CHAPTER X
THE COUNCILS

The first step that has been taken with the hope of allaying the discontent in India has been the increase in the Councils of the Government of India and of the Local Governments of Madras and Bombay, with the creation of Councils in the other Provinces which did not have them before.

And as these Councils have been in certain quarters greatly praised as being not only good in themselves now but as containing the germs of great possibilities, it is necessary to consider them carefully.

Councils were first instituted in India in 1861, were enlarged in 1892, and again much enlarged in 1909; thus they are no new thing, and their value is already fairly obvious. Moreover, since the enlargements of the Act of 1909 some time has elapsed, so that I am not here criticising institutions which have not yet had a chance of showing what they can do.

There are Executive Councils for the Government of India and for the Provincial Governments of Bombay and Madras, and there are Legislative Councils for the Government of India and for each Province.

The whole of the law for the constitution of these Councils is contained in the Indian Councils Acts of 1861, 1892, and 1909, and the Rules for the nomination or election of the members are contained in Blue Book Number Cd 6714, published in 1913. I give these references in order that anyone who cares to go into the subject in greater detail than I can in this chapter will be able to find all his material readily. He will be able to see how other Councils than those I intend to deal with here are constituted; also in what way and by what constituencies elected members are chosen. There is a great deal that might well be said on each of these Councils.

But the only Councils I propose to deal with here are those of the Government of India and of the Province of Burma. I would have liked to include the Council of Madras but that I think the subject can be fairly understood without this.

The Executive Council of the Government of India consists of the Governor-General and nine members. These form the Cabinet of India, and, subject to the control of the Secretary of State, it has supreme power. It includes the Commander-in-Chief and members for Finance, Public Works, Home affairs and so on.

The only alteration made in this Council is by declaring that one of the members must be an Indian. So far that member has been the Law Member, and it is somewhat difficult to see how any other post could be filled by an Indian. You can find Indian lawyers, many, perhaps too many of them, but where are you to find Indians with that necessary experience that would fit them to be Finance or Home Members or Commander-in-Chief, for instance?

The appointment of this Indian gentleman to be Law Member has not been followed by any striking results. Law in India is petrified, and until the great reform takes place petrified it must remain. It does not seem to matter very much who is head of it. When reform comes it will not be an Indian who could undertake it.

The Legislative Council is formed of the Executive Council and Additional Members. Before 1909, Additional Members were few, they were nominated and there was always a good Government majority. Since 1909 it has been constituted as follows:

Nominated Members
28 officials
5 non-officials.

Of these five non-officials one is to represent the Indian Commercial community, one the Mohammedans of the Punjab, and one the landowners in the Punjab. The other two nominated members may be anyone apparently.

Then there are twenty-seven elected members; two each to represent the four large Provincial Councils; one each for the five smaller Provinces, one each to represent the landowners of six Provinces; five representatives of Mohammedans in these five Provinces; one member each to the Chambers of Commerce of Bengal and Bombay; and one extra Mohammedan member. Thus in this assembly there are represented in a way nine Provinces as wholes, the landowning class of some Provinces, one religion and the trade of two cities.

To make it clearer to the reader who has not been to India, let me put it in this way. India is as big as Europe without Russia, and has three hundred million inhabitants, more than Europe. Suppose Europe were conquered and administered by Martians, and they were to establish a Council. If they did it on similar principles to this Legislative Council of the Government of India it would consist of:

Two members each for Germany, France, Great Britain, and Italy, one member each for five smaller nations, one representative each for the landowners in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Spain, five representatives of Protestants as Protestants, and one each for the Chambers of Commerce of London and Paris.

What would the reader think of this as a Council to make laws for all Europe? What would he say? I think he would say many things. He would also ask some questions. He would ask:

Firstly, how can two members represent great countries—like England for instance? Or one represent another great area and people like Spain? Is it conceivably possible that one or at best two individuals could have the necessary knowledge or impartiality to do this?

His second question would be: How can one man represent landowners spread over a great territory with different forms of tenure, different crops, different climates, different nationalities?

His third would be: Two cities are represented; where are the others?

His fourth would be: At best, all these members can but represent, in even ever so faint a way, their own class who elects them. Say at a liberal estimate that they represent more or less imperfectly half a million people; what about the two hundred and ninety-nine and a half million who are left out? Who are to protect tenants from landlords, the innumerable unrepresented religions from that one which is represented, the voiceless cities from the two which have voices? In fact, who is to protect Europe from these few privileged classes?

That would be analogous to what is happening in India. These questions are being asked.

The answer to the first question is quite simple. The two members do not represent Madras, nor does the one member represent Burma. They represent the non-officials of the Local Council, and that is all; that is to say, ten or fifteen individuals of much their own class and standing. It is not likely that they have any knowledge of the country they are to represent, except the chief town. It is quite certain that they have never even travelled over half their country, nor speak more than one or two of the various tongues.

They have no knowledge of the administration anywhere, nor any administrative ability. If a question vital to their Province arose they would not know what to do; and if they did know they would not dare to do it if it involved any responsibility, because they have no backing in the country supposed to be theirs. They are totally unknown, even by name, to nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand inhabitants. In fact, even this is an over-estimate. They are not only without knowledge of the immense majority of "their" people, but are antagonistic in race and religion to many of them, so that it is only the English Government that keeps the peace.

The answer to the second question is much the same as to the first. Fancy one member representing the Nair landholders of Malabar, the Poligars, the Tamils, the Telugu landholders, and many others. It is absurd.

There is no answer to the third question.

The answer to the fourth is that whatever help and representation and defence the bulk of India can obtain must be obtained from the English official members. They alone are quite impartial; they may be comparatively ignorant, but their ignorance is light compared to that of the native members, for it includes a knowledge of administration obtained by experience, which none of the latter have. It is we alone who have raised the people economically, and have done it often enough against the influence of class.

Therefore the Council of the Government of India is so constituted that whereas perhaps half a million people are represented directly or indirectly by class and religion, the two hundred and ninety-nine and a half million have no representation at all and must depend on the English officials.

This is no new discovery of mine. Here is what Lord Curzon said in the debate in the House of Lords on this new Act: "I wonder how these changes will in the last resort affect the great mass of the people of India—the people who have no vote and have scarcely a voice. Remember that to these people, who form the bulk of the population of India, representative government and electoral institutions are nothing whatever. I have a misgiving that this class will not fare much better under these changes than they do now. At any rate, I see no place for them in these enlarged Councils which are to be created, and I am under the strong opinion that as government in India becomes more and more Parliamentary—as will be the inevitable result—so it will become less paternal and less beneficial to the poorer classes of the population." It was seen that these Councils were merely by way of handing over the India we have made to a tiny section of privileged classes whom we were to keep in power and support with our bayonets. It was seen and disregarded. Why?

So much for its constitution. Every principle that experience shows must go to the making of a successful Assembly has been scorned. The representation, even such as it is, is by class, by race, and by religion. No assembly where such a method of representation has been adopted has ever been known. Wherever, even in a small degree, such differences have existed it has paralysed all action. Take, for instance, the French National Assembly before the Revolution. Imagine a House of Commons with members for landowners, for the merchants of London and Glasgow, and special members for the Catholic Irish in England and Scotland. Even that would be far less extraordinary than the Council of India.

This Council has no executive powers, but it can ask questions: it can discuss the Budget though it cannot make alterations; it can make laws affecting all India. But all it does is subject to veto by the Government of India—and naturally so. How could you delegate real power to a Council which, the English officials apart, has no representative value of any kind and no administrative experience? The power behind the Government is the power of England—the Army, the Navy, and the wealth of England. It is administered by British officials, and even the native army is officered by English officers. Is this great English organism to be used for enforcing laws passed by such a Council as that I have described? To be at its mercy, to be its servant? Does it enter into the possibility of things?

The Council, the officials apart, is in reality at its very best advisory only. It cannot be more. It has no power behind it and could be given no responsibility. Yet without the fear of responsibility what advice is ever well given? Irresponsible advisers! Of what value have they ever been in the world's history?

"But"—I have been told and have read often enough—"the Council works well, it is a success, it has gratified the educated Indian. Why criticise it, then?" To that I reply, "In what has its success consisted—what has it done?" And to that I never get any answer except that it is a success because it has done nothing. The speakers were afraid, apparently, it might try to do something—to express, for instance, some of the desires and needs of the people, a few of which I have tried to explain in this book; to suggest some new policy to Government, to show how the great and increasing unrest might be guided into safe channels; and it has been a success because it has done none of these things and was capable of doing none of them. It has been as an influence nil. All it has done has been empty criticism. A writer trying to praise it says: "The debates in the Imperial Council are already not unworthy of older and more famous assemblies." If the comparison is with the House of Commons it is not inapt. For many years now debates there have been merely a pretence. The conclusions are already fixed and the speakers know it. They speak to pass time, to satisfy the electors that they are really doing something to justify their existence, and they try to show off—or to score off someone else. Their speeches have no value. They make no difference to the result. And the debates in the India Council are no different. It perhaps gives the members the illusion of power and authority to be able to badger Government and make long speeches, but it can effect nothing. The debates are make-believe. How should they be anything else? The men are not to blame, but the institution.

"But"—again say its advocates—"this is but a beginning. The Council is but in embryo. Wait till it comes to greater maturity."

To what greater maturity can it come? Is there in this Council any true idea that can expand and grow? There is no idea at all. Is it ever contemplated to make it really representative? How many members would it take to represent three hundred millions of people? On the British basis, not a liberal one, it would require an assembly of over four thousand five hundred members. Is that possible?

Is any election possible among the masses of the people?

Is it ever possible that real executive or legislative power should be given to an assembly when it is the English Government and the English people who in the last resort would have to carry out those orders and bear the brunt of their failure?

Think over the facts carefully. Could you make a central Parliament to govern all Europe? No. For a hundred reasons the idea is impossible. It is equally impossible in India. It is even more impossible in India than it would be in Europe.

Finally it is said that this Council has satisfied the educated class in India.

Has it?

And if it had could there be a greater criterion of its worthlessness than such satisfaction?

Let us now turn to the Burma Provincial Council. There is no Executive Council, all executive power lies with the Lieut.-Governor. The Legislative Council consists of seventeen members.

One member is elected by the Chamber of Commerce, and the other sixteen are nominated. Of these sixteen, six may be officials; two experts may be official or non-official; the rest must be non-official; of these, four must be Burmese, one must be Chinese, and one must be Indian.

The Council has power to enact local legislation for Burma only. That is to say it can pass special or local laws. It cannot, of course, interfere with or vary the Imperial legislation, such as the Indian Penal Codes. Its powers are small and are limited. It is, as will be seen, representative of nothing. Except the officials, none of the members have any administrative knowledge; none are known to the people at large even by name. That they approved or passed any Act modifying, say, the Burmese law of inheritance, would be no justification for it before the people. They represent neither people nor ideas. They have effected nothing and can effect nothing because they have no force behind them. What have any of them ever done that the people should repose confidence in them?

For the rest the same criticisms apply as to the Indian Council. The Lieut.-Governor has all the executive power and he has the power of veto over all legislation. Naturally he must have this power. If not, he might be forced into using British power and authority and means for enforcing Acts that he disapproved of and were passed by men who represented at best not one thousandth part of the country.

Yet, as long as he has this power of veto, the Council, like the Indian Council, becomes simply an advisory Council with no responsibility. And, again, of what value is advice that is not steadied by the sense of responsibility?

And with all this talk of self-government, of an Imperial Indian Parliament and local parliaments, of election and representation, there is in no village in the Indian Empire any self-government at all, even in the smallest matters. The villages are one and all under the rule of a Government official, and every vestige of self-government has been destroyed. India may have representatives in the India Council and a voice, even if an impotent voice, in Imperial matters, but it may have no representation in its Village Council, and no voice in the smallest village concern.

The whole base on which any self-government could rest has been destroyed. And instead of building up from below a system of self-government that would proceed from the people and be so founded as to stand any shocks, it is sought to begin self-government from the top, by suspending in the air Councils that rest on nothing, that mean nothing, that have as much solidity and reality as kites would have.

This, too, must have been foreseen, because it is obvious. Why, then, was it done?

Was there ever in any history a reductio ad absurdum like these Councils of Despair?

CHAPTER XI
THE INDIAN AS CIVILIAN

The next measure which has insistently been pressed on the Government is that far more Indians should be admitted to the Civil Service. It is now composed almost exclusively of Englishmen, and the conditions are such that it is difficult for Indians to enter. This, it is claimed, should be altered, and the Civil Service should be to a great extent Indianised.

Well, as I have said, the Government of India is not Indian, it is English. It is essentially English, the more so and the more necessarily so because it is in India. It consists of very few members compared to the work it has to do, and it is of the highest importance therefore that it be completely efficient. England has made herself responsible for India, and she cannot shirk or divide this responsibility. She cannot say: "I will by admitting a few Indians into the service shift some of the responsibility onto them and so onto India." That is unthinkable. The Government of India is English, and until by revolution or devolution it disappears it must remain English. It is the Army and Navy of England which ensure India's safety. Therefore her first duty, not only to herself but to India, is to enlist in her superior service such men as will govern most efficiently.

Now to govern efficiently we must govern in our own way. There are not for us nor any people two ways of doing a thing well; there is one way only possible at the time—one way in which the genius of the governing race can best express itself. That is the one we must follow, and to ensure its success we must have in the service men who are not merely by education, but by what is far more important, by instinct, best fitted to carry out the ideas of government. You must have officers who will know what to do not only when they are told, but when they are not told, who, being one in race and feeling with the Government, will instinctively do all in accordance with it.

For it must never be forgotten that the government of India is a very difficult matter, and will always be so. It is not plain-sailing, like the Local Government of any self-governing people, or even of Russia. The administration of India is alien. The system is alien; and though it need not be so much out of touch with the people as it is now, alien it must remain. As long as the government is alien the machinery must be so. Englishmen could not work machinery they did not understand.

Even in self-governed countries there is always a feeling against government. Taxes are hard things to bear. This is shown in socialism and many other ways. But in an alien-governed country like India this discontent is much greater. Government has not only to bear the blame for its own faults, but has to vicariously suffer for the shortcomings of the monsoons and the inroad of plague. It is responsible, in the people's ideas, for everything. The internal peace which is taken for granted in most European countries cannot be so assumed in India. We are very often within measurable distance of riot, and an unchecked riot may quickly develop into an insurrection. The first essential, therefore, of government is the maintenance of peace and the immediate suppression of any symptom of unrest.

Now the forces at the disposal of the authorities are not large. For the whole province of Burma, as large as France and England, and with a thousand miles of wild frontier and ten millions of people, there are only four British and eight Indian regiments. There are, or were, besides (I have not the latest figures) some ten thousand military police, who are men recruited in India and officered by English officers from Indian regiments. The Burmese police are only for civil duty and detection. They are not for "keeping the peace" purposes. For the whole of India there are but 70,000 British troops and 140,000 native for a population of 350,000,000, with a difficult and turbulent frontier. There is manifestly no margin to waste; the resources available must be used with the utmost efficiency. There must be direct understanding and co-operation between the military officers who command the forces and the District Officers who supply the information, the intelligence and the direction. Now if the District Officer were an Indian this could not be. It is no reflection on either the courage or the capacity of the Indian to say this, for the quality necessary is neither of these. It is one which he does not and cannot have, but which is essential for the proper carrying out of his duties. It is camaraderie with the other officers.

Official relations between civil and military are always difficult. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules defining their respective responsibilities. There is a certain antagonism between the objects each wishes to attain and the way to attain them. The civilian wishes as far as possible to avoid bloodshed; to soothe, not irritate, nor threaten. Fighting is the last thing he wants. The soldier, on the other hand, wants to get at his enemy and have it over; to stir him up if he be not already stirred up enough. He wishes action that is short, sharp, and decisive. The civilian is long-suffering. Therefore disagreements arise, and that these conflicts of official opinion should be minimised, something more is necessary than that the men on both sides be good officers. They must be friends. The rubs of official intercourse must be effaced over the mess-table, the card-table, the camp fire; must be forgotten in talks of home, of mutual friends. How often has it not happened that it has been the mutual appreciation of a poet, the remembrance of a charming woman, the admiration of an opera, that has rendered possible that co-operation which is the soul of work. There must be the continual consciousness on both sides that theirs is not a temporary official relationship. They will meet continually hereafter at other stations, at head-quarters, at dinners, races, clubs—in the East and at home. They must be friends all through; there must be a mutual understanding.

Now if the civilian were an Indian gentleman all this could not occur. That Indians are often honourable and cultured gentlemen I know; that in essence all humanity is one I am never tired of affirming. But there are differences of race, real differences, important differences, differences that the Indian himself should be the last to try to ignore. Every nation is given by nature the qualities peculiar to it and which it is its duty to cultivate for the world's sake. To attempt to sink your individuality in that of another is an injury not only to yourself but to the whole world. An Indian gentleman cannot be an Englishman. It is no use his trying. He only makes himself absurd. He can be something quite as good if he will cultivate his own talent; but he has not our talent. He is not an Englishman, and only an Englishman by birth has that camaraderie with other Englishmen that is essential. Even a Frenchman or a German would not have it. Therefore it would be impossible to place Indian civilians in places where co-operation with military or military police-officers would be essential.

Further, it is not the English officers alone who create the difficulty. It is the men—English and native. Men of fighting races in India will not acknowledge the authority of Indians of other nationalities, even if supported by Government.

I will tell a story in illustration.

I was stationed nearly twenty years ago at a district head-quarters in Burma where there was a battalion of Military Police recruited in Upper India. There was also a young Mohammedan civilian who had passed into the Civil Service in London and been posted to Burma. He was an excellent fellow in his way.

It happened one morning that I rode down to the Battalion Commandant's house to see him on some matter. We discussed our business, and after it was finished the Subadar of the battalion, a great soldierly Sikh, came in. He and the Commandant talked for a while, and when he was leaving E. said:

"By the by, Subadar Sahib, we are coming up this evening to the range to do a little firing. Send up the marker and four rifles."

"Four rifles?" queried the Subadar.

E. nodded.

"For whom?"

"For the four Sahibs," said E.

The Subadar counted. "The Deputy Sahib, Huzoor (E.), Hall Sahib, and who else?'

"Oh," said he, "Mahommed V. Sahib," naming the Indian civilian.

The Subadar turned away with a gesture of scorn.

"A sahib? he?" he growled.

Now suppose this Indian civilian had grown up into charge of a district and had to direct or go with these men into action? What would happen?

But it may be said that matters could be so arranged that civilians who were Indians were not posted to troublesome or frontier districts, or that they were given judicial and not executive appointments. They make, it is said, good judges. Why keep them out of duties they do well?

But have those who advocate this ever considered what it would mean? It would be the creation of a class within a class. The civilian who was an Indian would be differentiated from the English civilians; he would be ear-marked as "not for executive duties." Is that a possibility, and if it were, would not this differentiation be worse than entirely excluding them? The corps d'Élite would still remain English and the grievance be where it is.

Let us look facts in the face. The Civil Service of India is a peculiarly English service; it is efficient exactly in so far as it is English; when Indians enter it they must be inefficient more or less. Not only are they not good for the service, but the service is not good for them. They would be better and happier out of it, and they feel that themselves. They have gained their ambition and regret it all their lives. I have known several Indians who were civilians and all were unhappy. One was very much so. This is his story. It all happened a long time ago now, not in Burma, and I do not think any susceptibilities can be hurt by recalling it.

He was a Madrassi of the race and caste of Chettis, not the money-lending Chettis, but another branch who always seek Government service. His people were well off and he was sent to England to school; then to Wren's to study for the Civil Service, into which he passed high up, and after two years at Oxford he came to Madras and was posted to a district on the west coast. He was a nice fellow, clever, agreeable, and most people liked him. In England he had been given access to good society, and no difference had been made between him and his English fellow-students. He expected it would be the same in India. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service and would be accepted as such.

He was not. The first thing that happened was that the Club refused to admit him as a member. Now to the home-staying Englishman this may seem a small matter. It is no essential in England to a man's efficiency, or even to his happiness, that he be member of a social club. It can make no real difference to his career.

In India it is different. The Club in a country station is the centre of everything. Practically every European belongs to it. He does not go occasionally, but every day. At five o'clock, when Courts and offices close, there is a general resort to the Club, for golf, tennis, cards, billiards. Most clubs have a women's wing as well, so that the whole of society is centred in the Club. It is there that matters are arranged and informally discussed. Work is done at Court, but the preliminaries of work are often arranged at the Club; or, if not, the annoyances of work are there removed. You forget over a drink and a cigar what happened between you at Court. Women, too, use their influence at the Club, and women's influence is never negligible. The Club is the real heart of the station's life, and if a man do not belong to it he is outside the organism, so to speak. I am quite sure that no senior officer would do his work if he were outside the Club, and even a junior officer would find it difficult.

Every effort was made to elect Chetty to the Club. The other officials stood by him loyally, but it was no use. The unofficial Englishmen refused to allow an Indian to be a member of the Club. Now it is no use characterising such exclusiveness as wrong, or mischievous, or narrow, and saying it should not exist. It does exist. It always will exist. It is very strong, and it is based on instincts that are good in themselves and cannot be ignored. Club life is only possible to people of one nationality. You cannot mix in a Club. In Rangoon do not the Germans have their own club?

The unofficials threatened if Chetty were proposed to overwhelm him with black-balls, and so his name had to be withdrawn. I may say I do not think his nominal admission as a member would have made much difference. Merely allowing a man to enter a club does not admit him to the intimacy of the Club, and that alone counts. However, Chetty was refused admittance at all.

There were, of course, other troubles. An Indian who has entered the Civil Service is really in an impossible position. Socially he belongs to no world. He has left his own and cannot enter the other. And you cannot divorce social life from official life. They are not two things, but one. In the end Chetty shot himself. It was a sad end for a man gifted and likeable.

And although such an end was unusual, the causes which led to it are universal. I have known several civilians who were Indians, and, as I said before, I think they were all unhappy. They felt that fate had put them in an impossible position. If they married their fellow-country-women they by this act divorced themselves still further from European society; if they married an Englishwoman they did no better; the other Englishwomen would not receive her, and inherent differences of civilisation rendered married life difficult. I think that if individuals realised what their ambition would lead to they would choose any other walk in life than to enter an alien service. Their ideals are wrong. It is no true ideal for an Indian or Burmese to wish to be an Englishman. Fate has allotted to him a different field of usefulness quite as great in its way. An Indian gentleman may be quite as true a gentleman as an English gentleman and be not in the least like him. By blind imitation they attempt to attain virtues not inherent in them, and they ignore other virtues which are inherent and necessary to the world. They seek after impossibilities and so negative the achievement of possibilities. They deny their own natures.

It may be that this desire of Indians to enter the Civil Service has arisen from the desire to begin local self-government—a proper ambition. But the end cannot be attained in this way. Like all other edifices, local self-government is built up from below. It is built on its own foundation. You cannot begin replacing an edifice by removing the top or middle stones and replacing them with others. Self-government is not to be attained by gradually altering the roof.

Therefore the claim that they would influence Government is untenable. Government must do its work in its own way, and that is the English way. No Indian can tell what this is.

The further claim that it would satisfy the people is equally untenable. To put a native of one part of India over natives of another part of India would not please them; it would exasperate them. And even to put an official over his own people would not please those under him, though it might please his class. This is a well-known fact; and if you look below the surface it is not difficult to see the reasons. The Government is English; a native official is not English. The people have no confidence in him for that reason. They know that he is not in intimate touch with Government. In the innumerable acts of official life which are not bound by rigid rules he is very likely to be wrong. When an English official says a thing they know he speaks with authority because his mind is one with that of Government; not so with a native official. They know it and he knows it, and he knows they know it. That makes matters difficult to begin with. Moreover, they are jealous of him. When all high officials are English, natives are all together; put a native in as an official, and to the general native mind he is rather like a traitor. They have lost him and gained nothing. They are not proud of him but angry with him. He is as they are—why then should he have this power over them? It is not a power delegated by themselves but by an alien Government. This is quite a simple fact in psychology and shows itself everywhere. Does a "ranker," unless under exceptional circumstances and an exceptional personality, hold the same authority over his former equals as a class officer does? And there the difference is slight. I am sure that no greater cause for discontent among the people could be found than by having Indians as civilians.

And last but not the least, there is the domiciled European population to be considered. What effect would it have on them if a large number of Indians were admitted to the administration? The answer is quite simple and was effectually given during the agitation over the Ilbert Bill in 1885—they would not stand it.

They are not too pleased with the present state of affairs, with the great power that lies in one man's hand, that of the head of the district. They chafe at it and are continually feeling and resenting its imperfections and limitations. They only submit to it because they see no way out of it and because he is English. Were he to be often an Indian they would resent it and make their resentment felt. They would lose the feeling of security they now have and they would not submit to this; they would make government impossible. To those who doubt their power to do this I would recommend a study of the agitation against the Ilbert Bill, more especially in its latest stages. It is no longer secret history that a disaster unequalled in Indian history was only saved at the last minute by the surrender of Government.

And the feelings which caused this are as vital now as then. It may be taken as an axiom that whatever Government might decree, the great British mercantile and other interests in India would refuse to allow any appreciable transfer of authority to the hands of Indians, and in face of their opposition it could not be done. That an Indian should rule Indians they would not mind perhaps, but that an Indian should rule Europeans, and that it should be to an Indian they looked for the maintenance of peace and order and for the administration of justice, criminal and civil, is unthinkable. The stability of the administration is due to its being English, and any threat to that stability would not be borne.

Besides, to what would it lead? Suppose, by a wild stretch of the imagination, all the Civil Service in India could be composed of Indians, what then? That is not self-government. The orders would still come from Downing Street, the responsibility rest with Parliament and the English people. The Government would not and could not so be Indianised; all that would have happened would be that a few hundred Indian gentlemen had been imperfectly Anglicised. Is that an ideal? Where would the three hundred and fifty million come in? No more than they do now. But in any self-government worth the name these people must come in; they must be the base on which the self-government is erected.

Government does not see its way. It must do something, and it has no idea what to do. A wise statesmanship would hold its hand till it saw clearly. But there is the danger that a hasty statesmanship may in despair do something for the mere sake of saying it is not standing still.

There is a way out of the present trouble, but I think it can be seen clearly enough that admitting Indians to the Civil Service is not that way. It might, in fact, be a very serious obstacle to following the right course.

India is lost, and will be regained by no such measures as those proposed. They will only deepen the gulf and accelerate the final rupture.