Produced by Josephine Paolucci, and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.
(1907-1909)
The modern and Western spirit is assuredly at work in the Indiancountries, but the vital question for Indian Governments is, How farit has changed the ideas of men?—SIR HENRY MAINE.
1909
A signal transaction is now taking place in the course of Indianpolity. These speeches, with no rhetorical pretensions, contain someof the just, prudent, and necessary points and considerations, thathave guided this transaction, and helped to secure for it the sanctionof Parliament. The too limited public that follows Indian affairs withcoherent attention, may find this small sheaf of speeches, revised asthey have been, to be of passing use. Three cardinal State-papers havebeen appended. They mark the spirit of British rule in India, at threesuccessive stages, for three generations past; and bear directly uponwhat is now being done.
November, 1909.
I. ON PRESENTING THE INDIAN BUDGET. (House of Commons, June 6, 1907)
II. TO CONSTITUENTS. (Arbroath, October 21, 1907)
III. ON AMENDMENT TO ADDRESS. (House of Commons, January 31, 1908)
IV. INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE. (London, July, 1908)
V. ON PROPOSED REFORMS. (House of Lords, December 17, 1908)
VI. HINDUS AND MAHOMETANS. (January, 1909)
VII. SECOND READING OF INDIAN COUNCILS BILL. (House of Lords)
VIII. INDIAN PROBATIONERS. (Oxford, June 13, 1909)
I am afraid I shall have to ask the House for rather a large draftupon its indulgence. The Indian Secretary is like the aloe, thatblooms once in 100 years: he only troubles the House with speechesof his own once in twelve months. There are several topics which theHouse will expect me to say something about, and of these are two orthree topics of supreme interest and importance, for which I plead forpatience and comprehensive consideration. We are too apt to find thatGentlemen both here and outside fix upon some incident of which theyread in the newspaper; they put it under a microscope; they indulgein reflections upon it; and they regard that as taking an intelligentinterest in the affairs of India. If we could suppose that on someoccasion within the last three or four weeks a wrong turn had beentaken in judgment at Simla, or in the Cabinet, or in the India Office,or that to-day in this House some wrong turn might be taken, whatdisasters would follow, what titanic efforts to repair thesedisasters, what devouring waste of national and Indian treasure, andwhat a wreckage might follow! These are possible consequences thatmisjudgment either here or in India might bring with it.
Sir, I believe I am not going too far when I say that this is almost,if not quite, the first occasion upon which what is called the Britishdemocracy in its full strength has been brought directly face to facewith the difficulties of Indian Government in all their intricacies,all their comp