister composing a despatch like mine of November 27, 1908, to indicate only general lines--general enough to make the substance and body of the scheme intelligible, but still general. I should like to say a word about the despatch. It is constantly a.s.sumed that in the despatch we prescribed and ordered the introduction of the joint electoral college. If any of you will be good enough to look at the words, you will find that no language of that sort--no law of the Medes and Persians--is to be found in it. If you refer to paragraph 12 you will see that our language is this:--

"I suggest for your consideration that the object in view might be better secured, at any rate in the more advanced provinces in India, by a modification of the system of popular electorate founded on the principle of electoral colleges."

You see it was merely a suggestion thrown out for the Government of India, not a direction of the Mede and Persian stamp. You say, "That for the purpose of electing members to the Provincial Councils, electoral colleges should be const.i.tuted on lines suggested by his Lordship, composed exclusively of Mahomedans whose numbers and mode of grouping should be fixed by executive authority." This comes within the principle of my despatch, and we shall see--I hope very speedily--whether the Government of India discover objections to its practicability. Mark, electoral colleges "composed exclusively of Mahomedans whose members and mode of grouping should be fixed by executive authority"--that is a proposition which is not outside the despatch. Whether practicable or not, it is a matter for discussion between us here and the Government in India.

The aim of the Government and yours is identical--that there shall be (to quote Mr. Ameer Ali's words) "adequate, real, and genuine Mahomedan representation." Now, where is the difference between us?

The machinery we commended, you do not think possible. As I have told you, the language of the despatch does not insist upon a mixed electoral college. It would be no departure in substance from the purpose of our suggestion, that there should be a separate Mahomedan electorate--an electorate exclusively Mahomedan; and in view of the wide and remote distances, and difficulties of organisation in consequence of those distances in the area const.i.tuting a large province, I am not sure that this is not one of those cases where election by two stages would not be convenient, and so there might be a separate electoral college exclusively Mahomedan. That is, I take it, in accordance with your own proposal. There are various methods by which it could be done. In the first place, an election exclusively Mahomedan might be direct into the legislative council. To this it may be said that it would be impossible by reason of distance. In the second place, you could have an election by separate communities to a local board, and the local board should be the electoral college, the Mahomedans separating themselves from the other members of the board for that purpose. Thirdly, the members of the local board, the communities being separate in the same way, could return a member for the electoral college. Fourthly, you might have a direct election to an electoral college by the community, and this electoral college would return a representative to the legislative council. These, you see, are four different expedients which well deserve consideration for attaining our end.

I go to the next point, the apprehensions lest if we based our system on numerical strength alone, a great injustice would be done to your community. Of course we all considered that, from the Viceroy downwards. Whether your apprehensions are well founded or not, it is the business of those who call themselves statesmen to take those apprehensions into account, and to do the best we can in setting up a working system to allay and meet such apprehensions. If you take numerical strength as your basis, in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal Mahomedans are in a decisive majority. In the Punjab the Moslem population is 53 per cent. to 38 per cent. Hindu. In Eastern Bengal 58 per cent. are Moslem and 37 per cent. are Hindu. Therefore, in those two provinces, on the numerical basis alone, the Mahomedans will secure sufficient representation. In Madras, on the other hand, the Hindus are 89 per cent. against 6 per cent. of Moslems, and, therefore, numbers would give no adequate representation to Moslem opinion. In Bombay the Moslems are in the ratio of 3-3/4 to 14 millions--20 per cent. to 77 per cent. The conditions are very complex in Bombay, and I need not labour the details of this complexity. I am inclined to agree with those who think that it might be left to the local Government to take other elements into view required or suggested by local conditions. Coming to the United Provinces, there the Moslems are 6-3/4 millions to 40-3/4 Hindus--14 per cent. to 85 per cent. This ratio of numerical strength no more represents the proportion in the elements of weight and importance, than in Eastern Bengal does the Hindu ratio of 37 per cent. to 58 per cent. of Moslems. You may set off each of those two cases against the other.

Then there is the great province of Bengal, where the Moslems are one-quarter of the Hindus--9 millions to 39 millions--18 per cent. to 77 per cent.

We all see, then, that the problem presents extraordinary difficulty.

How are you going in a case like the United Provinces, for example, to secure that adequate and substantial representation, which it is the interest and the desire of the Government for its own sake to secure.

No fair-minded Moslem would deny in Eastern Bengal, any more than a fair-minded non-Moslem would deny it in the United Provinces, that there is no easy solution. You see, gentlemen, I do not despair of finding a fair-minded man in a controversy of this kind. From information that reaches me I do not at all despair of meeting fair-minded critics of both communities, in spite of the sharp antagonism that exists on many matters between them. But, whatever may be the case with Mahomedans and Hindus, there is one body of men who are bound to keep a fair mind, and that is the Government. The Government are bound, whatever you may do among yourselves, strictly, and I will even say sternly, to insist on overcoming all obstacles in a spirit of absolute equity. Now, what is the object of the Government? It is that the Legislative Councils should represent truly and effectively, with a reasonable approach to the balance of real social forces, the wishes and needs of the communities themselves.

That is the object of the Government, and in face of a great problem of that kind, algebra, arithmetic, geometry, logic--none of these things will do your business for you. You have to look at it widely and away from those sciences, excellent in their place, but not of much service when you are solving awkward political riddles. I think if you allow some method of leaving to a local authority the power of adding to the number of representatives from the Mahomedan community, or the Hindu community, as the case may be, that might be a possible and prudent way of getting through this embarra.s.sment. Let us all be clear of one thing, namely--and I thought of this when I heard one or two observations that fell from Mr. Ameer Ali--that no general proposition can be wisely based on the possession by either community, either of superior civil qualities or superior personal claims. If you begin to introduce that element, you perceive the perils to that peace and mutual goodwill which we hope to emerge by-and-by, though it may take longer than some think. I repeat that I see no harm from the point of view of a practical working compromise, in the principle that population, or numerical strength, should be the main factor in determining how many representatives should sit for this or the other community; but modifying influences may be both wisely and equitably taken into account in allotting the numbers of such representatives.

As regards Indian members on the Executive Council, if you will allow me to say so, I think it was dubious tactics in you to bring that question forward. We were told by those who object, for instance, to my recommending to the Crown an Indian member of the Viceroy's Executive--that it will never do; that if you choose a man of one community, the other will demand a second. The Executive Council in all--this will not be in the Bill--consists of six members. Suppose there were to be two vacancies, and I were to recommend to the Crown the appointment of one Mahomedan and one Hindu, the effect would be that of the six gentlemen one-third would be non-English. You may think that all right, but it would be a decidedly serious step.

Suppose you say you will bring in a Bill, then, for the purpose of appointing an extra member always to be an Indian. That is much more easily said than done. I am talking perfectly plainly. You would not get such a Bill. I want to talk even more plainly. I want to say that reference to the Hindu community or the Mahomedan community, in respect to the position of the Viceroy's Executive, is entirely wide of the mark in the view, I know, both of the Viceroy and of myself.