Indian speeches (1907-1909) | Page 7

in sorrow than
in anger upon this alleged backsliding of mine. Last year I told the
House that India for a long time to come, so far as my imagination
could reach, would be the theatre of absolute and personal government,
and that raised some doubts. Reference has been made to my having
resisted the Irish Crimes Act, as if there were a scandalous
inconsistency between opposing the policy of that Act, and imposing
this policy on the natives of India. That inconsistency can only be
established by anyone who takes up the position that Ireland, a part of
the United Kingdom, is exactly on the same footing as these
300,000,000 people--composite, heterogeneous, with different histories,
of different races, different faiths. Does anybody contend that any
political principle whatever is capable of application in every sort of
circumstances without reference to conditions--in every place, and at
every time? I, at all events, have never taken that view, and I would like
to remind my hon. friends that in such ideas as I have about political
principles, the leader of my generation was Mr. Mill. Mill was a great
and benignant lamp of wisdom and humanity, and it was at that lamp I
and others kindled our modest rushlights. What did Mill say about the
government of India? Remember he was not merely that abject and
despicable being, a philosopher. He was a man practised in government,
and in what government? Why, he was responsible, experienced, and
intimately concerned in the government of India. What did he say? If
there is anybody who can be quoted as having been a champion of
representative government it is Mill; and in his book, which, I take it, is
still the classic book on that subject, this is what he says--
"Government by the dominant country is as legitimate as any other, if it
is the one which, in the existing state of civilization of the subject
people, most facilitates their transition to a higher state of civilization."
Then he says this--
"The ruling country ought to be able to do for its subjects all that could
be done by a succession of absolute monarchs, guaranteed by
irresistible force against the precariousness of tenure attendant on
barbarous despotisms, and qualified by their genius to anticipate all that
experience has taught to the more advanced nations. If we do not

attempt to realize this ideal we are guilty of a dereliction of the highest
moral trust that can devolve upon a nation."
I will now ask the attention of the House for a moment while I examine
a group of communications from officers of the Indian Government,
and if the House will allow me I will tell them what to my mind is the
result of all these communications as to the general feeling in India.
That, after all, is what most concerns us. For this unrest in the Punjab
and Bengal sooner or later--and sooner, rather than later, I hope--will
pass away. What is the situation of India generally in the view of these
experienced officers at this moment? Even now when we are passing
through all the stress and anxiety, it is a mistake not to look at things
rather largely. They all admit that there is a fall in the influence of
European officers over the population. They all, or nearly all, admit
that there is estrangement--I ought to say, perhaps,
refrigeration--between officers and people. There is less sympathy
between the Government and the people. For the last few years--and
this is a very important point--the doctrine of administrative efficiency
has been pressed too hard. The wheels of the huge machine have been
driven too fast. Our administration--so shrewd observers and very
experienced observers assure me--would be a great deal more popular
if it was a trifle less efficient, a trifle more elastic generally. We ought
not to put mechanical efficiency at the head of our ideas. I am leading
up to a practical point. The district officers representing British rule to
the majority of the people of India, are overloaded with work in their
official relations, and I know there are highly experienced gentlemen
who say that a little of the looseness of earlier days is better fitted than
the regular system of latter days, to win and to keep personal influence,
and that we are in danger of creating a pure bureaucracy. Honourable,
faithful, and industrious the servants of the State in India are and will
be, but if the present system is persisted in, there is a risk of its
becoming rather mechanical, perhaps I might even say rather soulless;
and attention to this is urgently demanded. Perfectly efficient
administration, I need not tell the House, has a tendency to lead to
over-centralisation. It is inevitable. The tendency in India