If this be really the wish of the British people, then a much ampler latitude might be allowed to the Viceroy, Lieutenant-Governors, and high Frontier Officers, and a greater deference be shown to their views. If agents abuse this latitude, then they can be censured, as I was censured, or punished in any way that is necessary. And if the present men are not good enough to be entrusted with responsibility, then means might be taken for sending out better. Competitive examinations are not the only or the best means of obtaining rulers for India. And there is no reason why India should not be provided with just as good men as go to Whitehall or Westminster. But never can it be seriously believed that it is the wish of the British people that the principle of trusting the man on the spot be abandoned, or the sense of responsibility in their agents damped down.
For the good working of this principle, which I would here again remark is much more fully carried out by the British Government, with all its imperfection of constitution, than by any other Government in the world, there must, however, be much more intimate relationship than there is at present between these men and their principals in England. The men in India and the politicians in England must be better known to each other, and have more confidence in one another. And it is upon this point that I would make a few suggestions of a practical nature.
Politicians who aspire to control the affairs of our most complex Empire might, like our Royal Family, make an effort at some periods of their lives to become personally acquainted with the local conditions of the more important parts of the Empire. Communication is rapid and easy nowadays, and a week in a railway-train through India would be better than not seeing India at all. If you have seen a man for a couple of minutes you understand him, and, above all, take an interest in his actions, more than if you had never even seen him. And if it is impossible for all Secretaries of State to have visited India before they come to the India Office, there does not seem any inseparable impediment to a Secretary of State visiting India during his term of office. There are many and great objections, I know, but these surely cannot be more numerous or more serious than are the objections to the present system. Mr. Chamberlain’s visit to South Africa benefited him and the Dominion, and the precedent would be well worth consideration.
But if this is quite out of the question, the corresponding idea of the Viceroy visiting England at least once in his five years’ term of service should not be so utterly impracticable. A swift cruiser would take him home or out again in twelve days very easily, and the rest and the advantages of personal conference would be of inestimable value. The Agent-General in Cairo comes home every year.
More practicable and feasible, and probably more useful, than either of these suggestions is that the India Office, instead of being manned half by officials who have never been to India and half by officials who will never go there again, might be completely manned by officials who have both been to India and who will return there—men of the Indian Service in active employ. At present it consists of officials of the Home Civil Service and of retired Indian officials. What is wanted is an ebb and flow—a strong, fresh current running to and fro from England to India. It is bad to keep men out in India too long at a time, and it is bad to have a Secretary of State who knows nothing about India surrounded by men who have either never seen it or who have left it for good. A Secretary of State would, moreover, if the India Office were filled with men of the active Indian Service, have a better acquaintance than he now has with the personnel of the Indian Services; while, on their side, the latter would experience an infiltration of men who were acquainted with English conditions, and of the especial difficulties and influences which beset Secretaries of State in London.
Another direction in which improvement is possible is in politicians in England making more effort to see men serving in India who are home on leave. Lord Morley has done far more in this direction than any other Secretary of State, and his courtesy in this respect has been much appreciated. His is a good precedent for other Secretaries of State to follow and develop; and if English politicians could regard men of the Civil Service in India as something more than clerks it would be well. A Lieutenant-Governor who had successfully ruled a great province in India told me he was convinced they looked upon him as a clerk, because they were always so “damned polite” to him.
Especially at the present time, too, men who are actually holding high positions in India should be taken notice of and brought forward when they come to England. The old East India Company used to take great pains in this respect, realizing the importance of their agents being known among the best men in England, and having the opportunity of gaining their confidence, and realizing, too, that for the efficient discharge of their duties in India they should be armed with the prestige which high public recognition in England gives. This will be a specially important point in the time to come. From one cause and another, the Service in India has been losing its prestige, and this when, as at no previous time, it requires all the prestige that is its rightful due. The abandonment of Lord Curzon in his controversy with Lord Kitchener, and of Sir Bampfylde Fuller in his efforts to suppress sedition in Eastern Bengal at its rise, have been severe blows to the Viceroyalty and Lieutenant-Governorships, which have to be amended.
Lastly, there is scope for much fuller personal intercourse between local officers and superiors in India itself and between India and England. Facility of communication is not taken sufficient advantage of in this way. To refer again to this case of Tibet. During all that time occupied in the correspondence leading up to the Mission an Indian official, thoroughly well posted in the local conditions and with the views of the Government of India upon them, might have been sent to Peking, St. Petersburg, and London, to put the Indian and local view before our Ambassadors and the Home Government, to be informed in return of the Chinese and Russian and Imperial views, and to be the bearer of the final decision thereon of the Imperial Government, which he could explain with much greater effectiveness than is achieved by letters and telegrams. An advantage, additional to the better settlement of the actual question in hand, would be that the Indian official so employed would be gaining some all-round experience, which would be of value on future occasions.
By all these means that personal, intimate contact will be increased which alone can beget mutual confidence. At present men in India feel that they are regarded with suspicion by English politicians, as if they were guilty till they could prove themselves innocent. No strong inspiration comes from England to them. They have to carry on the greatest Imperial work that any country has ever undertaken, chilled by distant critics who know them not. These are conditions which obviously call for improvement, and perhaps these suggestions would go some way to this end, and render it more possible for English politicians to place that trust in the men on the spot, which is the bed-rock principle on which England should carry on the government of her great Dependency.