Indian Unrest Part 12

No comments of mine could add to the significance of this warning.

The measure contemplated by Mr. Gokhale's resolution may have some direct effect upon Natal, whose leading statesmen have repeatedly acknowledged the immense value of Indian indentured labour to the Colony, and may indirectly affect public opinion in the Transvaal. But behind the immediate question of the worse or better treatment of Indians in South Africa stand much larger questions, which Mr. Gokhale did not hesitate to state with equal frankness:--

Behind all the grievances of which I have spoken to-day three questions of vital importance emerge to view. First, what is the _status_ of us Indians in this Empire? Secondly, what is the extent of the responsibility which lies on the Imperial Government to ensure to us just and humane and, gradually, even equal treatment in this Empire? And, thirdly, how far are the self-governing members of this Empire bound by its cardinal principles, or are they to share in its privileges only and not to bear their share of the disadvantages?

These issues have been raised in their most acute form in South Africa, but they exist also in Australia, and even in Canada, where many Indians suffered heavily from the outburst of anti-Asiatic feeling which swept along the Pacific Coast a couple of years ago. They involve the position of Asiatic subjects of the Crown in all the self-governing Dominions and indirectly in many of the Crown Colonies, for they affect the relations of the white and coloured races throughout the Empire. Here, however, I must confine myself to the Indian aspects. I have discussed them with a good many Indians, and they are quite alive to the difficulties of the situation. Though they resent the colour bar, they realize the strength of the feeling there is in the Colonies in favour of preserving the white race from intermixture with non-white races. It is, in fact, a feeling they themselves in some ways share, for, in India the unfortunate Eurasian meets with even less sympathy from Indians than from Europeans. Indian susceptibilities may even find some consolation in the fact that Colonial dislike of the Indian immigrant is to a great extent due to his best qualities. "Indians," said Mr. Mudholkar, appealing to Lord Minto, "are hated, as your Lordship's predecessor pointed out, on account of their very virtues. It is because they are sober, thrifty, industrious, more attentive to their business than the white men that their presence in the Colonies is considered intolerable." Educated Indians know how little hold the Mother Country has over her Colonies in these matters. They know that both British and Anglo-Indian statesmen have recognized their grievances without being able to secure their redress, and it is interesting to note how warm were the tributes paid in the Imperial Council to the energy with which Lord Curzon had upheld their cause, by some of those who were most bitterly opposed to him when he was in India. They know, on the other hand, that though the British Labour Party can afford to profess great sympathy for Indian political aspirations in India, it has never tried--or, if it has tried, it has signally failed--to exercise the slightest influence in favour of Indian claims to fair treatment with its allies in the Colonies, where the Labour Party is always the most uncompromising advocate of a policy of exclusion and oppression, and they know the power which the Labour Party wields in all our Colonies.

They are, therefore, I believe, ready, to reckon with the realities of the situation and to agree with Lord Curzon that "the common rights of British citizenship cannot be held to override the rights of self-protection conceded to self-governing Colonies"--rights which, moreover, are often exercised to the detriment of immigrants from the Mother Country itself. They will, on the other hand, urge the withholding of Indian labour if the Colonies are unwilling to treat it with fairness and humanity, and they argue rightly enough, that India, to whom the emigration of tens of thousands of her people is not an unmixed advantage, will lose far less than Colonies whose development will be starved by the loss of labour they cannot themselves supply. An influential Indian Member stated in Council that they have accepted the view that complete freedom of immigration is beyond the pale of practical politics, and is not to be pressed as things stand. All that they ask, he added, in the Transvaal is for the old Indian residents to be allowed to live peaceably, as in Cape Colony for instance, without being treated like habitual criminals, and for men of education and position to be allowed to come in, so that they may have teachers, ministers of religion, and doctors for themselves and their people. In Natal they ask for the maintenance of the rights and privileges they have had for years and years. On such lines a practical working arrangement with the Colonies should not be beyond the bounds of possibility. But what Indians also demand is that laws and regulations of an exceptional character which may be accepted in regard to immigration shall not be applicable to Indians who merely wish to travel in the Colonies. An Indian of very high position whom every one from the King downwards welcomes when he comes to England, wished a few years ago to visit Australia, but before doing so he wrote to a friend there to inquire whether he would be subjected to any unpleasant formalities. The answer he received discouraged him. These are the sort of difficulties which Indians claim should be removed, and one practical suggestion I have heard put forward is that, on certain principles to be laid down by mutual agreement between the Imperial Government, the Governments of the Dominions, and the Government of India, the latter should have power to issue pa.s.sports to Indian subjects which would be recognized and would exempt them from all vexatious formalities throughout the Empire.

The whole question is one that cannot be allowed to drag on indefinitely without grave danger to the Empire. It evidently cannot be solved without the co-operation of the Colonies. Next year the Imperial Conference meets again in the capital of the Empire. If, in the meantime, the Imperial Government were to enter into communication with the Government of India and with the Crown Colonies, so many of whom are closely interested in Indian labour, they should be in a position to lay before the representatives of the Dominions a.s.sembled in London next March considered proposals which would afford a basis for discussion and, one may hope, for a definite agreement. A recognition of the right of Colonial Governments to regulate the conditions on which British Indians may be allowed admission as indentured labourers or for permanent residence ought to secure guarantees for the equitable and humane treatment of those who have been already admitted, or shall hereafter be admitted, and also an undertaking that Indians of good position armed with specified credentials from the Government of India, travelling either for pleasure or for purposes of scientific study or on business or with other legitimate motives, would be allowed to enter and travel about for a reasonable period without let or hindrance of any sort. That is the _minimum_ which would, I believe, satisfy the best Indian opinion, and it is inconceivable that if the situation were freely and frankly explained to our Colonial kinsmen they would reject a settlement so essential to the interests and to the credit of the whole Empire in relation to India.

CHAPTER XXV.

SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL RELATIONS.

On few subjects are more ignorant or malevolent statements made than on the att.i.tude of Englishmen in India towards the natives of the country.

That social relations between Englishmen and Indians seldom grow intimate is true enough, but not that the fault lies mainly with Englishmen. At the risk of being trite, I must recall a few elementary considerations.

The bedrock difficulty is that Indian customs prevent any kind of intimacy between English and Indian families. Even in England the relations between men who are excluded from acquaintance with each other's families can rarely be called intimate, and except in the very few cases of Indian families that are altogether Westernized, Indian habits rigidly exclude Englishmen from admission into the homes of Indian gentlemen, whether Hindu or Mahomedan. Intercourse between Indian and English ladies is in the same way almost entirely confined to formal visits paid by the latter to the zenana and the harem, and to so-called _Purdah_ parties, given in English houses, in which Indian ladies are entertained as far as possible under the same conditions that prevail in their own homes--i.e., to the total exclusion of all males. So long as Indian ladies are condemned to a life of complete seclusion the interests they have in common with their English visitors must necessarily be very few. On the other hand, it is not surprising that Englishmen, knowing the views that many Indian men entertain with regard to the position of women, do not care to encourage them to visit their own houses on a footing of intimacy that would necessarily bring them into more or less familiar contact with their English wives and sisters and daughters. There is very much to admire in the family relations, and especially in the filial relations, that exist in an Indian home, whether Hindu or Mahomedan, but it is idle to pretend that Indian ideas with regard to the relations between the s.e.xes are the same as ours. In these circ.u.mstances any social fusion between even the better cla.s.ses of the two races seems to be for the present out of the question.

Very sincere and creditable efforts are now, it is true, being made on both sides to diminish the gulf that divides English and Indian society, and I have been at various gatherings which were attended by Englishmen and Englishwomen and by Indians, among whom there was sometimes even a sprinkling of Indian ladies. But the English host and hostess invariably found it difficult to prevent their Indian guests forming groups of their own, and each group seemed to be as reluctant to mingle with other Indian groups of a different cla.s.s or caste as with their English fellow-guests. Indian society has been for centuries split up by race and caste and creed distinctions into so many watertight compartments that it does not care for the Western forms of social intercourse, which tend to ignore those distinctions. It is Indians themselves who regard us, much more than we regard ourselves, as a separate caste. Moreover, for the ordinary and somewhat desultory conversation which plays so large a part in Western sociability the Indian has very little understanding. He always imagines that conversation must have some definite purpose, and though he has far, more than most English men, the gift of ready and courteous speech, and often will talk for a long time both discursively and pleasantly, it is almost always as a preliminary to the introduction of some particular topic in which his personal interests are more or less directly involved. A question which causes a good deal of soreness is the rigid exclusion of Indians from many Anglo-Indian clubs. But though a little more elasticity as to the entertainment of Indian "guests" might reasonably be conceded to Indian susceptibilities, a club is after all just as much as his house an Englishman's castle, and it is only in India that any one would venture to suggest that a club should not settle its rules of membership as it thinks fit. In the large cities at least there should, however, be room for clubs which, like the Calcutta Club at Calcutta, serve the very useful purpose of bringing together by mutual consent the higher cla.s.ses of Indians and Englishmen, official and non-official. Yet even there the exigencies of caste observances, especially in the case of Hindus, militate against the more convivial forms of intercourse which the Englishman particularly affects. There are not a few Hindu members who will talk or play bridge with their English fellow-members into the small hours of the morning, but who consider themselves bound in conscience not to sit down to dinner with them; whilst some will doubtless feel obliged to perform ceremonial ablutions when they go home. Others again, for similar reasons, would decline to join any European club. They are no more to be blamed than Englishmen who prefer to reserve membership of their clubs to Europeans, but the fact remains and has to be reckoned with.

The best and most satisfactory relations are those maintained between Englishmen and Indians who understand and respect each other's peculiarities. No cla.s.s of Englishman in India fulfils those conditions more fully than the Indian Civil Service. It is, I know, the _bete noire_ of the Indian politician, and even Englishmen who ought to know better seem to think that, once they have labelled it a "bureaucracy,"

that barbarous name is enough to hang it--or enough, at least, to lend plausibility to the charge that Anglo-Indian administrators are arrogant and harsh in their personal dealings with Indians and ignorant and unsympathetic in their methods of government.

That the English civilian goes out to India with a tolerably high intellectual and moral equipment can hardly be disputed, for he represents the pick of the young men who qualify for our Civil Service at home as well as abroad, and in respect of character, integrity, and intelligence the British Civil Service can challenge comparison with that of any other country in the world. Why should he suddenly change into a narrow-minded, petty tyrant as soon as he sets foot in India? A great part at least of his career is spent in the very closest contact with the people, for he often lives for years together in remote districts where he has practically no other society than that of natives. He generally knows and speaks fluently more than one vernacular, though, owing to the multiplicity of Indian languages--there are five, for instance, in the Bombay Presidency alone--- he may find himself suddenly transferred to a district in which the vernaculars he has learnt are of no use to him. Part of his time is always spent "in camp"--_i.e._ moving about from village to village, receiving pet.i.tions, investigating cases, listening to complaints. Perhaps none of the ordinary duties of administration bring him so closely into touch with the people as the collection of land revenue, for it is there that his sense of fairness comes most conspicuously into play and wins recognition. Hence, for instance, in Bengal one of the bad results of the "Permanent Settlement" of the land revenue, which leaves no room for the Collector's ordinary work, has been that the people and the civilian know generally less about each other than in other parts of India. Few Indians venture to impugn the Englishman's integrity and impartiality in adjudging cases in which material interests are concerned, or in settling differences between natives; and nowhere are those qualities more valuable and more highly appreciated than in a country accustomed for centuries to every form of oppression and of social pressure for which the mult.i.tudinous claims of caste and family open up endless opportunities. As he has no permanent ties of his own in India, it does not matter to him personally whether the individual case he has to settle goes in favour of A or of B, or whether the native official, whom he appoints or promotes, belongs to this or to that caste. The people know this, and because they have learned to trust the Englishman's sense of fair play, they appeal, whenever they get the chance, to the European official rather than to one of their own race. But it is especially in times of stress, in the evil days of famine or of plague, that they turn to him for help. Nowhere is the "sun-dried bureaucrat" seen to better advantage than in the famine or plague camp, where the "bureaucrat"

would come hopelessly to grief, but where the English civilian, not being a "bureaucrat," triumphs over difficulties by sheer force of character and power of initiative. It is just in such emergencies, for which the most elaborate "regulations" cannot wholly provide, that the superiority of the European over the native official is most conspicuous. If "Padgett, M.P.", would go out to India in the hot rather than in the cold weather, and instead of either merely enjoying the splendid hospitality of the chief centres of Anglo-Indian society, or borrowing his views of British administration from the Indian politicians of the large cities, would spend some of his time with a civilian in an up-country station and follow his daily round of work amidst the real people of India, he would probably come home with very different and much more accurate ideas of what India is and of what the relations are between the Anglo-Indian official and the natives of the country.

Far from having flooded India, as is often alleged, with a horde of overpaid officials, we may justly claim that no Western nation has ever attempted to govern an alien dependency with a smaller staff of its own race, or has admitted the subject races to so large a partic.i.p.ation in its public services. The whole vast machinery of executive and judicial administration in British India employs over 1,250,000 Indians, and only a little more than 5,000 Englishmen altogether, of whom about one-sixth const.i.tute what is called _par excellence_ the Civil Service of India.

Not the least remarkable achievement of British rule has been the building up of a great body of Indian public servants capable of rising to offices of great trust. Not only, for instance, do Indian Judges sit on the Bench in the High Courts on terms of complete equality with their European colleagues, but magisterial work all over India is done chiefly by Indians. The same holds good of the Revenue Department and of the much, and often very unjustly, abused Department of Police; and, in fact, as Anglo-Indian officials are the first to acknowledge, there is not a department which could be carried on to-day without the loyal and intelligent co-operation of the Indian public servant. There is room for improving the position of Indians, not only, as I have already pointed out, in the Educational Department, but probably in every branch of the "Provincial" service, which corresponds roughly with what was formerly called the "Un-covenanted" service. As far back as 1879 Lord Lytton laid down rules which gave to natives of India one-sixth of the appointments until then reserved for the "Covenanted" service, and we have certainly not yet reached the limit of the number of Indians who may ultimately with advantage be employed in the different branches of the public service; but few who know the defects as well as the good qualities of the native will deny that to reduce hastily the European leaven in any department would be to jeopardize its moral as well as its administrative efficiency. The condition of the police, for instance, is a case in point, for any survival of the bad old native traditions is due very largely to the insufficiency of European control. Mr. Gokhale has himself admitted as one of the reasons for founding his society of "Servants of India" the necessity of "building up a higher type of character and capacity than is generally available in the country." For the same reason we must move slowly and cautiously in subst.i.tuting Indians for Europeans in the very small number of posts which the latter still occupy. That the highest offices of executive control must be very largely held by Englishmen so long as we continue to be responsible for the government of India is admitted by all but the most "advanced"

Indian politicians, and it is to qualify for and to hold such positions that the Indian Civil Service--formerly the "Covenanted" service--is maintained. It consists of a small _elite_ of barely I,200 men, mostly, but not exclusively, Englishmen, for it includes nearly 100 Indians. It is recruited by compet.i.tive examinations held in England, and this is one of the chief grievances of Indians. But in order to preserve the very high standard it has. .h.i.therto maintained, it seems essential that Indians who wish to enter it should have had not only the Western education which Indian Universities might be expected to provide, but the thoroughly English training which India certainly does not as yet supply.

In the eyes of the disaffected Indian politician the really unpardonable sin of the Civil Service is that it const.i.tutes the bulwark of British rule, the one permanent link between the Government of India and the manifold millions entrusted to their care. I have already had occasion to show, incidentally, how unfounded is the charge that, through ignorance and want of sympathy, the British civilian is callous to the real interests and sentiments of the people in dealing with the larger problems of Indian statesmanship. The contrary is the case, for to him belongs the credit of almost every measure pa.s.sed during the last 50 years for the benefit of the Indian ma.s.ses, and pa.s.sed frequently in the teeth of vehement opposition from the Indian politician. Nor is it surprising that it should be so. For the Indian politician--generally a townsman--is, as a rule, drawn from and represents cla.s.ses that have very little in common with the great bulk of the people, who are agriculturists. The British civilian, on the other hand, often spends the best years of his life in rural districts, seldom even visited by the politician, and therefore knows much more about the needs and the feelings of the people among whom he lives and moves. In the best sense of the word he is in fact the one real democrat in India. The very fact that he is a bird of pa.s.sage in the country makes him absolutely independent of the cla.s.s interests and personal bias to which the politician is almost always liable. Moreover, the chief, and perfectly legitimate, object to which the Anglo-Indian administrator is bound to address himself is, as Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal once candidly admitted, to capture "the heart, the mind of the people ... to secure, if not the allegiance, at least the pa.s.sive, the generous acquiescence of the general ma.s.s of the population." To make his meaning perfectly clear, Mr. Pal instanced the rural reforms, the agricultural banks and other things which had been done in Lord Curzon's time, "to captivate the mind of the teeming ma.s.ses," and he added that "he is a foolish politician in India who allows the Government to capture the mind of the ma.s.ses to the exclusion of his own influence and his own countrymen." Mr. Pal is from his point of view perfectly logical, and so were the writers in the _Yugantar_, who, when they elaborated their scheme of revolutionary propaganda, declared that the first step must be to undermine the confidence of the people in their rulers and to destroy the spirit of contentedness under an alien yoke. But could there be a more striking tribute to the intelligent and sympathetic treatment of the interests of the Indian ma.s.ses by their British rulers than such admissions on the part of the enemies of British rule?

From this point of view nothing but good should result from the larger opportunities given by the recent reforms for the discussion of Indian questions in the enlarged Councils, so long as the Indian representatives in these Councils are drawn, as far as possible, from the different cla.s.ses which, to some extent, reflect the different interests of the mult.i.tudinous communities that make up the people of India. The British civilian will have a much better chance than he has. .h.i.therto had of meeting his detractors in the open, and, if one may judge by the proceedings last winter, when the Councils met for the first time under the new conditions, there is little reason to fear, as many did at first, that he will be taken at a disadvantage in debate owing to the greater fluency and rhetorical resourcefulness of the Indian politician. It was not only in the Imperial Council in Calcutta that the official members, having the better case and stating it quite simply, proved more than a match for the more exuberant eloquence of their opponents. On the contrary, the personal contact established in the enlarged Councils between the Anglo-Indian official and the better cla.s.s of Indian politician may well serve to diminish the prejudices which exist on both sides. It is, I believe, quite a mistake to suppose that the British civilian generally resents the recent reforms, though he may very well resent the spirit of hostility and suspicion in which they were advocated and welcomed in some quarters, as if they were specially directed against the European element in the Civil Service. A practical difficulty is the heavy call which attendance in Council will make upon Civil servants who have to represent Government in these a.s.semblies. Already for many years past the amount of work, and especially of office work, has steadily increased and without any corresponding increase of the establishment. Hence the civilian has less time to receive Indian visitors, and he is often obliged to curtail the period he spends during the year in camp. Hence also the growing frequency of transfers and of officiating or temporary appointments.

There are, in fact, to-day barely enough men to go round, and, obviously, the more frequently a man is moved, the less chance he has of getting thoroughly acquainted with the people among whom he has to work in a country such as India, where within the limits of the same province you may find half a dozen widely different communities speaking different languages and having different creeds and customs. Perhaps, too, for the same reasons, there is a tendency towards over-centralization in the "Secretariats" or permanent departments at the seat of government, whether in Simla or in the provincial capitals, and the less favoured civilian who bears the heat and burden of the day in the _mofussil_ is both more dependent upon them and more jealous of the many advantages they naturally enjoy. Posts and telegraphs and the multiplying of "regulations"

everywhere tend to weaken personal initiative. Nor can it be denied that with the increased facilities of travel to and from Europe civilians no longer look upon India quite so much as their home. The local _liaisons_, not uncommon in pre-Mutiny days, are now things of the past, and the married man of to-day who has to send his children home for their education, and often his wife too, either on account of the climate or to look after the children, is naturally more disposed to count up his years of service and to retire on his pension at the earliest opportunity.

The increased cost of living in India and the depreciation of the rupee have also made the service less attractive from the purely pecuniary point of view, whilst in other ways it must suffer indirectly from such changes as the reduction of the European staff in the Indian Medical Department.

The subst.i.tution of Indian for European doctors in outlying stations where there are no European pract.i.tioners is a distinct hardship for married officials, as there is a good deal more than mere prejudice to explain the reluctance of Englishwomen to be treated by native medical advisers. Nor is it possible to disguise the soreness caused throughout the Indian Civil Service by the recent appointment of a young member of the English Civil Service to one of the very highest posts in India. No one questions Mr. Clark's ability, but is he really more able than every one of the many men who pa.s.sed with him, and for many years before him, through the same door into the public service and elected to work in India rather than at home? No Minister would have thought of promoting him now to an Under-Secretaryship of State in England, and apart from the grave reflection upon the Indian Civil Service--- and the belief generally entertained amongst Indians that it was meant to be a reflection upon the Indian Civil Service--his appointment to a far higher Indian office implies a grave misconception of the proper functions of a Council which const.i.tutes the Government of India.

None of these minor considerations, however, will substantially affect the future of the Indian Civil Service if only it continues to receive from public opinion at home, and from the Imperial Government as well as from the Government of India, the loyal support and encouragement which the admirable work it performs, often under very trying conditions, deserves. An unfortunate impression has undoubtedly been created during the last few years in the Indian Civil Service that there is no longer the same a.s.surance of such support and encouragement either from Whitehall or from Simla, whilst the attacks of irresponsible partisans have redoubled in intensity and virulence, and have found a louder and louder echo both on the platform and in the Press at home. The loss of contact between the Government of India and Anglo-Indian administrators has been as painfully felt as the frigid tone of many official utterances in Parliament, which have seemed inspired by a desire more often to avoid party embarra.s.sments at Westminster than to protect public servants, who have no means of defending themselves, against even the grossest forms of misrepresentation and calumny, leading straight to the revolver and the bomb of the political a.s.sa.s.sin. The British civilian is not going to be frightened by one more risk added to the vicissitudes of an Indian career, but can you expect him to be proof against discouragement when many of his fellow-countrymen exhaust their ingenuity in extenuating or in casting upon him the primary responsibility for the new Indian gospel of murder which is being preached against him? Mr. Montagu was well inspired in protesting against such "hostile, unsympathetic, and cowardly criticism" as was conveyed in Mr. Mackarness's pamphlet; but this pamphlet was mere sour milk compared with the vitriol which the native Press had been allowed to pour forth day after day on the British official in India before any action was taken by Government to defend him.

The new Viceroy, who himself belongs to one of the most important branches of the British Civil Service, may be trusted to display in his handling of the British civilian the tact and sympathy required to sustain him in the performance of arduous duties which are bound to become more complex and exacting as our system of government departs further from the old patriarchal type. Our task in India must grow more and more difficult, and will demand more than ever the best men that we can give to its accomplishment. The material prizes which an Indian career has to offer may be fewer and less valuable, whilst the pressure of work, the penalties of exile, the hardship of frequent separation from kith and kin, the drawbacks of an always trying and often treacherous climate, will for the most part not diminish. But the many sided interests and the real magnitude and loftiness of the work to be done in India will continue to attract the best Englishmen so long as they can rely upon fair treatment at the hands of the Mother Country. If that failed them there would speedily be an end not only to the Indian Civil Service, but to British rule itself. For the sword cannot govern, only maintain government, and can maintain it only as long as government itself retains the respect and acquiescence of the great ma.s.ses of the Indian peoples which have been won, not by generals or by Secretaries of State, or even by Viceroys, but by the patient and often obscure spadework of the Indian Civil Service--by its integrity, its courage, its knowledge, its efficiency, and its unfailing sense of justice.

Complaints of the aloofness of the British civilian very seldom proceed either from Indians of the upper cla.s.ses or from the humbler folk. They generally proceed from the new, more or less Western-educated middle cla.s.s whose att.i.tude towards British officials is seldom calculated to promote cordial relations; and they are also sometimes inspired by another cla.s.s of Indian who, one may hope, will before long have vanished, but whom of all others the civilian is bound to keep at arm's length. There are men who would get a hold upon him, if he is a young man, by luring him into intrigues with native women, or by inveigling him into the meshes of the native moneylender, or who, by less reprehensible means, strive to establish themselves on a footing of intimacy with him merely in order to sell to other Indians the influence which they acquire or pretend to have acquired over him. Cases of this kind are no doubt rare, and growing more and more rare, as social conditions are pa.s.sing away which in earlier days favoured them. Less objectionable, but nevertheless to be kept also at arm's length, is the far more numerous cla.s.s of natives known in India as _umedwars_, who are always anxious to seize on to the coat tails of the Anglo-Indian official in order to heighten their own social _status_, and, if possible, to wheedle out of Government some of those minor t.i.tles or honorific distinctions to which Indian society attaches so much importance.

In other branches of the public service selection has not always operated as successfully as the compet.i.tive system for the Civil Service. Men are too often sent out as lawyers or as doctors, or even, as I have already pointed out, to join the Education Department, with inadequate qualifications, and they are allowed to enter upon their work without any knowledge of the language and customs of the people.

Such cases are generally the result of carelessness or ignorance at home, but some of them, I fear, can only be described as "jobs"--and there is no room in India for jobs. The untravelled Indian is also brought into contact to-day with an entirely different cla.s.s of Englishman. The globe-trotter, who is often an American, though the native cannot be expected to distinguish between him and the Englishman, constantly sins from sheer ignorance against the customs of the country.

Then, again, with railways and telegraphs and the growth of commerce and industry a type of Englishman has been imported to fill subordinate positions in which some technical knowledge is required, who, whatever his good qualities, is much rougher and generally much more strongly imbued with, or more p.r.o.ne to display, a sense of racial superiority.

Nor is he kept under the same discipline as Tommy Atkins, who is generally an easy-going fellow, and looks upon the native with good-natured, if somewhat contemptuous, amus.e.m.e.nt, though he, too, is sometimes a rough customer when he gets "above himself," or when his temper is ruffled by p.r.i.c.kly heat, that most common but irritating of hot-weather ailments. In this connexion the remarkable growth of temperance among British soldiers in India is doubly satisfactory.

On the whole, the relations between the lower cla.s.ses of Europeans and natives in the large cities, where they practically alone come into contact, seldom give rise to serious trouble; and it is between Europeans and natives of the higher cla.s.ses that, unfortunately, personal disputes from time to time occur, which unquestionably produce a great deal of bad blood--disputes in which Englishmen have forgotten not only the most elementary rules of decent behaviour, but the self-respect which our position in India makes it doubly obligatory on every Englishman to observe in his dealings with Indians. Some of these incidents have been wilfully exaggerated, others have been wantonly invented. Most of them have taken place in the course of railway journeys, and without wishing to palliate them, one may reasonably point out that, even in Europe, people, when travelling, will often behave with a rudeness which they would be ashamed to display in other circ.u.mstances, and that long railway journeys in the stifling heat of India sometimes subject the temper to a strain unknown in more temperate climates. In some cases, too, it is our ignorance of native customs which causes the trouble, and the habits of even high-cla.s.s Indians are now and then unpleasant. A few months ago, I shared a railway compartment one night with an Indian gentleman of good position and pleasant address, belonging to a sect which carries to the most extreme lengths the respect for all forms of life, however repulsive. Had I been a stranger to India and ignorant of these conscientious eccentricities, I might well have objected very strongly to some of the proceedings of my companion, who spent a good deal of his time in searching his person and his garments for certain forms of animal life, which he carefully deposited in a little silver box carried for this special purpose.

Nevertheless it must be admitted that there have been from time to time cases of brutality towards natives sufficiently gross and inexcusable to create a very deplorable impression. I have met educated Indians who, though they have had no unpleasant experiences of the kind themselves, prefer to avoid entering a railway carriage occupied by Europeans lest they should expose themselves even to the chance of insulting treatment.

On the other hand, speaking from personal experience as well as from what I have heard on unimpeachable authority, I have no hesitation in saying that there are evil-disposed, Indians, especially of late years, who deliberately seek to provoke disagreeable incidents by their own misbehaviour, either in the hope of levying blackmail or in order to make political capital by posing as the victims of English brutality.

But even when Englishmen put themselves entirely in the wrong, there is perhaps a tendency amongst Anglo-Indians--chiefly amongst the non-official community--to treat such cases with undue leniency, and it is one of the curious ironies of fate that Lord Curzon, whom the Nationalist Press has singled out for constant abuse and denunciation as the prototype of official tyranny, was the one Viceroy who more than any other jeopardized his popularity with his fellow countrymen in India by insisting upon rigorous justice being done where Indians had, in his opinion, suffered wrongs of this kind at the hands of Europeans.

It is a lamentable fact that, amongst Indians, the greatest bitterness with regard to the social relations between the two races often proceeds from those who have been educated in England. There is, first of all, the young Indian who, having mixed freely with the best type of Englishmen and Englishwomen, finds himself on his return to India quite out of touch with his own people, and yet has to live their life. Cases of this kind are especially pathetic, when, having imbibed European ideals of womanhood, he is obliged to marry some girl chosen by his parents, with whom, however estimable she may be, he has nothing in common. Such is the contrariety of human nature that he usually visits his unhappiness, not on the social system which has resumed its hold upon him, but on the civilization which has killed his belief in it.

Then there is the very mischievous type of young Indian who, having been left to his own devices in England, and without any good introductions, brings back to India and retails there impressions of English society, male and female, gathered from the very undesirable surroundings into which he has drifted in London and other large cities. It is he who is often responsible for one of the most deplorable features in the propaganda of the seditious Press--namely, the scandalous libels upon the character of English domestic life, and especially upon the morality of English womanhood--by which it is sought to undermine popular respect for and confidence in the Englishman. But our own responsibility must also be very great, so long as we allow the young Indian who comes to England to drift hopelessly, without help or guidance, among the rocks and shoals of English life. Men of our own race, and carefully picked men, come from our oversea Dominions to study in our colleges, and we have a special organization to look after their moral and material welfare. For years past we have allowed young Indians to come and go, and no responsible hand has been stretched out to save them from the manifold temptations of an entirely alien society in which isolation is almost bound to spell degradation and bitterness.

Considering, however, the many inevitable causes of friction and the inherent imperfections of human nature, whether white or coloured, one may safely say that between Englishmen of all conditions and Indians of all conditions there often and, indeed, generally exist pleasanter relations than are to be found elsewhere between people of any two races so widely removed. They are never closer than when special circ.u.mstances help to break down the barriers. The common instincts and the common dangers of their profession create often singularly strong ties of regard and affection between the sepoy of all ranks and his British officers--especially on campaign. In domestic tribulations, as well as in public calamities, Indians, at least of the lower cla.s.ses, will often turn more readily and confidently for help to the Englishman who lives amongst them than to their own people. I need not quote instances of the extraordinary influence which many European missionaries have acquired by their devoted labours amongst the poor, the sick, and the suffering, and in former times, perhaps more than in recent times, even with Indians of the higher cla.s.ses. In ordinary circ.u.mstances we have to recognize the existence of both sides of obstacles to anything like intimacy. Many Indian ideas and habits are repugnant to us, but so also are many of ours to them. Indians have their own conceptions of dignity and propriety which our social customs frequently offend. If Englishmen and Englishwomen in high places in India would exert their influence to invest the social life of Europeans in the chief resorts of Anglo-Indian society with a little more decorum and seriousness, they would probably be doing better service to a good understanding between the two races in social matters than by trying to break down by sheer insistence, however well meant, the barriers which diametrically opposite forms of civilization have placed between them.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

In the very able speech in which, on July 27, Mr. Montagu, the new Under-Secretary of State for India, introduced the Indian Budget in the House of Commons, one pa.s.sage referred to the relations between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy in terms which have deservedly attracted very great attention[23]. Differences of opinion, sometimes of an acute character, have at intervals occurred between Secretaries of State and Viceroys as to their relative attributions. Mr. Montagu's language, however, would seem to const.i.tute an a.s.sertion of the powers of the Secretary of State far in excess not only of past practice but of any reasonable interpretation of legislative enactments on the subject.

After congratulating Lord Minto on the completion of, a "difficult reign," Mr. Montagu said:--

The relations of a Viceroy to the Secretary of State are intimate and responsible. The Act of Parliament says "That the Secretary of State in Council shall superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations, and concerns which in any way relate to or concern the government or revenues of India, and all grants of salaries, gratuities, and allowances, and all other payments and charges whatever out of or on the revenues of India." It will be seen how wide, how far reaching, and how complete these powers are. Lord Morley and his Council, working through the agency of Lord Minto, have accomplished much.... I believe that men of all parties will be grateful that Lord Morley remains to carry out the policy he has initiated.

It is to be regretted in the first place that Mr. Montagu should not have been more careful to make his quotation accurate. For, as quoted by him, the Act would make it obligatory upon the Secretary of State to supervise practically every act of the Government of India, whereas the powers of the Secretary of State, who has succeeded to the powers of the old Board of Control of the East India Company, are discretionary powers. The statute from which the Secretary of State actually derives his powers is the Government of India Act, 1858, which under section 3 declares that the Secretary of State "shall have and perform all such or the like powers and duties in any wise relating to the government or revenues of India and all such or the like powers over all officers appointed or continued under this Act as might or should have been exercised or performed" by the Company and Board of Control, and those powers and duties are defined in the following terms in the Act of 1833 (3 and 4 William IV., c. 85, sec. 25), which Mr. Montagu would seem to have had in his mind, though he quoted it imperfectly: "The said Board [of Control] shall have and be invested with full power and authority to superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations, and concerns, &c." The difference, as has been very properly pointed out in the _Manchester Guardian_, no unfriendly critic of the present Administration, is "between exercising control and the power to exercise control, between 'shall' and 'may.' If these words of the Act were to be abbreviated, the right abbreviation would have been 'may.' This is the word used by Sir Courtenay Ilbert in his summary of the Secretary of State's powers (The Government of India, p. 145);--'... the Secretary of State may, subject to the provisions embodied in this digest, superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations, and concerns, &c.' This difference between 'shall' and 'may' is, of course, vital.

'Shall' implies that the Secretary of State is standing over the Viceroy in everything he does; 'may' simply reserves to him the right of control where he disapproves. 'Shall' imparts an agency of an inferior order; 'may' safeguards the rights of the Crown and Parliament without impairing the dignity of the Viceregal office."

Of greater importance, however, is the construction which Mr. Montagu places on these statutes. There are three fundamental objections to the doctrine of "agency" which he propounds in regard to the functions of the Viceroy. In the first place, it ignores one of the most important features of his office--one, indeed, to which supreme importance attaches in a country such as India, where the sentiment of reverence for the Sovereign is rooted in the most ancient traditions of all races and creeds. The Viceroy is the direct and personal representative of the King-Emperor, and in that capacity, at any rate, it would certainly be improper to describe him as the "agent" of the Secretary of State. From this point of view, any attempt to lower his office would tend dangerously to weaken the prestige of the Crown, which, to put it on the lowest grounds, is one of the greatest a.s.sets of the British _Raj_. In the second place, Mr. Montagu ignores equally another distinctive feature of the Viceroy's office, especially important in regard to his relations with the Secretary of State--namely, that, in his executive as well as in his legislative capacity, the Viceroy is not a mere individual, but the Governor-General in Council. Mr. Montagu omitted to quote the important section of the Act of 1833, confirmed in subsequent enactments, which declared that:--

The superintendence, direction, and control of the whole civil and military government of all the said territories and revenues in India shall be and is hereby vested in a Governor-General and Councillors to be styled "the Governor-General of India in Council."

The only t.i.tle recognized by statute to the Viceroy is that of Governor-General in Council, and how material is this conjunction of the Governor-General with his Council is shown by the exceptional character of the circ.u.mstances in which power is given to the Governor-General to act on his own responsibility alone, and by the extreme rareness of the cases in which a Governor-General has exercised that power.

Thus, on the one hand, Mr. Montagu forgets the Crown when he talks of the Secretary of State acting through the agency of the Viceroy; and, on the other hand, he forgets the Governor-General in Council when he talks of the relations between the Viceroy and the Secretary of State--whose proper designation, moreover, is Secretary of State in Council, for, like the Governor-General, the Secretary of State has a Council intimately a.s.sociated with him by statute in the discharge of his const.i.tutional functions. Though the cases in which the Secretary of State cannot act without the concurrence of the Council of India, who sit with him at the India Office, are limited to matters involving the grant or appropriation of revenues, and in other matters he is not absolutely bound to consult them and still less to accept their recommendations, the Act of Parliament quoted by Mr. Montagu clearly implies that, in the exercise of all the functions which it a.s.signs to him, he is expected to act generally in consultation and in concert with his Council, since those functions are a.s.signed to him specifically as Secretary of State in Council.

Now, as to the nature of the relations between the Governor-General in Council and the Secretary of State in Council as above defined by statute. The ultimate responsibility for Indian government, as Mr.

Montagu intimated, rests unquestionably with the Imperial Government represented by the Secretary of State for India, and therefore, in the last resort, with the people of the United Kingdom represented by Parliament. The question is, What is in theory and practice the proper mode of discharging this, "ultimate responsibility" for Indian government? It is not a question which can be authoritatively answered, but, if we may infer an answer from the spirit of legislative enactments and from the usage that has. .h.i.therto prevailed, it may still be summed up in the same language in which John Stuart Mill described the function of the Home Government in the days of the old East India Company--"The princ.i.p.al function of the Home Government is not to direct the details of administration, but to scrutinize and revise the past acts of the Indian Governments; to lay down principles and to issue general instructions for their future guidance, and to give or refuse sanction to great political measures which are referred home for approval." This seems undoubtedly to be the view of the relations, inherited from the East India Company, between the Secretary of State and the Government of India which has been accepted and acted upon on both sides until recently. Nor is any other view compatible with the Charter Act of 1833, or with the Government of India Act of 1858, which, in all matters pertinent to this issue, was based upon, and confirmed the principles of the earlier statute. The Secretary of State exercises general guidance and control, but, as Mill laid it down no less forcibly, "the Executive Government of India is and must be seated in India itself." Such relations are clearly very different from those of princ.i.p.al and agent which Mr. Montagu would apparently wish to subst.i.tute for them.

Besides the special emphasis he laid on his definition of the relations between the Viceroy and the Secretary of State, other reasons have led to the belief that the Under-Secretary, who spoke with a full sense of his responsibility as the representative of the Secretary of State, was giving calculated expression to the views of his chief. I am not going to antic.i.p.ate the duties of the historian, whose business it will be to establish the share of initiative and responsibility that belong to Lord Morley and Lord Minto respectively in regard to the Indian policy of the last five years. Whilst something more than an impression generally prevails both at home and in India that Mr. Montagu's definition does in fact very largely apply to the relations between the present Viceroy and the Secretary of State, and that every measure carried out in India has originated in Whitehall, it is only fair to bear in mind that Lord Morley has never himself put forward any such claim, nor has Lord Minto ever admitted it. The Viceroy, on the contrary, has been at pains to emphasize on several occasions his share, and indeed to claim for himself the initiative, of all the princ.i.p.al measures carried out during his tenure of office, and especially of the new scheme of Indian reforms, of which the paternity is ascribed by most people to Lord Morley.

The Secretary of State's great personality may partly account for the belief that he has entirely overshadowed the Viceroy, all the more in that he has certainly overshadowed the Council of India as never before.

But if Lord Minto has reason to complain, of the prevalence of this belief, he cannot be unaware that he too has helped to build it up by neglecting to a.s.sociate his own Council with himself as closely as even his most masterful predecessors had hitherto been careful to do.

Lord Minto's position has no doubt been one of very peculiar difficulty, and no one will grudge him the warm tribute paid to him by Mr. Montagu.

Whatever the merits of the great controversy between Lord Curzon and Lord Kitchener, the overruling of the Government of India by the Home Government on a question of such magnitude and the circ.u.mstances in which Lord Curzon was compelled to resign had dealt a very heavy blow to the authority and prestige of the Viceregal office in India. Within a few weeks of Lord Minto's arrival in India the Unionist Government who had appointed him fell, and a Liberal Government came into power who could not be expected to display any special consideration for their predecessors nominee unless he showed himself to be in sympathy with their policy. Lord Minto's friends can therefore very reasonably argue that his chief anxiety was, quite legitimately, to avoid any kind of friction with the new Secretary of State which might have led to the supersession of another Viceroy so soon after the unfortunate crisis that had ended in Lord Curzon's resignation. If this was the object that Lord Minto had in view, his att.i.tude has certainly been most successful, for Lord Morley has repeatedly testified to the loyalty and cordiality with which the Viceroy has constantly co-operated with him. That the Secretary of State and the Viceroy have, nevertheless, not always seen eye to eye with regard to the interference of the India Office in the details of Indian administration appears clearly from a telegram read out by Lord Morley himself in the House of Lords on February 23, 1909.