Essays in Rebellion

by Henry Woodd Nevinson

It is true that the education has not gone far. The Government spends less than twopence per head upon it; less than a tenth of what it spends on the army. Only ten per cent. of the males in India can write or read; only seven per thousand of the females. But, thanks chiefly to Macaulay's conviction that if everyone were like himself the world would be happy and glorious, there are now about a million Indians (or one in three hundred) who can to some extent communicate with each other in English as a common tongue, and there are some thousands who have become acquainted with the history of English liberties, and the writings of a few political thinkers. Together with railways, the new common language has increased the sense of unity; the study of our political thinkers has created the sense of freedom, and the knowledge of our history has shown how stern and prolonged a struggle may be required to win that possession which our thinkers have usually regarded as priceless. "The one great contribution of the West to the Indian Nationalist movement," writes Mr. Ramsay Macdonald with emphasis, "is its theory of political liberty."

It is a contribution of which we may well be proud—we of whom Wordsworth wrote that we must be free or die. Whatever the failures of unsympathetic self-esteem, Macaulay's spirit could point to this contribution as sufficient counterbalance. From the works of such teachers as Mill, Cobbett, Bagehot, and Morley, the mind of India has for the first time derived the principles of free government. But of all its teachers, I suppose the greatest and most influential has been Burke. Since we wished to encourage the love of freedom and the knowledge of constitutional government, no choice could have been happier than that which placed the writings and speeches of Burke upon the curriculum of the five Indian universities. Fortunately for India, the value of Burke has been eloquently defined by Lord Morley, who has himself contributed more to the future constitutional freedom of India than any other Secretary of State. In one passage in his well-known volume on Burke, he has spoken of his "vigorous grasp of masses of compressed detail, his wide illumination from great principles of human experience, the strong and masculine feeling for the two great political ends of Justice and Freedom, his large and generous interpretation of expediency, the morality, the vision, the noble temper." Writing of Burke's three speeches on the American War, Lord Morley declares:

"It is no exaggeration to say that they compose the most
perfect manual in our literature, or in any literature, for one
who approaches the study of public affairs, whether for knowledge
or for practice. They are an example without fault of
all the qualities which the critic, whether a theorist or an
actor, of great political situations should strive by night and
day to possess."

For political education, one could hardly go further than that. "The most perfect manual in any literature"—let us remember that decisive praise. Or if it be said that students require style rather than politics, let us recall what Lord Morley has written of Burke's style:

"A magnificence and elevation of expression place him
among the highest masters of literature, in one of its highest
and most commanding senses."

But it is frequently asserted that what Indian students require is, not political knowledge, or literary power, but a strengthening of character, an austerity both of language and life, such as might counteract the natural softness, effeminacy, and the tendency to deception which Macaulay and Lord Curzon so freely informed them of. For such strengthening and austerity, on Lord Morley's showing, no teacher could be more serviceable than Burke:

"The reader is speedily conscious," he writes, "of the precedence
in Burke of the facts of morality and conduct, of the
many interwoven affinities of human affection and historical
relation, over the unreal necessities of mere abstract logic....
Besides thus diffusing a strong light over the awful tides of
human circumstance, Burke has the sacred gift of inspiring men
to use a grave diligence in caring for high things, and in making
their lives at once rich and austere."

Here are the considered judgments of a man who, by political experience, by literary power, and the study of conduct, has made himself an unquestioned judge in the affairs of State, in letters, and in morality. As examples of the justice of his eulogy let me quote a few sentences from those very speeches which Lord Morley thus extols—the speeches on the American War of Independence. Speaking on Conciliation with the Colonies in 1775, Burke said:

"Permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but
temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not
remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not
governed which is perpetually to be conquered.... Terror is
not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory."

Speaking of the resistance of a subject race to the predominant power, Burke ironically suggested: