Indian speeches (1907-1909)

by John Morley

"There is no fear of anything in the nature of a rising, but if murders continue, a general panic may arise and greatly increase the danger of the situation. We cannot hope that any machinery will completely stop outrages at once. We must be prepared to meet them. There are growing indications that the native population itself is alarmed, and that we shall have the strong support of native public opinion."

The view of important persons in the Government of India is that in substance the position of our Government in India is as sound and as well-founded as it has ever been.

I shall be asked, has not the Government of India been obliged to pass a measure introducing pretty drastic machinery? That is quite true, and I, for one, have no fault whatever to find with them for introducing such machinery and for taking that step. On the contrary, my Lords, I wholly approve, and I share, of course, to the full the responsibility for it. I understand that I am exposed to some obloquy on this account—I am charged with inconsistency. That is a matter on which I am very well able to take care of myself, and I should be ashamed to detain your Lordships for one single moment in arguing about it. Quite early after my coming to the India Office, pressure was put on me to repeal the Regulation of 1818, under which men are now being summarily detained without trial and without charge, and without intention to try or to charge. That, of course, is a tremendous power to place in the hands of an Executive Government. But I said to myself then, and I say now, that I decline to take out of the hands of the Government of India any weapon that they have got, in circumstances so formidable, so obscure, and so impenetrable as are the circumstances that surround British Government in India.

There are two paths of folly in these matters. One is to regard all Indian matters, Indian procedure and Indian policy, as if it were Great Britain or Ireland, and to insist that all the robes and apparel that suit Great Britain or Ireland must necessarily suit India. The other is to think that all you have got to do is what I see suggested, to my amazement, in English print—to blow a certain number of men from guns, and then your business will be done. Either of these paths of folly leads to as great disaster as the other. I would like to say this about the Summary Jurisdiction Bill—I have no illusions whatever. I do not ignore, and I do not believe that Lord Lansdowne opposite, or anyone else can ignore, the frightful risks involved in transferring in any form or degree what should be the ordinary power under the law, to arbitrary personal discretion. I am alive, too, to the temptation under summary procedure of various kinds, to the danger of mistaking a headstrong exercise of force for energy. Again, I do not for an instant forget, and I hope those who so loudly applaud legislation of this kind do not forget, the tremendous price that you pay for all operations of this sort in the reaction and the excitement that they provoke. If there is a man who knows all these drawbacks I think I am he. But there are situations in which a responsible Government is compelled to run these risks and to pay this possible price, however high it may appear to be.

It is like war, a hateful thing, from which, however, some of the most ardent lovers of peace, and some of those rulers of the world whose names the most ardent lovers of peace most honour and revere—it is one of the things from which these men have not shrunk. The only question for us is whether there is such a situation in India to-day as to warrant the passing of the Act the other day, and to justify resort to the Regulation of 1818. I cannot imagine anybody reading the speeches—especially the unexaggerated remarks of the Viceroy—and the list of crimes perpetrated, and attempted, that were read out last Friday in Calcutta—I cannot imagine that anybody reading that list and thinking what they stand for, would doubt for a single moment that summary procedure of some kind or another was justified and called for. I discern a tendency to criticise this legislation on grounds that strike me as extraordinary. After all, it is not our fault that we have had to bring in this measure. You must protect the lives of your officers. You must protect peaceful and harmless people, both Indian and European, from the blood-stained havoc of anarchic conspiracy. We deplore the necessity, but we are bound to face the facts. I myself recognise this necessity with infinite regret, and with something, perhaps, rather deeper than regret. But it is not the Government, either here or in India, who are the authors of this necessity, and I should not at all mind, if it is not impertinent and unbecoming in me to say so, standing up in another place and saying exactly what I say here, that I approve of these proceedings and will do my best to support the Government of India.

Now a very important question arises, for which I would for a moment ask the close attention of your Lordships, because I am sure that both here and elsewhere it will be argued that the necessity, and the facts that caused the necessity, of bringing forward strong repressive machinery should arrest our policy of reforms. That has been stated, and I dare say many people will assent to it. Well, the Government of India and myself have from the very first beginning of this unsettled state of things, never varied in our determination to persevere in the policy of reform.

I put two plain questions to your Lordships. I am sick of all the retrograde commonplaces about the weakness of concession to violence and so on. Persevering in our plan of reform is not a concession to violence. Reforms that we have publicly announced, adopted, and worked out for more than two years—how is it a concession to violence, to persist in those reforms? It is simply standing to your guns. A number of gentlemen, of whom I wish to speak with all respect, addressed a very courteous letter to me the other day that appeared in the public prints, exhorting me to remember that Oriental countries inevitably and invariably interpret kindness as fear. I do not believe it. The Founder of Christianity arose in an Oriental country, and when I am told that Orientals always mistake kindness for fear, I must repeat that I do not believe it, any more than I believe the stranger saying of Carlyle, that after all the fundamental question between any two human beings is—Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me? I do not agree that any organised society has ever subsisted upon either of those principles, or that brutality is always present as a fundamental postulate in the relations between rulers and ruled.

My first question is this. There are alternative courses open to us. We can either withdraw our reforms, or we can persevere in them. Which would be the more flagrant sign of weakness—to go steadily on with your policy of reform in spite of bombs, or to let yourself openly be forced by bombs and murder clubs to drop your policy? My second question is—Who would be best pleased if I were to announce to your Lordships that the Government have determined to drop the reforms? Why, it is notorious that those who would be best pleased would be the extremists and irreconcilables, just because they know well that for us to do anything to soften estrangement, and appease alienation between the European and native populations, would be the very best way that could be adopted to deprive them of fuel for their sinister and mischievous designs. I hope your Lordships will agree in that, and I should like to add one reason which I am sure will weigh very much with you. I do not know whether your Lordships have read the speech made last Friday by Sir Norman Baker, the new Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, in the Council at Calcutta, dealing with the point that I am endeavouring to present. In a speech of great power and force, he said that these repressive measures did not represent even the major part of the true policy dealing with the situation. The greater task, he said, was to adjust the machinery of government, so that their Indian fellow-subjects might be allotted parts which a self-respecting people could fill, and that when the constitutional reforms were announced, as they would be shortly, he believed that the task of restoring order would be on the road to accomplishment. For a man holding such a position to make such a statement at that moment, is all the corroboration that we need for persisting in our policy of reform. I have talked with Indian experts of all kinds concerning reforms. I admit that some have shaken their heads; they did not like reforms very warmly. But when I have asked, "Shall we stand still, then?" there is not one of those experienced men who has not said, "That is quite impossible. Whatever else we do, we cannot stand still."

I should not be surprised if there are here some who say: You ought to have some very strong machinery for putting down a free Press. A long time ago a great Indian authority, Sir Thomas Munro, used language which I will venture to quote, not merely for the purpose of this afternoon's exposition, but in order that everybody who listens and reads may feel the formidable difficulties that our predecessors have overcome, and that we in our turn mean to try to overcome. Sir Thomas Munro said—

"We are trying an experiment never yet tried in the world—maintaining a foreign dominion by means of a native army; and teaching that army, through a free Press, that they ought to expel us, and deliver their country."