Indian speeches (1907-1909)

OMMONS. JAN

demands the immediate and serious attention of his Majesty's Government; that the present proposals of the Government of India are inadequate to allay the existing and

by Lord Elgin from the Government of the Transvaal last night:-"Gandhi and other leaders of the Indian and Chinese communities have offered voluntary registration in a body within three months, provided signatures only are taken of educated, propertied, or well-known Asiatics, and finger-prints of the others, and that no question against which Asiatics have religious objections be pressed. The Transvaal Government have accepted this offer, and undertaken, pending regis

advantages might be, yet I also perceive serious disadvantages. In the old days they were able to command the services on the Indian committees, of ex-Ministers, of members of this House and members of another place, who had had much experience of Indian administration, and I am doubtful, considering the preoccupations of public men, whether we should now be able to call a large body of experienced administrators, with the necessary balance between the two Houses, to sit on one of these committees. And then I would point out another disadvantage. You would have to call away from the performance of their duties in India a large body of men whose duties ought to occupy, and I believe do occupy, all their minds and all their time. Still it is an idea, and I will only say that I do not entirely banish it from my own mind. Two interesting speeches, and significant speeches, have been made this afternoon. One was made by my hon. friend, the mover, and the other by the hon. Member for East Leeds. Those two speeches raise a really important issue. My hon. friend the Member for Leeds said that democracy was entirely opposed to, and would resist, the doctrine of the settled fact.[1] My hon. friend tells you democracy will have nothing to do with settled facts, though he did not quite put it as plainly as that. Now, if that be so, I am very sorry for democracy. I do not agree with my hon. friend. I think democracy will be just as reasonable as any other sensible form of government, and I do not believ

d on an earlier occasion spoken of the

. I said educational suffrage, and also pe

system of government for India, I declare I would multiply the Baroda system of government, rather than have an Imperial Duma and universal suffrage. The speech of my hon. friend, with whom I am sorry to find myself, not in collision but in difference, illustrates what is to my mind one of the grossest of all the fallacies in practical politics-namely, that you can cut out, frame, and shape one system of government for communities with absolutely different sets of social, religious, and economic conditions-that you can cut them all out by a sort of standardised pattern, and say that what is good for us here, the point of view, the line of argument, the method of solution-that all these things are to be applied right off to a community like India. I must tell my hon. friend that I

the very proposal I have made, with the except

at I do not know what Liberalism is. I think I do, and I must even say that I do not think I have anything to learn of the principles or maxims or the practice of Liberal doctrines even from my hon. friend. You are bound to look at the whole mass of the difficulties and perplexing problems connected with India, from a common-sense plane, and it is not common sense, if I may say so without discourtesy, to talk of Imperial Dumas. I have not had a word of thanks from that quarter, in the midst of a shower of reproach, for what I regard, in all its direct and indirect results and bearings, as one of the most important moves that have been made in connection with the relations between Great Britain and India for a long time-I mean, the admission of two Indian gentlemen to the Council of the Secretary of State. An hon. friend wants me to appoint an Indian gentleman to the Viceroy's Executive Council. Well, that is a different thing; but I am perfectly sure that, if an occasion offers, neither Lord Minto nor I would fall short of some

l, is a step that, I think, the House is perfectly justified in calling me to account for. I have done my best to account for it, and to-day, anyone who knows the Punjab, would agree that, whatever may happen at some remote period, its state is comparatively quiet and satisfactory. I am n

hich they have received the disgraceful overtures which I know have been made to them. The seeds of sedition have been unscrupulously scattered throughout Ind

or three months ago, we did wrong in using the regulation which applied to the case? No one can say

ular incident of policy to blot out from their vision all the wide and durable operations, to which we have set firm and persistent

s that are mentioned

an extraordinar

sent condition of aff

ious attention of His

roy, and other persons immediately concerned in the Government of India, very curious people if he supposes that the

ent of India are inadequate to allay

state of affairs for which our plans are the inadequate remedy. I do not want to hold him up as a formidable example: but in his speech to-day he went over-and it does credit to his industry-every single one of the most burning and controversial questions of the whole system of Indian Government and seemed to say, "I will tell you how far this is wrong and exactly what ought to be don

in the hands both of o

k to the Government of India with the request that they would submit them to discussion in various quarters. The instruction to the Government of India was that by the end of March, the India Office was to learn what the general view was at which the Government of India had themselves arrived upon the plans, with all their complexities and variations. We wanted to know what they would tell us. It will be for us to consider how far the report so arrived at, how far these proposals, ripened by Indian opinion, carried out the policy which His Majesty's Government had in view. Surely that is a reasonable and simple way of proceeding? When you have to deal with complex communities of varied races,

to the mitigation of flogging, the restriction of civil flogging, and the limitation of military flogging to speci

cracy to me? It is a great machine in India, yes a splendid machine, for performing the most difficult task that ever was committed to the charge of any nation. But show me where it fails-that it is perfect in every respect no sensible man would contend for a moment-but show me at any point, let any of my hon. friends show me from day to day as this session passes, where this bureaucracy, as they call it, has been at fault. Do they supp