But there was more than this. The more you study governments and peoples the more clearly you see that to ensure smooth working there must be some relationship between them. Some emotion or some sentiment must unite the two, and so render their relative position endurable. Laws and restrictions are irksome; are never true; are negatives, not positives. There must be some tie between those who impose them and those who bear them to humanise them.
Now, there are two and only two systems of government that have ever been even partially successful anywhere in the world—one is self-government in such an organism as will allow the people not only to enforce their will but to form a right judgment as to what they should desire; the other is government by personality.
No complete form of either system has ever existed; the nearest to the former were the governments of Athens, Sparta, Rome in its early days, Venice, Florence, and some other self-governing cities. Instances of the latter are the temporary dictatorships of Rome, the rule of Alexander, Julius Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon for the individual form; and the feudal system in England and the Continent for the aristocratic form. People in difficulties will trust personalities whom they admire and who have shown sympathy to them more than they will trust themselves, conscious that the former are more capable of seeing truly and of acting efficiently.
That which makes either of these systems of government a success is an emotion, a relationship.
With a really self-governing people this relationship is the sense of oneness between government and governed. However much the people may chafe under the laws and restrictions placed upon them they can console themselves with the idea that it is their own doing. Government is their own, part of themselves, and to that representative of self they can condone many things. Knowing it is their own, they realise that it does its best for them, however hard it may seem. They pardon because they can understand.
With an alien rule this sentiment cannot exist, and therefore another must take its place. That sentiment is personal feeling between the governed and the individual officers of government. Now that in India was very strong. For the soldiers and civilians who made India were personalities, and all people East and West admire strong personalities; moreover, they were sympathetic personalities who attracted confidence as well as admiration. District officers were the fathers of their district and stood up for their people against Law and Government.
The first secret of our success in India was the personality of our officers. Other things helped—the state of the country, the discipline of our English troops, the ability of the Home Government to help; but it was the personality of our officers that gave us India. Read all their records, right from Clive and Warren Hastings to Havelock, Lawrence and Nicholson. It was their personality that won. For personality alone can make bad laws bearable, can make mistakes forgiven and forgotten, can lead and draw men. And remember that it was not only the men at the top who were personalities, but all, right away down to the lowest ranks of both services. What personality is I do not know, but I know that it is the magic power of the world. It is the positive where all else in government is negative. I know it gave us India. I know that with the passing of personality there is coming the passing of the Empire. Read this story that has been given to me:
"An old General, who had served long in India, told me recently as follows: He still hears from time to time from his native subordinates in India. One of them wrote recently an account of his first meeting with the young official lately appointed to his station. As soon as was proper after the arrival of the official, the old Subadar went to pay his respects. He buckled on the sword which had descended to him from his father, took his father's medals in a packet in his hand, arrayed himself in his best uniform and called.
"After long delay he was introduced into the Presence, where he beheld a very untidy youth without coat or waistcoat busily writing at a table, surrounded by papers and stout books of reference.
"The great, tall, shy man modestly approached the table and laid his father's sword and his father's medals on it as a token of obeisance.