Lord CurzoninInd ia

BE ING A SELECTION FROM H IS SPEECHES

AS V ICEROY 8r GOVERNOR - GENERAL

OF INDIA

1 898— 1 90 5

WITH A PORTRA IT,EXPLANATORY NOTES

AND AN INDEx

AND

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

SIR THOMAS RALEIGH,

no“ . menu: or Ti ll oovNoR-OENERAL’

S COUNCIL, I 899- I 904

‘We are ordained to walk here in the sam e track together for m anya long day to com e. You cannot do without us. We should be im potent

without you. Let the Englilhm an and the Indian accept the consecration

of a union that is so m yl ter ious as to have in it som eth ing of the divine,and let our commonideal be a united country and a happier people.

’

Speed at Calcutta, Feb. I 5, I 902 .

Lunhon

MACM ILLAN AND CO .,L IM ITED

NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

PR E FA C E

TH IS volume contains a selection from the Speeches on

India and Indian subjects that were del ivered by Lord

Curzon from the time that he was first appointed to be

Vice roy and Govem or -General in August 1 8 9 8 , until his

return to England from his second term of office in

Decem ber 1 90 5 . The number Of speeches actually made

by him during this period amounted to over two hundred

and fifty, for in India the Viceroy is, by long custom, almost

the solitary speechmaker of the Administration ; and it is

clear , therefore, that a selection of less than sixty of these

mus t leave large groups Of subjects untouched .

I n choosing, an attempt has been made to subserve the

genera l object of this book, which is to provide a key to

the problems of modern Indian government, as wel l as a

synopsis of Lord Curzon’s administration ; and accordingly

speeches or parts Of speeches relating to subjects of local or

ephem eral interest have been omitted, and attention has

been invited in preference to those utterances that explain

the pr inciples by which the Government of India is actuated

inapproaching its stupendous task,and the concrete manner

in which, in Lord Curzon’

s time,it endeavoured to carry

them into execution . He himself lost no opportunity of

taking the community into his confidence, both as to the

objects and the details of his pol icy,holding that there is

nothing from which the Government of India suffers so

much both in India and in England as public ignorance, and

tha t eventhe government of a dependency is best conductedV

vi PREFACE

by a free and frank interchange of opinions with the governed .

While this method to a certain extent chal lenged popular

criticism, it left the Indian public better informed than they

had ever previously been as to the aims and acts of their

rulers,and ended by furnishing what may be described as a

handbook to the recent history and government Of India

more complete and authoritative than can be found in any

contemporary publication . From this point of view the

present work may possess a value independent of any

personal interest attaching to it,since

,if a reader desires to

know what, for instance, is the policy of the British Govern

ment in India with regard to frontiers or foreign or mil itary

affairs, in respect of education, famine, taxation , currency,irrigation , or the Native States, he can ascertain it from

these pages. Simultaneously,Lord Curzon

,both in I ndia

and England, was perpetually reiterating the fundamental

principles Of British rule in India,and some of his speeches

onthis point have already been introduced into the curriculum

of English schools ; while many of the projects with which

he was particularly identified wil l here be found explained

in his own words.

I t should be remembered that a Viceroy of India speaks

under conditions very different from those which prevai l in

England. He cannot ascend a platform whenever he pleases

to give a vindication Of his policy. Public banquets are few

and far between, and the majority of his speeches, unless

they refer to particular Bi lls in the Legislative Council, are

made in reply to deputations or addresses, or upon formal

and ceremonial occasions. The only Opportunity presented

to him in the year of expounding the general policy of his

Government is in the annual Budget debate in the Legisla

tive Council at Calcutta ; and Lord Curzon’

s seven speeches

on those occasions, which are reproduced in this col lection ,are in rea l ity the most serviceable guide to his administration .

Furthermore, the character and tone of a Viceroy’s speeches

PREFACE vii

are necessari ly affected by the fact that he often appears as

the rep resentative of the Sovereign quite as much as the

head of the Government, and is consequently subject toeasily recognised limitations.

The method adopted in printing the speeches has been

determ ined by the description already given Of the general

character Of this work. They are arranged under various

headings,in chronological order

,and passages relating more

particularly to those headings have been transferred from

speeches dealing with a multiplicity Of topics where they

migh t otherwise have been overlaid. For the many subjects

that do not find a separate heading,reference must be made

to the Index, which has been compiled with intentional

fulness .

In order to supply a general view of the system of

government that will be seen at work in this book, as wellas a connected account of the administrative task undertaken

by Lord Curzon and his col leagues during the past seven

yea rs, an introductory chapter has been written by Sir

Thom as Raleigh, who was Legal Member of the Governor

Genera l’s Counci l from 1 8 9 9 to 1 904.

CONTE NTS

INTRODUCTORY

D INNE R G IVEN BY OLD ETONIANS IN LONDON, October 28, 1898D INNE R G IVEN BY ROYAL SOCIETIES’ CLUB IN LONDON

,

Novem ber 7, 1898ADDRES S FROM BOMBAY MUN ICIPALITY, December 30, 1898

GENERAL

DUR BAR AT LUCKNOW, Decem ber 13, 1899ADDRES S FROM BOMBAY MUNICIPALITY, Novem ber 8, 1900PRES ENTATION OF FREEDOM OF CITY OF LONDON, July 20, 1904LUNCHEON AT MANS ION HOUSE, July 20, 1904PRE S ENTATION OF FREEDOM OF BOROUGH OF DERBY

, July 28,

1904

ADDRESS FROM BOMBAY MUN ICIPALITY ON RESUMPTION OFOFF ICE , Decemb er 9, 1904

ADM INISTRATIVE AND F INANC IAL

PROGRESS

FIR ST BUDGET S PEECH (LEG ISLATIVE COUNCIL AT CALCUTTA),March 27, 1899

S ECOND BUDGET S PEECH (LEG IS LATIVE COUNCIL AT CALCUTTA),March 28

,1900

TH I RD BUDGET S PEECH (LEG ISLATIVE COUNCIL ATMarch 27, 1901

FOURTH BUDGET S PEECH (LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL AT CALCUTTA),March 26, 1902

18

24

32

47

1: CONTE NTS

FI I'I'H BUDGET S PEECH (LEG IS LATIVE COUNC I L AT CALCUTTA) ,March 25, 1903

S IxTH BUDGET S PEECH (LEG IS LATIVE COUNC I L ATMarch 30, 1904

S EVENTH BUDGET S PEECH (LEG IS LA TIVECOUNC I L ATCALCUTTA),March 29, 1905

AGRAR IAN LEG ISLATION

PUNJAB LANDALIENATION B I LL (LEG ISLATIVE COUNC I L, S IMLA ),October 19 , 1900

AGR ICULTURAL BANKS (LEG IS LATIVE COUNC I L, CALCUTI‘

A ) ,

March 23, 1904

PA h E

ARCH /EOLOGY AND ANC IENT MONUMENTS

AS IATIC SOCIE1 Y OF BENGAL, Feb ruary 7, 1900ANCI ENT MONUMENTS B I LL (LEG IS LATIVE COUNCI L,

March 18,1904

ART

INDIAN ART ExH IBITION AT DELH I, Decem be r 30, 1902EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 25, 1903

BURMA

DURBAR AT MANDALAY, Novem ber 28, 190 1

CH IEFS AND PR INCES OF IND IA

STATE BANQUET AT GWALIOR, Nm em ber 29, 1899

STATE BANQUET A'l‘

JA IPUR , Novem ber 28, 1902

INSTALLATION OF NAWAB OF BAHAWALPUR,Novem b er 1 2

, 1903

INSTALLATION OF MAHARAJA OF ULWAR, Decem b er 10,1903 .

DALY COLLEGE, INDORE, Novem ber 4, 1905

2 16

2 19

226

229

233

CONTENTS

CH IEFS’ COLLEGES AND EDUCATION

RAjKUMAR COLLEGE, RAJ KOT, Novem ber 5, 1900

CONFERENCE AT CALCU'I'

TA,January 7, 1902

MAYO COLLEGE, AJMER ,Novem ber 19, 1902

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

BANQUET OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CALCU'I‘

TA,

Feb ruary 12, 1903

FAREWELL ADDRESS FROM BOMBAY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,Novem ber 8 , 1905

DELH I CORONATION DURBAR

LEG I S LATIVE COUNCIL, S IMLA, S eptem ber 5, 1902TH E DURBAR, January 1 , 1903

ExTR ACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 2 5, 1903

EDUCATION

MAH ARAJA’S COLLEGE AT TR EVANDRUM (TRAVANCORE ),Novem ber 23, 1900

E DUCATIONAL CONFERENCE, S IMLA, Septem ber 2 , 190 1CONVOCATION OF CALCUTTA UN IVERS ITY, Feb ruary 13, 1904

EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE, S IMLA, S eptem ber 20, 1905

EURAS IANS

ANG LO - INDIAN ASSOCIATION, CALCUTTA, March 23, 1900

FAM INE

ExTR ACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 28,1900

LEG IS LATIVE COUNCI L, S IMLA, October 19 , 1900 .

FORE IGN AFFA IRS

ENTR ACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 25, 1903

Em m a FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 30, 1904

A i

xi i CONTENTS

FRONTIER POLICY

DURBAR AT QUETTA, April 1 2, 1900EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH, March 27, 190 1

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 26, 1902

DURBAR AT PESHAWAR,April 26, 1902

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 30, 1904

GAME PRESERVATION

BURMA GAME PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION, RANGOON, December 10, 190 1

H ISTOR ICAL MEMOR IALS

MUTINY TELEGRAPH MEMOR IAL, DELH I, April 19 , 1902HOLWELL MONUMENT, CALCUTTA, Decem ber 19 , 1902

IRR IGATION

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH, March 27, 1899

ADDRESS FROM CHENAB COLON ISTS, April 3, 1899EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH

,March 28

,1900

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 27, 190 1

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH , March 29, 1905

M ILITARY ADM IN ISTRATION

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH,March 28

,1900

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 27, 190 1

ExTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH,March 26

,1902

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 30, 1904

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET S PEECH, March 29, 1905

MOHAMMEDANS

A LIGARH COLLEGE, April 23, 190 1

CONTENTS

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CONVOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNIVERS ITY, February 15, 1902

CONVOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNIVERS ITY, Feb ruary 1 1 , 1905

PERS IAN GULFDURBAR AT S HARGAH, Novem ber 2 1, 1903ADDRES S FROM BRITISH RES IDENTS AT BUSH IRE, Decem ber 3,

PLAGUE

MEETING OF VOLUNTARY PLAGUE WORKERS, POONA, November 1 1 , 1899

PLANTERS

D INNER G IVEN BY PLANTERS AT S ILCHAR (ASSAM), Novemb er 8, 1901

QUEEN V ICTOR IA MEMOR IAL

PUBLIC MEETING, CALCUTTA, Feb ruary 6, 190 1AS IATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL, February 26, 190 1

TEMPERANCE

ARMY TEMPERANCE ASSOC IATION,S IMLA, June 6, 190 1

VALED ICTORY

D INNER G IVEN BY UN ITED S ERV ICE CLUB, S IMLA, S eptember

ADDR ESS FROM CLERKS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA,S IMLA, October 13, 1905

DINNER GIVEN BY BYCULLA CLUB, BOMBAY, Novem ber 16, 1905

INDEX

xi ii

S7 I

INTRODUCTION

APPOINTMENT

IN August 18 98 Mr. George Curzon, then Under-Secretary

Of State for Foreign Affairs,was appointed to succeed

Lo rd Elgin as Viceroy and Governor-General of I ndia ; inNovember the Viceroy-designate was gazetted Lord CurzonOf Kedleston , in the peerage of I reland. In Decemberhe left for I ndia ; he took over charge from Lord Elgin atCalcutta on the 6th January 1 8 9 9 .

The horizon of the incoming Viceroy was not free fromclouds . On the north - west frontier the Tirah campaignwas sti l l fresh in the memory of the tribes ; large garrisonso f British troops were stil l cantoned in posts beyond ourown frontier, at Chitral, at Lundi Kotal , and in Waziristanand no decision had been arrived at for the settlement of

the frontier tracts . In British India a considerable partof the population was slowly recovering from the effects of

the famine of 1 8 9 7 ; and the crop reports indicated thatthe resources of Government might soon be taxed to meetthe danger Of recurring scarcity. Plague

,an Old enemy,

had appeared again in Bombay in 1 8 96, and the weeklyreturn Of deaths from that cause had already become asubject of grave alarm .

I ndian problems were not presented to Lord Curzon’smind for the first time when he landed at Bombay. Sincehis election to Parliament in 1 8 86, he had served as UnderSecretary for I ndia in 1 8 9 1

-

9 2 , and had made a prolongedand careful study of our policy in the East. In threebooks, Russ ia in Central As ia ( 1 Pers ia and tire

Per s ian Ques tion ( 1 and Problem s of tire Far Eas t

the results of prolonged inquiry on the spot wereXV

xvi INTRODUCTI ON

communicated to the public at home. He had visited I ndiafour times ; and he may fairly claim to have known the

capacities of his ship when he took his station on the

bridge.

I t is not unimportant to remark that, though previousGovem ors -General had served and he ld office as membersof the House of Commons

,Lord Curzon was the first who

may be said to have won his way to that position by servicein the popular Chamber. He took with him to India the

habits of an assembly in which the man who desires to haveinfluence must ea rn it by proving his practical knowledge ofaffairs. Throughout his administration

,his attitude was

often that of the parliamentary minister, who explains hismeasures, invites the approval and assistance of the people ,and defends his policy vigorously when it is attacked. Atthe same time, Lord Curzon made no concession to the

views of those who think that popular government, in theEuropean sense of the term,

can be introduced into Indiaunder existing conditions. He knew that for a long timeto come the Government of I ndia must remain in the handsof officials, appointed and controlled by the home autho

t ities ; but he was determined that the ofl'

icials should becompetent, vigi lant, and, above al l, sympathetic with the

Native population .

Before proceeding to take up the questions argued andexpounded in these Speeches, it may be well to say a fewwords of the constitution which the Viceroy of India isrequired to administer, and of the limitations under whichhis work is done. From the English point of V iew, the

Viceroy stands for the administration . He is often the onlyIndian ofl

'

icialwhose name is familiar to the public at homeit is generally known that he can, in a case of emergency,outvote his Council

,although in the last thirty years there

is only one recorded case of this having been done. He iscredited with all the successes and blamed for al l the failuresof his Government. His own opinion often carries decisiveweight, but in framing his measures he must cultivate theart of compromise. The mastery of a good Viceroy consists not merely in carrying his own proposals, but in theskill with which he can harmonise confl icting opinions and

INTRODUCTION xvi i

bring matters to a practical issue. Lord Curzon has re

ferred more than once to the harmonious working of theCouncil in his time, and in this case it is right to give theViceroy the chief share of the credit. The popular notionthat a strong Viceroy reduces his Council to a nul lity is notborne out by my experience as one of Lord Curzon's

advisers.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

I n the daily business of administration the GovernorGeneral is ass isted by his Executive Council. At the timeof Lord Curzon’s arrival, six of the seven Departments of

Government were assigned to the five Ordinary Members ofCouncil, appointed by Her Majesty on the advice of theSecre tary of State. Before he left India

,Lord Curzon

had obtained the consent of the Secretary of State to the

appointment of a sixth Ordinary Member ; the new Departm ent of Commerce and Indus try was then created

,and a

better distribution of the work was thus rendered possible.The Commander - in- Chief, Sir Wil liam Lockhart, was anEx traordinary Member of Council , appointed by the Scoretary of State.At meetings for the purpose ofmaking Laws and Regula

tions, the Counci l is reinforced by the presence of additionalmembers, not less than ten nor more than sixteen innumber : at least half of these must be persons not in thecivi l or military service of the Crown. At a ful l meetingthe members present include—( I ) a few gentlemen qualifiedby rank or personal distinction, and nominated by the

Viceroy to represent particular communities and interests ;(2 ) officials, recommended by Heads of Provinces ; (3) a contingent of gentlemen, usually natives of India, selected bythe non-official members of Provincial Councils ; (4) one

mem ber recommended by the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce. The Legislative Council thus composed can hardlybe described as a fierce democracy

,

” but, as some of theseSpeeches wil l Show, it is large enough, and representativeenough , to secure an independent expression of opinionon Bi lls which excite interest out of doors. The Nativemem bers in particular do not hesitate to criticise the

xviii INTRODUCT1ON

Government with the utmost freedom . Strangers are ad

m itted, and the proceedings are ful ly reported in the press.Hon . members are seated at a long table, and the memberwho is speaking does not rise from his place ; when the

member in charge of a Bil l has stated his case, the President

calls on those who wish to speak in their order, beginningwith the junior member. These arrangements may sometimes limit the scope of debate, but they conduce to

decorum each is heard in his turn ; the member of Government responsible for the measure under discussion is entitledto reply, and on important occasions the Viceroy sums upthe debate.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

If India, as we define it, were divided into five equal parts ,three of these parts would be included in British India—theterritories governed by His Majesty through the GovernorGeneral and the offi cers subordinate to him . This vast areais now divided into twelve Provinces : the heads of local administration are, the Governors of Madras and Bombay ; theLieutenant-Governors, whose number has been increased tofive by the partition of Bengal ; and five Chief Commiss ioners . The efficiency of our system depends to a greatextent on the maintenance of good relations between centraland local authorities. I t is for the Government of India tolay down the lines of general policy ; but, within its ownlimits

,each Local Government claims and enjoys a consider

able measure of independence.Independence does not exclude, or ought not to exclude,

conference and co - operation . Lord Curzon found theprovinces living, as he said, in water-tight compartments ;each working out its own system, and paying too littleattention to the methods of its neighbours. It was part ofthe Viceroy’s policy to encourage comparison of results andexchange of ideas as between one province and another.For the Government of India there remained the task of

co o rdinating the information thus obtained, and of indicat

ing the lines of general policy. To do this with good effectit was desirable, and indeed necessary, to provide theGovernment of India with expert assistance. In point of

https://www.forgottenbooks.com/join

xx INTRODUCTI ON

intentions,and it expresses faithfully the Opinions of that

section of the Hindu community which sees in the concession of politica l rights the main object of I ndian ambitionand English duty. When the Indian student has read hisEnglish history

,and has learnt something of other parts of

the British Empire, he asks, quite natural ly, whether theprinciple of self-government may not with advantage beapplied to his own country. The practical administrator isconscious of certain d ifl

'

Iculties . English history is indeedan object - lesson in self-govem m ent, as understood by ahomogeneous nation . If you take the average Englishman—peer, professional man, or artisan—you are safe inassuming that he accepts certain general beliefs as to themode in which his country should be governed. India

,on

the other hand, is the least homogeneous country in theworld . If the English reader wishes to understand the

Speeches in this volume, he must endeavour to realise thevariety and complexity of the social system over whi ch theViceroy of India presides. The eloquent Bengali orMahratta

,who finds his appropriate sphere of action in the

Congress,is entitled to a fair hearing, but he is only one of

many types of Indian character and sentiment. The Englishofficial , as he goes his daily round, is brought into contactwith men of a very different stamp—Mohammedan gentlem en, trained perhaps at Aligarh under the influence of SirSyed Ahmed ; Chiefs of ancient lineage, who cling to thetraditions embodied in that wonderful book, the Anna ls ofRajast/zan; Hindu administrators who have made thefortune of the more prosperous Native States ; and largenumbers of educated native gentlemen who take no part inagitation

, thOIIgh they are keenly interested in social andindustrial reform . These men are not merely factors

,they

are governing factors in the politics of India ; and there aremany of them who regard the Congress with fee l ings whichvary from amused indifference to active disapproval.There are, as it seems to me, several reasons why the

Viceroy of I ndia should decline, under present circumstances,to enter into direct communication with the Congress. Inthe first place, that body is engaged in a premature andunwise attempt to domesticate Engl ish political ideas in

INTRODUCTION xxi

India. In the second place, the pretensions of the Congressare out of al l proportion to its true significance . It claimsto represent three hundred mil lions of people, 9 9 per cent ofwhom have never heard of its existence. There is also athi rd consideration, which perhaps was not present to themind of Sir Henry Cotton when, as President of theCongress, he proposed to lay the Resolutions of that bodyofficial ly before the Viceroy. Rightly or wrongly

,the

Congress has chosen to identify itself with one politicalparty in England . I t is with us a cardinal rule of statesmanship that Indian questions ought not to be treated asparty questions in the House of Commons. No Viceroy

,

whatever his personal politics may be, can depart from thatestabl ished convention without setting a precedent whichmight seriously embarrass his successors.The Congress is doing good service in so far as it helps

us to concentrate attention on certain facts which oughtneve r to be absent from our minds. There are in Indiami llions of m en—patient, industrious, law-abiding—whocannot count on obtaining an adequate subsistence from thesoil . Our first care must be , to give them a larger measureof comfort, to increase their power of self-help and selfprotection . When we turn to the educated classes of thisvas t native population, we find that the instruction weprovide for them has stimulated ambition, and in some caseshas awakened a feeling of discontent, while at the same timeour system of administration affords only a restricted scopefor the employment of natives in the higher ranks of ourservices. These are of the situation ; and noViceroy has faced them more sympathetical ly or morecandid ly than Lord Curzon.

BUDGET SPEECHES

Under the Indian Councils Act of 1 8 9 2 , the annualfinancial statement is explained in the Legislative Councileach mem ber is at l iberty to offer any observations he maywis h to make, but no member is al lowed, ina Budget debate,to propose a resolution or to divide the Council . The

Finance Member has the right of reply, and the discussion[1

xxii INTRODUCTION

is closed by the President. In practice, this debate rangesover the whole field of administration the critics of Government put forward their demands for reduced taxation andincreased expenditure while the Viceroy has an opportunityto take stock of the measures for which he is responsible

,

and to indica te his plans for the future.The Budget Speeches included in this volume wil l Show

how careful ly Lord Curzon counted the cost of the reformswhich he advocated. His financial position was

,on the

whole,a fortunate one : when he went to India the period

of recurring deficits and unstable exchange was just comingto an end . I n March 1 8 9 9 , Sir James Westland was ableto budget for a subs tantial surplus, and the accounts of thefive following years Show surpluses averaging about 3

mil lions sterl ing. The revenue rose from 68§ mil lionssterling in 1 8 9 9 , to 8 3 mil lions in 1 904. The debt increased during the same !period by 1 6 millions

,but against

this must be set a capital expenditure of more than 20

millions on remunerative undertakings.It would not have been prudent to begin by reducing

taxation . Famine was impending ; the equipment of theArmy was defective and the civil administration

,hampered

so long by want of funds, must be restored to efficiency .

In 1 900 Mr. (afterwards Sir Clinton ) Dawkins had to meeta large famine expenditure ; but, with the Support of theViceroy

,he had S ignalised his year of office by passing the

important measures which introduced a gold standard intoI ndia, and practical ly fixed the value of the rupee. SirEdward Law completed the work of currency reform bysetting aside the profits of coinage to form the gold reservefund, which now affords a permanent guarantee for stabil ityof exchange. To carry out a scheme of this nature in I ndia

,

it is necessary not only to adhere to sound principles,but to

command the confidence of the business community. Andhere the Viceroy’s aid was invaluable, for he looked at

finance from the statesman ’s point of V iew,and he stated

the case for Government in language which every businessman understood .

In 1 902 the Government was able to rel ieve thosedistricts which were sti ll suffering the effects of famine

,by

INTROD UCT1ON xxi i i

wr it ing off land revenue to the amount of asearching inquiry, conducted in the previous year, had provided an authoritative exposition of the rules under whichthis branch of revenue is collected, and had indicated theexped iency of lenient methods of assessment and elasticityin co l lection. The results of that inquiry are recorded in

a Resolution which bears traces of Lord Curzon’s handiwork. I observe with regret that this important statepaper appears to be unknown to some of those sincere butnot always well- informed English politicians who interestthem se lves in the welfare of the people of India.

I t was not until 1 903, the year of the Coronation Durbarthat Lord Curzon was able to announce a reduction of taxes .

The salt tax was then reduced by eight annas per m auml,

and the l imit of exemption from income tax was raised .

Sa l t tax remains one of the permanent props of our Indianfinance

,but the low duty (which was further reduced in

1 90 5 ) is welcomed by all who know what cheap saltmeans to the poor. The effect of this twofold reduetion was a sacrifice of revenue to the amount of 2

,

per annum. The critics of Government relied, by way of

set-ofl'

,on the expenses of the Durbar, which amounted

to about or one - S ixth Of a penny per headof the population. The incidence of taxation is a subjectwhich the Government Of I ndia is constantly studyingwe sti l l have many problems to solve, but there is nofoundation for the statement, so freely made on Englishplatforms, that the people are being crushed to the earth byoppress ive increase of their burdens, or by wanton additionsto the expense of Government. The incidence of taxationinI nd ia, as Lord Curzonhas more than once explained , isam ong the lightest inthe world .

AGRARIAN LEGISLATION

Taxation is not the only burden which the peasant hasto carry : from time immemorial he has been always, ornearly always, in debt. If he has a bad year, or if he wantsa small sum for a marriage or a funeral, he goes, as hisfathers went, to the money- lender, who speaks him fair, and

xxiv INTRODUCTI ON

produces the rupees. His relations with his own bumjm

are often ancestral , and not unfriendly, but there can be nodoubt that the position of the debtor has beenaltered forthe worse by the introduct ion of our property law. Thepeasant only asks to live by his land : he may be no morethan a kind of tenant-at-will, working for his creditor ; buthe is not aware of the fact unti l the bumjm goes to thejudge and gets a decree which makes him owner of theland . Indebtedness is part of the course of nature, but tolose the land is to lose everything.

In the Punjab an inquiry, conducted by Mr. Thorbum ,

had Shown that the land in certain districts was passingaway from the heredita ry holders, and into the hands of

their creditors . Was it expedient, and was it possible, toprovide a remedy i‘ To this question the ofli cials and otherswho were consulted returned various and conflicting replies

,

but the prevailing Opinionwas in favour of legislation. Ashort and tentative Bill was drawn, and in the summer of

1 900 an exceptional ly strong committee devoted severalweeks of labour to the completion of the scheme. ThePunjab Land Alienation Act proceeds on the assumptionthat the hereditary cultivator must be assisted to keep hisland

,and this has been efl

'

ected by restricting his freedomof alienation, by prescribing forms of mortgage suited to

local conditions, and by investing the Deputy Commissionerin each district with powers of revision and control . The

supporters of the Act did not deny that it was an experi

mental measure. If I may judge from the annual reportsof its working, the experiment has been a success . TheViceroy’s speech on the passing of the Act contains hisanswer to those who deprecated al l interference with rightsof property.

I f the peasant is to free himself from the load of debt,

it is not enough to strengthen his hold on the land. Hemust learnto save, and to co-operate with his neighbours inthe use and managem ent of money . The problem hereencountered was one of extreme difficulty but m any mindswere at work upon it. Able civilians

,who had studied

R a ifl‘

e isen and Schulze-Delitzsch, had advocated the introduction of agricultural banks into India ; some had even

INTR OD UCTI ON xxv

started co-Operative schemes on their own responsibility.

Founding themselves on the report of a departmental comm ittee

,the Government of I ndia resolved to attempt a

genera l scheme, and their proposals were ultimately passedinto law in March 1 904. I n closing the debate on the

pass ing of the Co-Operative Credit Societies Act, LordCurzon was able to congratulate the Council on havingreached the final stage of a measure which had been receivedwith unanimous approval , and which, if successful ly pursued,wil l be of lasting advantage to the cultivating classes.

ARCHE OLOGY

In the course of his official tours, Lord Curzon startledthe apathy of certain local authorities by tel l ing them thatthe conservation of ancient monuments was one of theprim ary obl igations of Government ; long before he leftIndia, he had secured their e nthusiastic support. Th isobligation had been acknowledged, in general terms, but,with rare exceptions, it had not been adequately performed .

The Viceroy’s address to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in1 900 contained the promise of a new period of efl

'

ort ; andthe speech delivered on the passing of the AncientMonuments Act in 1 904 wil l give some idea of what LordCurzon was able to accomplish in his time. His own sharein the work was by no means l imited to the delivery of

addresses, or to the issue of general orders . I never visitedan ancient building in India without finding that the Viceroyhad been there before me, measuring, verifying, planningout the details of repair and reconstruction , labouring toinspire his local subordinates with his own passionatereverence for the historic past.In reporting to Council on the restoration of the Moghul

pa laces and tombs, Lord Curzon mentioned with satisfactionthat the S kil led workmen of Agra had lent themselves tothe enterprise with as much zeal and taste as their forerunners 300 years ago.

” He was not content to revive them emory of the past ; he desired also to impress his I ndianfriends with the conviction that their country still possessed,in the craftsmen of her V il lages and towns, a body of men

xxvi INTRODUCTI ON

who would rival the best work of their ances tors, if theyreceived the necessary stimulus and encouragement. Whenthe Coronation Durbar was being planned, no part of thescheme owed more to the Viceroy’s care and thought thanthe Art Exhibition . He spared no pains to make it agenuine product of native skil l and taste ; and under hisdirection every corner of I ndia was ransacked for the bestexamples of metal-work, textile fabrics, and wood-carving.

To a Viceroy of this way of thinking, the modern publ icbuildings of India can present but few attractions but LordCurzonwas as deeply interested in their style and construet ion as inthe conservation of anc ient monuments. A Frenchwriter

,shocked by our jerry-built offices and Courts

,has

declared that when the British Empire disappears, it wil lleave no monument, except some heaps of empty tins.Lord Curzon did what he could to remove this reproach .

He persuaded the Secretary of State to give him anarchitectural adviser ; and the public buildings erected atCalcutta and Simla in his time bear testimony to thisrevival of interest. Before many years have passed,Calcutta wil l also contain the most splendid and enduringm onument of these aspirations

,the Victoria Memorial Hal l

,

a structure of white marble,now be ing erected on the

Maidan, to commemorate the first Queen-Empress of I ndia,

and to serve as a Gallery of I ndian history and art. Thefoundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales inJanuary 1 906 . The speeches in which Lord Curzonexplained the purpose and design of the bui lding areincluded in this volum e.

CH IEFS AND PR INCES

As I have stated above, three-fifths of India are directlyadministered by His Majesty

,acting through the Governor

General and his subordinates. The remaining two-fifths areincluded in the Native States. The territories of a NativeS tate are not British territory ; the inhabitants are notBr itish subjects. Legislative authority is exercised by theru ling Chief in his own Durbar or Counci l the courts of

the State are in no way subject to our H Igh Courts , nor

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xxvi ii INTRODUCTI ON

Corps,he was doing his utmost to trainup a succession of

young men whom the Viceroys of a later time wil l gladlyrecognise as colleagues and partners ” worthy of theirtrus t. The Chiefs’ Col leges are not very old but they haveexisted long enough to discover that their progres s must, fora time

, be slow . India is a country where distinctions of

rank are careful ly marked, and rigidly observed. I t is notto be expected that every rul ing Prince will perceive theadvantage of placing h is sons in a College or a Corps wherethey are subjected to impartial discipline, and brought intocompetition with lads of less exal ted famil ies . Our own

schemes of educat ion have perhaps been too l iterary ; wehave not always remembered that the object of a Chiefs’

College is not preparation for examinations, but preparationfor l ife.” These d ifficulties exist, but Lord Curzon has donehis best to prove that they exist to be overcome ; and themarked advance recorded in his farewel l speech to the

Chiefs at I ndore is the best augury for the future.

THE CORONATION DURBAR

It would be a mistake to suppose that the Sovereigntyof the Crown was introduced into India by the Government of India Act of 1 8 58 . The East India Company,which “ began in commerce and ended in empire,

” wascreated by a royal charter ; its power to make peace andwar

,and to negotiate with the Princes of I ndia, was derived

from the Crown and Parl iament of Great Britain; the

Directors and the officials whom they appointed were,as

Lord Hardwicke explained to them,only delegates and

trustees. But the transfer of direct administration , theterms of Her Majesty’s Proclamation

, and the assumptionof a new title in 1 8 76 ,

had established a m ore direct anda more personal tie between Sovereign and People. I t was

,

therefore, only right that the accession of the first Emperorof India Should be duly and worthily celebrated . By command of His Majesty, Lord Curzonmade arrangements fora Durbar to be held at Delhi

,and there was general rejoicing

when it was known that the Duke and Duchess of Connaught would be present.

INTRODUCTION xxix

To provide for the reception and entertainment of manythousand guests—including more than a hundred rulers ofNative States—was a task of no ordinary magnitude. LordCurzon was supported by a band of very able assistants ,each of whom had his own Share in the success that wasachieved. I was myself only one of the guests, borne alongupon the current of each day’s proceedings ; but in goingthrough the camps I came to the conclusion that theha rmony and good order which prevailed were largely dueto the fact that every detai l of importance had been foreseen and provided for by one controll ing mind.

The Durbar was a pageant,such as none of us who

were present can hOpe to see again but it was much morethan a pageant. The vast amphitheatre, roofed only bythe clear winter sky ; the quiet advent of Princes andGovernors, each bearing his allotted part in the display, eachbr inging his tribute of respect and loyalty—these were tous the V isible signs of the peace and unity which Englandhas bestowed on India. The cordial sincerity of the King

’smes sage, the sober and well-chosen words of the Viceroy ,

expre ssed the thoughts that were in every mind .

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

I n England the Government,in relation to trade and

industry, is mainly a regulative agency ; the Legislatureintervenes only to protect the health and safety of thepersons employed. In India

,where capital is less abundant

and the forces of industry more widely scattered, the Government is expected to take a direct interest in useful undertakings ; and Lord Curzon threw himself into this part of

hi s work with active sympathy. He found time to V isitthe coal-fields of Bengal, the gold -mines of Kolar

,the oil

wel ls of Burma, the tea-gardens of Assam . Ontwo occasionshis Government had to undertake the difli cult but unavoidableduty of amending and strengthening the regulations introduced for the protection of labour.Even before 1 8 9 9 the mining industry in Bengal had

secured a strong position in Eastern markets. The coalwas of good quality, and easily won ; the labour force was

xxx INTROD UCTION

recruited among the Sonthals , and other more or less primitive peoples. There was no reason to suspect that theemployers

,as a class, were indifferent to the welfare of their

labourers ; but it was known that in some cases venti lationand sanitation had been entirely neglected. Preventibleaccidents had occurred, and in certain mines the conditionsof underground life were in every way unsatisfactory. Thecase for a regulating Act was strong ; but when a Bil l wasintroduced, it was received with a good deal of grumbling.

A S might have been anticipated, the Viceroy was accused of

hampering industry by needless rules, and of punishing thegood employer for the sins of his less careful neighbours .Lord Curzon was anxious to secure the assistance of the

mine-owners in framing his regulations ; the Bill was postponed for a year, and the interval was so wel l employed thatthe Mines Act of 1 900 was passed with the consent andapproval of those whose interests were affected. In the

Calcutta session of the following year the chief place in theprogramme of legislation was given to the Assam LabourBil l ; abuses which had grown Up in connection with the

labour trafli c were corrected, and the position of the cooliewas distinctly improved . I n India

,as in some other parts

of the world,it is found impossible to start new industr ies

un less with the aid of labourers who are unable to protectthemselves by contract. The legislation which makes thispossible is the affair of Government, and Government is notjustified in giving the necessary powers unless it is madecertain that the coolie wil l not be il l -treated or deprived of

his share in the reward of industry. I t may be that beforelong the Government and the tea-planters wil l be able todispense with special legislation , and to rely on the ordinaryaction of demand and Supply

,supplemented by those pro

visions of the existing law which experience has shown to benecessary.

Of the speeches on commercial subjects delivered byLord Curzon two only are now reprinted . He frequentlyhad occasion to dwell on the importance of a sound currencypolicy and stability of exchange as the basis of economicprogress on the necessity for the employment of capital ona large scale—i f possible, British and I ndian capital in com

INTRODUCTI ON xxxi

bination on the community of interes t between Governmentand those engaged in developing the resources of the country ;on the fallacy of the familiar doctrine that there is a constant“ drain of wealth from I ndia ; on the policy of encouragingnative industries ; on the financial soundness of an extendedra i lway programme and reduced telegraph rates. I havealready mentioned the establishment of a new Departmentof Commerce and Industry. When Lord Curzon left I ndiathe Chambers of Commerce gave emphatic expression to theappreciation and the regret of the business world.

EDUCATION

Since the establishment of British rule in India ourGove rnment has always made some provision for educationthe outl ines of our present system are traced in the famousdespatch of 1 8 54, and in the recommendations of the Commiss ion which reported in 1 8 8 2 . When Lord Curzon begana searching inquiry into the S ubject

, he was not satisfied withthe rate of progress maintained. I n some quarters the enthus iasm of 1 8 54 had givenplace to the spirit of routine, andthere was a tendency to assume that English education

,as

imparted to natives of India, must always be superficial andsecond- rate.

After a careful preliminary survey Lord Curzon invitedthe chief officers of the education service to meet himin conference at Simla in the autumn of 1 90 1 . Inhis opening speech be indicated C learly the duty incum

bent on Government, and the ideal which he proposed toset before the educated classes of India. The deliberationsof the Conference were held in private ; those who werepresent wil l bear me out in saying that the Viceroy sparedno pains to elicit a ful l Cxpression of all opinions

,whether

they agreed with his own or not. The general sense of themeet ing was embodied in a series of Resolutions , and Government was thus provided with a programme of educationalreform .

For the changes introduced in pursuance of the advicethus obtained, after reference to local Governments andprolonged public discussion

,I must content myself with a

xxxi i INTRODUCTI ON

reference to the Resolution recorded and published by theGovernment of India in March 1 904, and to the Speechdelivered by Lord Curzon at Simla in September 1 9 0 5 .

So far as elementary education was concerned , the chiefdifficulty was to find ways and means. Education hadcommonly been regarded as a matter of provincial concern

,

and the local Governments , always labouring to make bothends meet

,were not able to face a large expenditure. But

the general revenue was steadily improving ; the liberal ityof the Government of India kept pace with the needs of thetime ; finally

,in 1 905 , anannual grant of thirty-five lakhs

for primary education was accepted as a permanent charge.Training col leges, industrial schools, and female educationhave al l benefited in like manner by what one may call theSimla policy—a policy which may be sa id, without overconfidence

,to have opened a new era of successful effort.

On turning to higher education a more thorny problem is disclosed . India posses ses five universities, all ofthem founded on the model of London University as itwas in 1 8 54. By setting the standards of examinationthese bodies control the instruction given in 1 9 1 col leges,numbering altogether about students. It was

originally intended that the colleges should be placed underinspection , but this part of the scheme was overlooked, andno attempt was made to lay down in general terms whata college ought to be . There were, therefore, good collegesworking under many d ifficulties, but animated by a trueacadem ic spirit ; there were others which could only be

described as secondary schoo ls or cramming establishmentsof an unsatisfactory kind . The weaker col leges had a directinterest in lowering the university standards ; they wereencouraged in this aspiration by the governing bodies of theunivers ities themselves. When the three senior universit ieswere founded in 1 8 57 the Senates then appointed weresmall bodies, mainly academic in character ; their leadingmembers were men engaged for the most part in teaching

,

and competent to advise the Government on questionsrelating to the higher education . The Senates of 1 9 00

were large bodies, mainly composed of gentlemen who madeit their object to attract the largest possible number of

INTRODUCTI ON xxxii i

students , and to turn out the largest possible number of

graduates. Even in Bombay, where the col leges werefewer, and consequently better, than in Bengal

,the

university was controlled by a large body of professionalmen whose aims were not academic. N0 university madeany p roper provision for advanced study. N0 universityhad a l ibrary, or a laboratory, in which research work couldbe done.These defects were fully considered at the Simla Con

ference, but it was felt that college teachers had a right tobe consulted ; a Commission appointed for this purposereported in 1 902 . The Report, which embodied a schemefor the reconstitution of the Senates, was received with astorm of protest, especial ly in Bengal . I t was freely assertedthat the Viceroy was resolved to ofl'icialise the universities , and to insist on an impossible standard of efficiency

,

so that the weaker colleges might be forced out of existence.If these had been the Viceroy’s objects he might have

fal len back on the despatch of 1 8 54 he might S imply havetaken statutory power to appoint inspectors and to frameregulations. Lord Curzon had in fact determined to relyon university action . His plan was to provide all theuniversities with new Senates, mainly composed of teachers

,

and to leave each university to frame its own regulationsand inspect its own colleges. These were the most important provisions of the Bill introduced at Simla in the summerof 1 90 3 , discussed and passed into law at Calcutta in theSpring of 1 904. To secure an adequate discussion of thisBil l four univers ity teachers were appointed to the Legislat ive Council.The Universities Act has now been in operation for

some time, and, so far as I can learn , none of the appre

hended evils have followed in its train . The Senates havenot been ofl‘icialised,

” nor have they shown themselvesoppressive or inconsiderate even in deal ing with unsatisfactory col leges. I am one of those who think that thepeople of I ndia should be trained and encouraged to takea larger part inthe management of their own affairs ; andI venture to say that the Universities Act is the mostpowerful instrument yet devised for the attainment of that

xxxiv INTRODUCTI ON

end . I t is sti ll included by the Congress in their annualcatalogue of Lord Curzon’s retrograde measures.

CONVOCATION SPEECHES

N0 account of Lord Curzon’s educa tional work wouldbe complete without some reference to the annual Addresseswhich he delivered as Chancel lor of the Calcutta University,two of which are now republished. The note of controversyis not absent from these speeches, but in listening to themwe felt that the Viceroy was addressing his audience, not ashead of the Government, but as the head of an educationalbody to whose we lfare and progress he attached supremeimportance, and that his chief des ire was to awake a spiritof hOpe and courage among graduates and students. Hewould not admit that the university system was a failure ;he invited his hearers to help him in improving it. Our

progress since 1 8 54 had been“ not slow but startling

but much remained to be done—much that could only bedone by Indians ; for if Government was to accept heavierresponsibilities in connection with elementary schools, thehigher education must always be a field for private efl

'

ort .

He besought the students to believe that their Englisheducation was not intended to denationalise them , but ratherto fit them for an intel lectual campaign in which East andWest Should march together. “ Let the Engl ishman andthe Indian accept the consecration of a union that is somysterious as to have in it something of the divine

,and let

our common ideal be a united country and a happierpeople.”

I n the Convocation Address of 1 90 5 the Chancelloradverted briefly to the difficulties of his task . He mightnot always succeed in understanding the thoughts of youngIndia ; they might find obscure meanings in what seemedto him to be simple and true. Stil l, there are certain idealswhich are the common property of al l humanity ; and amongthese Lord Curzon gave the first place to truthfulness. Hewent on to say that truth had taken a high place in the

moral codes of the West before it was similarly honouredin the East, and he suggested that Oriental opinion as to

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xxxvi INTRODUCT101V

of schools at hil l stations, and the supply of qualified teachers.These measures produced a marked reaction , and in theannals of the Euras ian community Lord Curzon wil l beacknowledged as one of their best friends .

FAMINE ADMINI STRATION

From the earliest times India has been liable to period sof famine and scarcity, attended by terrible suffering andloss of l ife. The mass of the people are dependent on agr iculture their lives are at the mercy of grea t natural forceswh ich no Government can control. If the rains do notarrive

,the crops may be deficient by 50 per cent in one

district,and total ly des troyed in the next. Under Moham

medanrule, the authorities, central or local , could do nothingcommunications were then so S low that the wisest and mostpowerful of the Moghuls would have found it impossible tosend help from headquarters to a suffering province. Railways

,good roads, and honest administration have done much

to S implify the problem the principles and methods of

rel ief have been reduced to a system,and embodied in the

Famine Code of 1 8 9 8 . But the art of administration cannotbe codified, any more than the art of war. When the

calamity is upon us, we stil l have to rely on the energy andresource of our local officers , and on the discretion whichenables them to carry out large plans of relief withoutpauperising the cultivator or disorganising the industry bywhich he l ives.The famine of 1 8 9 9

- 1 900 affected a population of 2 5millions in British India , and of more than 30 millions inNative States. Preparations for relief were made on a scaleof unexampled magnitude. The Viceroy’s share of thework was not limited to what he did or directed to be doneat Simla ; he V isited the suffering districts

,and formed an

independent Opinion on the sufficiency of the methodsemployed. His presence was welcomed by the people as anassurance that Government would do al l that was possible tosave them .

The two speeches included in this volume wil l enablethe reader to understand the extent of this awful calam ity

INTRODUCTION xxxvii

and the spirit in which it was m et. In the B udget debateof March 1 900, Lord Curzon gave the Council an exactest imate of the existing and impending scarcity. In the

following October he was able to present a report on them easures of relief carried out under his supervision. Of al lthe speeches in Council during my time this is the one whichim pressed m e most at the time of its delivery it is a soberand dignified narrative of efforts and sacrifices which everyEnglishmanmay take pride in remembering. Some partymen at home thought this a suitable time to attack theViceroy of India. They accused him of sitting helplesslyby while the people starved. The people are

,happily,

better informed than their self-appointed advocates.

IRRIGATION

Both in England and in India, the critics of Governmenthave contended that the true remedy for famine lies inpress ing forward great works of irrigation. The water that

goes to waste in any one of our mighty rivers would be the

sa lvation of the country if it were stored and distributed.

Lord Curzon gave the answer to this argument in the

Budget debate of 1 90 5 . I n attempting to cope withdrough t and scarcity , we are in the presence of naturalforces which human power has not succeeded, and m ay

never succeed, in controlling. Cherrapunji in Assam mayrece ive as many as twenty inches of rain in twenty-four hoursit lies below a mountain ridge which breaks the journey of

im mense masses of vapour, rising from the Bay of Bengal,

and brings them down in the form of rain such as Englishmen at home have never seen , and can but imperfectlyim agine. We need not count the number of gallons for in

the face of such a deluge the ablest engineer, backed by all

the resources of Government, cannot secure more than asmall fraction for the use of the cultivator. While Cherrapunj i is submerged, Rajputana may be crying out for water.At the outset of his administration , Lord Curzon

reviewed the history of our schemes of irrigation, and

endeavoured to form a practica l estimate of the progresswhich m ight be achieved in his time. Inthe Budget debate

xxxvi ii INTRODUCTI ON

of 1 900, he stated that 1 9 mil lions of acres were alreadyunder irrigation : under the head of productive works (i .e.

works which are expected to pay) he looked forward to anextension of 35 million acres, at an outlay of eight or ninemillions sterling. These estimates were, in the main , borneout by the inquiries of a Commission, presided over by SirColin Scott-Moncriefl

’

. The report, which was presented in1 903, is a document of great interest and value, and it wil lserve as a kind of Irrigation Code for a long time to come.

In going about India, I have often been struck by thefact that every special branch of our work—I rrigation, orForestry, or Police —calls for the exercise of administrativeSkill , and is only rendered possible by the gi fts of leadershipand management which our ofl‘i cers usually possess. Of

this general truth the history of the Chenab Canal, as tracedin Lord Curzon’s speech at Lyal lpur, afl

'

ords an illustration .

It is a considerable feat to have turned a mil l ion acres froma jungle to a smiling expanse of cultivation . We Shouldnot forget that this beneficent project involved the removaland resettlement of many thousand people ; and the peoplewere Punjabis

,firmly attached to their own rights and

customs, and not always easy to manage . Similar projectshave now been devised the money has been promised andthere is work in hand which will keep the engineers of the

Government of India busily occupied for twenty years tocome.

To the list of administrative changes for which LordCurzon was responsible, we have stil l to add three greatreforms to which he devoted much time and thought. He

improved the departmental working of the Government of

India by releasing its ofli cers from the tyranny of the penthe number of obl igatory reports was considerably reduced ;and the practice of the secretariat was somewhat simplified .

After an exhaustive inquiry, he took steps to improve the

personnel and training of the Police Force,which had been

recruited, in many parts of the country, from an inferior

class, and was regarded by the people as an oppressive andcorrupt body. Final ly, Lord Curzon led the way in asustained endeavour to obtainthe recognitionof Agricultureas a science deserving the liberal support of Government ;

INTRODUCTI ON xxxix

and in future the hereditary Skil l and aptitude of the peoplewil l be supplemented by experiment and research, and by

good practical tuition . I n carrying out the two reforms lastmentioned, it was necessary not only to establish sound

p r inciples, but to provide ample funds.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

I t is part of the Viceroy’s duty to take charge of theForeign Department, which conducts the correspondence of

India with neighbouring powers, keeps the British Govemment informed on questions of Asiatic pol icy connected withIndia, and supervises the administration of the Native States.This arrangement lays a heavy burden of work on the headof the administration, but it secures his prompt attention topersonal questions which might, if otherwise disposed of, giveoccasion for misunderstanding.

Under Lord Curzon’s management, the re lations betweenInd ia and foreign powers were , speaking general ly, quitesatisfactory. The death of Abdurrahman in 1 90 1 was notfollowed by any disturbance, and the good understandingestabl ished with him was continued with his successorHabibullah. The delimitation of the Seistan boundaryremoved a source of constant trouble between Persia andAfgha nistan. The delimitation of the Aden Hinterland wasattended by more serious difficulties, but it ended by securinga sa tisfactory line of division between British and Turkishspheres of influence.In Persia,where he was already wel l known as a travel ler,

Lord Curzon devoted all his efforts to the opening of traderoutes, the extension of the telegraph system,

and themaintenance of good relations with Persian Governors andborder Chieftains. In these perfectly legitimate ways be

aimed at building up an influence commensurate with ourlarge interest in the trade of the country. Finally, in theautumn of 1 903, the Viceroy paid a visit to the PersianGulf. After touching at Muscat, an independent ArabState under British influence, the Squadron proceeded tothose points on the coast where British subjects, English andIndian

, are engaged in business. At Shargah, on what

xl INTRODUCTI ON

used to be known as the Pirate Coast, a Durbarwas held on board the A rgonaut for the Chiefs of thelittoral . I n reading the Speech delivered on that occasion,let the English reader bear in mind that the Persian Gulf iskept open for the commerce of al l nations by British power,and that the Chiefs are kept at peace among themselves byrespect for British authority. I venture to say that the wordsSpoken by the Viceroy of India have produced a deep and

lasting effect on the Arab mind . Nothing was wanting thatcould lend dignity or picturesque variety to the scene, and

al l present must have noted the S ignificance of this meetingbetween the British ships, with all their e laborate perfectionof equipment, and the boldly handled but more primitivecraft in which our visitors made their approach.

In conducting the foreign affairs of India, Lord Curzonnever forgot that the North-West Frontier is or may at anytime become the key of our strategic position . He recognised,more fully than some at least of his predecessors

,that

I ndian policy must be co-ordinated with the policy of theImperial Government. In the work of Imperial defenceI ndia has to bear her part ; and India has not been foundwanting. The Government of India lent the troops whichsaved Natal from an imminent danger ; recovered Somaliland from the Mullah and rescued the Legations at Peking.

THE NORTH -WEST FRONTIER

Before he left the House of Commons,Lord Curzon had

spoken, as a member of Lord Salisbury’s Ministry ,on the

subject of Frontier Policy. His contention then was,that

the policy associated with the name of Lord Lawrence hadbeen rendered obsolete by change of circumstances, andespecial ly by improved communications. I t is no longerpossible for the Government of India to remain inactivewithin its own administrative boundary

,and to decline

responsibility for all that happens in the debatable landbey ond . Our chief hOpe of peace now l ies

,not in a Forward

policy, but in cultivating friendly relations with the tribes,and in avoiding all measures which give them any excusefor suspecting us of aggressive intentions. For measures of

INTRODUCTI ON xli

police in tribal territory, it is prudent to rely as far as

poss ible on local levies under carefully selected Britishofl‘icers .

These are in fact the principles on which Lord Curzonproceeded to act in India. Along the whole frontier, fromChi tral to Se istan

,regular troops have been withdrawn, and

their place has been taken by tribal militia or levies. Thispolicy involves an element of risk, but it affords the bestsecurity for peace and order, provided always that it iscom bined with a firm and judicious handling of frontierdifficul ties. The seven years of Lord Curzon’s term have beenyears of peace ; there have been no little wars, no militaryor quasi-military operations, except the blockade established against those very obstinate people the MahsudWazir is .

With a V iew to the prompt and effective Solution of

frontier questions, Lord Curzon proposed to separate aconsiderable tract of country from the Punjab ; and the

res ult of this proposal was, the constitution of the newNorth West Frontier Province. There were some distinguished officers, then serving in the Punjab, who resentedthe change, as involving a reflection on the manner in whichtheir work on the frontier had been done. But the Viceroy’sargument prevailed ; the new province is now in its fifthyear

,and I have reason to believe that the objections

, whichat one time were vigorously pressed

,are now no longer

hea rd. If Lord Curzon deprived the Punjab of part of itspopulation , he has made good the deficiency, by the

encouragement given to the policy of irrigation, which

promises to add some millions of contented inhabitants totha t historic province. In the new province

,internal peace

has been secured, and there is a marked improvement inevery branch of administration .

Lord Curzon has been described as the most outspokenof our Indian Viceroys ; and in addressing the Chiefs of thefrontier he told them plainly what the objects of his policywere. His speeches at Quetta and Peshawur ought to becareful ly studied ; they produced a great, and, I believe, alast ing effect on the Khans and Sirdars to whom they wereaddres sed. In the East, wisdom is supposed to be the

xlii INTRODUCTI ON

attribute of age ; there was something picturesque in the

high dignity of an ofli ce which entitled Lord Curzon to takethe chief place in an assembly of greybeards, and to addressthem in the language of friendly exhortation and soundadvice.

THE TIBET M ISS ION

The Tibetan Question is not argued at length in anyof these speeches , but it is sometimes brought forward insupport of the assertion that Lord Curzon was an aggressiveand warlike Viceroy. A brief statement of facts wil l enablethe impartial critic to form his own opinion.

In 1 8 8 7 the Government of Lhasa invaded Sikkim,a

country under British protection . Defeated in this enterprise, they entered into a treaty under which a boundarywas agreed upon, and certain trading facilities were concededto British subjects. The trade thus established was notlarge enough to impress Sir Henry Cotton, but it yielded aprofit to native tea-merchants from India ; and, if it hadbeen fairly treated, it might have been developed . It wasnot fairly treated. From the outset, the Tibetan authoritiesdid not observe the provisions of the treaty . It may be saidthat in decl ining to trade with us they only wished to safeguard the “ isolation of their country. Tibet is not in factan isolated countr'y and the Dalai Lama, as everybody nowunderstands, was bent on playing a part in the politics of

Central Asia. The objects of his pol icy were wel l known.

He wished to reduce the suzerainty of China to a nullity ; tohave no communication with India ; and to cultivate thegoodwill of Russia, which he regarded as the predominantAsiatic power. In 1 90 1 he despatched a special missionto the Czar. The Russian Foreign Minister explained thatthis mission had no political significance ; and the BritishForeign Minister, quite rightly, accepted this assurance.Lord Curzon and his Government, who were throughout

unanimous,were not disposed to acquiesce in continued

breaches of a treaty in which British subjects had a substantial interest. The Viceroy began with a courteousrequest that our complaints Should be considered ; and hisletters were returned unopened . In 1 902 he arranged a

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xliv INTRODUCTI ON

something to have dispelled the notion that a government ofBuddhist monks can make themselves independent of thepublic law of Asia. The Tashi Lama, who succeeds to the

spiritual throne vacated by the Dalai Lama, has visitedI ndia and paid his respects to the Prince of Wales ; and wemay look forward to the gradual development of friendlyintercourse between our people and their neighbours inTibet.

BENGAL

Under the Moghul Emperors, the kingdom or provinceof Bengal included the three sub - provinces of Bengal,Behar, and Orissa ; all these were taken over by Clive, onbehalf of the Company, in 1 76 5 .

From Bengal as a base of operations, the Companyextended its jurisdiction

,westward and eastward

,over the

whole of Northern India. The political map of the territories thus acquired was formed by a process of accretionand separation . It was at one time intended to divideBengal into two Presidencies having their headquarters at

Agra and at Calcutta respectively ; but this p rOposal wasnot carried out. The North-Western Provinces of Bengal ”

became a Lieutenant-Governorship in 1 8 36 ; the Punjab,annexed in 1 849 , was also placed in charge of a LieutenantGovernor ten years later. In the north-east, Assam , an

nexed to Bengal in 1 8 26, became a separate Chief-Comm iss ionersh ip in 1 8 74.

Bengal (the three original sub provinces, with the

addition of Eastern Bengal) stil l remained by far the

heaviest charge entrusted to any Local Government. WhenLord Curzon went to India

,no head of a province was

administering much more than half the population whichlooked to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal .The duties incumbent on the head of a province are

we l l known to those of our countrymen who have resided ortrave l led in India. The Lieutenant Governor, who is

always a civilian of more than thirty years’ standing, is

expected to know every district in his province, its resources,its needs, and its aspirations. He must cultivate the

friendship of those leading members of the Hindu and

INTRODUCTI ON xlv

Mohammedan communities on whom he relies for advice atall t imes, and for support in moments of difficulty. Hemust know the local civil service ; only intimate knowledgecanenable him to distribute promotion and censure with an

evenhand.

I t is physically impossible that these duties Should be

performed by one man for a population of eighty mill ions.Exper ience proved that the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengalwas hopelessly over-weighted. Several incumbents of theoffice had injured their health by their devotion to duty ;and S ir Charles El liott, whose industry is proverbial, hasdeclared that he found himself quite unable to get throughthe day’s work in the day. The suggestion that theLieutenant-Governor might be assisted by an ExecutiveCouncil was beside the mark for the duties above describedare personal in their nature ; they must be performed inperson , as every Governor of Madras or Bombay has

di scovered for himself.From the Viceroy’s point of V iew, the case for a further

separation was irresistible ; but in this, as in other acts ofhis administration

,Lord Curzon desired

,if possible, to carry

public opinion along with him. The legislative work of

1 904 was exceptionally heavy, but in the middle of the

sess ion the Viceroy found time for a tour through thedis tr icts which were most directly affected by the proposedterr itorial changes. At Chittagong he pointed out to thebusines s community that he was offering them the chanceof becoming the principal port of a new and powerfuladmin istration, not overshadowed by Calcutta, but capableof deve loping its own individual ity. At Dacca he made adispass ionate, one may even say a sympathetic, reply to thearguments advanced against all possible schemes of divisionat Mymensingh he continued his exposition

,and answered

point by point the wild assertions which were circulatingfreely among the people.These speeches

,which

,being only of temporary interest,

are not reprinted here,produced their legitimate efl

'ect. In

the following summer, while Lord Curzon was in England,the scheme of subd ivision assumed its final shape. Therewere, however, certain interests, not local in their nature,

xlvi INTRODUCTI ON

and not likely to be conciliated by argument. Calcuttabegan to fear that her supremacy was in danger. Zemindars,pleaders, and bankers organised meetings of protest, inwhich students and even schoolboys took a conspicuouspart. Large numbers of persons were induced to put

pressure on the Anglo- I ndian community by boycott ingEnglish goods. That some loss was thus inflicted on

English merchants is not to be denied ; but when oneconsiders that Lord Curzon was himself a strenuous championand partisan of Indian industries, the logic of the Swades/n

’

movement, as a protest against his policy, is not qui teapparent.The agitators made their appeal from an autocratic

Viceroy to Bengali sentiment. That sentiment exists, andin my opinion it ought to be encouraged ; for every friendof India wishes to see a healthy rivalry between the variouscommunities which make up one Empire . But when th islocal patriotism displays itself in Swades/zi movements andthe like, I venture to offer two remarks for the considerationof my Indian friends. In the first place, we cannot forgetthat the Bengali race has attained its present position of

prosperity and influence only under British rule. Underthe Mohammedan Nawabs, as a recent writer reminds us ,the real Bengalis were seldom of sufli cient importance tobe mentioned by native historians. ” Under our government

,they have ful l scope for their great intel ligence and

capacity ; they dominate their own province, and they pushout into other parts of I ndia, where they have no hereditaryright to exist, and where, but for our laws, they could nothold their own . In the second place, Bengal i sentiment,where it exists

,is not in the least affected by the adm inis

trative reform of Lord Curzon . The patriotic Bengaliretains his language

,his literary traditions, his pride in the

success of his own people he may sti l l look to Calcutta asa great centre of academic and social influence.I t is indeed one of the ironies of fortune that Calcutta

should more than once have taken the lead in opposing LordCurzon

’

s measures. Since Lord Wellesley’

s time, no

Governor-General has laboured so hard to elucidate the

history,to strengthen the institutions, and to evoke the

INTRODUCTI ON xlvi i

corporate Spirit of the capital city. Under Lord Curzon’sdirect ion, and to a great extent by his personal exertions,the historic l ines of Fort W i l liam were retraced andperm anently marked . The Metcalfe Hal l, rescued fromcom pa rative neg lect, was made the home of a great Libraryaccess ible to readers of all classes. It is true that in dealing w ith the local Corporation the scheme of reform whichLord Curzon inherited from his predecessor incurred the

hosti li ty of the more advanced section of native opin ion.In the end, Calcutta came to recognise and admire the civicpa tri otism of the Viceroy ; and in due time his statue wil lbe added to the l ine of eminent statesmen and soldiers, whoare commemorated, in marble or in bronze, on the historicMaidan .

M ILITARY ADMINISTRATION

I n approaching the subject of military administration,

the Viceroy of India finds himself between two fires. Hehas to cope with the arguments of gentlemen who seem toassum e that all mil itary expenditure is a waste of money ;and he has to meet the demands of the experts, who are sobent on perfecting the machine that they lose sight of theBudge t altogether.

In 1 8 9 9 the efli ciency of the IndianArmy was calledin question by critics at home

,who were experts, but not

exact ly specialists they knew little of the efforts of successive Mi l itary Members of Council, and made no allowancefor their difficulties. To the general charge of inefficiency,South Africa and China have supplied a fairly completeanswer ; but there could be no doubt that in some pointsour m il itary preparations were inadequate. The Viceroy’sfirst duty is to make India safe ; and India is not safeunless her armies are able to face European troops, armedwith the best modern weapons. This being the standard,it was found necessary to re-arm the native regiments ;to strengthen the artil lery, and to make a substantialaddition to the number of British oflficers . These changesinvo lved a large expenditure, and in the Budget debate of

1 900 Lord Curzon announced that there would probably beno reduction of military estimates in his time. It is need

xlviii INTRODUCTI ON

less to say that this announcement was unpopular but theC ircumstances of the time were favourable to the taxpayerthe public revenue was such as to afford a surplus, and thesavings effected by lending troops for service out of I ndiawere applied in carrying out the necessary improvements.Among the items of expense was a sum assigned for

the introduction of electric lighting and electric fans intobarracks. This may appear to be a deta i l but it re lates toa matter which Lord Curzon had at heart. He knew wellthat the hot, dark night is the time when the British soldier

’s

temper gives way and the punkah-coolie who goes to sleepruns the risk of being maimed or killed . Every such assaultwas regarded by Lord Curzon as a serious incident callingfor strict investigation

,and

,where an offence was proved,

for adequate punishment. His action exposed him to muchhostile comment from his own countrymen , and no part of

his conduct was more frequently discussed in Anglo- I ndiannewspapers. I do not now propose to enter ful ly into thiscontroversy. To do so it would be necessary to exam inethe evidence and procedure in each case—a course of pre

paratory study with which Lord Curzon’s critics havecommonly dispensed. He was deeply interested in anyplan which promised to add to the comfort of Britishsoldiers, but he was determined to exact from them a highstandard of behaviour and a due regard for the rights oftheir Indian fellow- subjects.

THE NEW ARMY DEPARTMENT

Lord Curzon’s experience in India had given him confidence in the military system which he had to administer.Under that system the Military Department was placed incharge of an Ordinary Member of Council , always a soldier,but precluded, during his term of offi ce

,from holding any

command in the Army. The ofl‘ice had been held by m en

inthe first rank of their profession , such as were Sir GeorgeChesney and Sir Henry Brackenbury. The MilitaryMember remained at the headquarters of Governmentduring the working year, and was the constitutional adviserof the Viceroy on questions relating to the Army.

INTRODUCTI ON xlix

The Secretary of State was empowered to appoint,and

did ,as a general rule, appoint the Commander- in-Chief to

be an Extraordinary Member of Council. As head of theA rm y, the Commander- in-Chief was responsible for promo

tion and discipline, and for al l movements of troops. In

case of war, he might have to take command in the field,

and even in time of peace his duties often prevented himfrom attending regularly inCouncil.

The relations between Army Headquarters and theMilita ry Department varied to some extent with the personal qual ities of the two distinguished ofli cers concerned ;friction was usually avoided , but there was an occasionalm isunderstanding. At Simla the two oflfices were closetogether ; but they conducted their business by correspon

dence. When the Commander- in-Chief had a proposal tom ake, it was brought to the notice of the Viceroy in Councilthrough the Military Department.This procedure was strongly objected to by Lord

Ki tchener, who arrived in India at the end of 1 902 . H is

plan was , to create an Army Department of which he shouldhim se lf he the head, and to transfer to this new authoritythe whole business of military administration.

I was not in Council when this plan was discussed,and

my experience does not qualify me to offer an Opinion onthe merits of Lord Kitchener’s proposal . Lord Curzon

,

who was supported by the Ordinary Members of his Council,

was unable to accept it. They were unanimously of opinionthat the tendency of the scheme was to concentrate militaryauthority in the hands of the Commander-ln-Chief

,and to

subvert the supremacy of the civil power by depriving it of

independent military advice. Even as amended by the

Secretary of State, the scheme was stil l found open to

objection . The Military Member was to be retained ; butthe position assigned to him was such that the Govem or

General in Council thought he could no longer rely on

having the assistance of an ofli cer thoroughly acquaintedwith the Indian Army, and entitled to express an independent Opinion on the political, financial, and adm inistrativeaspects of all military proposals. The Government mightthus be left without adequate means of information

, face

I INTRODUCTI ON

to face with the newly constituted mil itary power. The

scheme,they considered, could only be worked to advantage

if it were laid down that the new Supply Member should bea mil itary officer of great experience, authorised to act asthe general adviser of Government. Lord Curzon indicatedthe type of officer he wanted, and suggested a name. The

Secretary of State rejected the Viceroy’s recommendation,

and intimated that Lord Curzon should consult the Comm ander - in- Chief as to the officer to be selected. Mr.Brodrick

’

s description of the class of officer to be appointed,

and the terms in which be defined the advisory powers of

the Supply Member, were not satisfactory to Lord Curzon.

Convinced that a serious, and, as he thought, a dangerousrevolution was contemplated in the constitution of the

Government of India, he tendered his resignation in August1 90 5 , and left India in the following November.

THE PRESS

I ndia, that is to say, the educated C lass in India, isabundantly supplied with newspapers, more or less close lyconforming to the type of English journalism . Lord Curzonwas a dil igent student of their columns ; he received fromthem many hints which he turned to practical account ; andhe was always wil ling to supply them with information .

He instituted a Press Room at Calcutta and Simla,for the

purpose of enabling the newspapers to obtain full and earlyintell igence of offi cial proceedings.

Onmany disputed questions the Indianand the AngloIndian papers take different sides ; the former were joinedby many of the latter in opposition to the Ofl‘i cial SecretsBill of 1 903. The history of that measure may be given ina very few words. Certain persons had been discovered inthe act of photographing fortifications ; the military author ities wished to prosecute, but they were advised that underthe Act then in force, which dated from 1 8 8 9 , it would benecessary to prove a criminal intention, and the offenderswent unpunished . It was plainly expedient to strengthenthe law. On taking up the Act for amendment

,it was

found to have been so drafted that,while one eminent

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li i INTRODUCTI ON

fluttered the dovecotes of ofl‘icialism , but there are few ot

those who worked with and under him who wil l refuse to

acknowledge his earnest desire to do justice and to do good.

By the Princes and Chiefs he wil l be remembered as arepresentative of the Crown who sought their friendship and

aided their efforts without encroaching on their independence. For the people there are, as we know,

manymill ions of m en in India to whom the Viceroy of the

moment is only a passing figure in a procession . Butwherever Lord Curzon’s duties required his personal presence the people too wi l l remember him as a Viceroy whowished to see with his owneyes what they were doing, andwhat was being done for them ; as an Englishman whoproved his sympathy by respecting their beliefs, and his

piety by repairing their temples and tombs.The speeches now collected range over a great var iety

of topics ; they are fused into a consistent whole by LordCurzon’s earnest desire to il lustrate, in deal ing with each

particular question, the principles and aims of British rulein I ndia. He lost no opportunity of testifying to hisconviction that India is in many ways the pivot of ourimperial system ; that its government is the noblest dutyimposed upon the British race and that our duty wil l notbe worthily performed unless justice and humanity are madethe com er-stones of our policy. He has set a high standardfor others and by that standard he must himse lf be judged.

As one of those who shared in the labours of his adm inis

tration, I am not in a position to pass judgment : in thesepages panegyric and criticism would be equally out of place.

My endeavour has been, to state the facts fairly, and to

supply my countrymen with the materials for a wise and

dispassionate verdict.

I NTRODUCTORY

D INNER GIVEN BY OLD ETONIANSIN LONDON

ON October 28 , 1 8 98 , Lord Curzon (V iceroy Designate of

India), the Ear l of Minto (Governor-General-Designate of Canada),and R ev. J. E . C. Welldon (Bishop-Des ignate of Calcutta) wereentertained at a farewell dinner by a large num ber of old Etoniansat the Café Monico in London. The Earl of Rosebery, whopresided , proposed the toas t of Our Guests . Lord Curzonreplied as follows

This gathering to- night, composed as it is of old schoolfellows, old friends, of men who have inherited the sametraditions and are loyal to the same col legiate mother, is acomplim ent which I am sure the happy trio who are fortunateenough to be your guests are never likely to forget. Butif there is anyth ing that could enhance the Special s ignificance and value of that compliment, it would consist inthe fact that Lord Rosebery has consented to Occupy the

chair and in the speech to which we l istened a short whileago. I t wi l l ever be memorable to me, whose publiclife has been associated wi th one political party

,that

at this turning-point in my fortunes, my health has been

proposed by one who has been the leader of the rival

political party. And it wil l be memorable to all of us,your gues ts this evening, that, as we are starting forth forour difl

'

erent spheres of work , the farewell to which wehave listened should have proceeded from the lips of anex-Prim e Minister of England . Surely there is somethingof good omen in this combination. For

,after al l, we each

of us are going out to Occupy , if the expression may beB

2 DINNER GI VEN B Y OLD E TONIANS IN LONDON

permitted , a different thwart in that stout craft of Empire of

which Lord Rosebery once pul led the stroke oar. From his

l ips we have al l of us, on many occasions, imbibed the

lessons of an Imperialism , exalted but not arrogant, fearlessbut not rash—an Imperialism wh ich is every day becomingless and less the creed of a party and more and morethe faith of a nation . I have said that we are espec iallyfortunate in our hosts and in our Chairman. But m ay

I,for myself, also claim a particular good fortune in

the person of one of my fellow-guests it When twenty yearsago Welldon and I l ived together in Paris, in the houseof a French apothecary, to study the French language ;when at a later date we crossed together the UnitedStates of America, and together viewed the glories of

Niagara and the Yosemite ; when on another occas ion,in the company of a dear friend, also present to-night,the Head Master of H aileybury ,

l we rode together acrossthe mountains and valleys of Greece, l ittle did we thinkthat the day would one day come when at the sametime he and I Should be going forth to the same greatcontinent

,to take our Share in that noble work which I

firmly believe has been placed by the inscrutable"

decreesof Providence upon the shoulders of the Br it ishm .

I congratulate India upon having obtained such a successorto the S ec of Heber and of Cotton. I congratulate myse lfthat I shall have as my Spiritual and episcopal master oneof my oldest and dearest of friends.Lord Rosebery has Spoken in gracious terms of the

circumstances under which I have accepted this appointment. There is a passage in the writings of ThomasCarlyle which in this connection has always haunted m ymind. This is what that acute but rugged old phi losophersaid

I have sometimes thought what a thing it would hecould the Queen in Council pick out some gal lant-mindedstout cadet and say to him , Young fellow,

if there do liein you potentialities of governing

, of gradually guiding ,leading and coercing to a noble goal

,how sad it is they

should be al l lost. See , I have scores on scores of colon ies .

1 Rev. CanonE . Lyttelton, now Head -Master of Eton.

D INNER GI VEN B Y OLD E TONIANS IN LONDON 3

One of these you Shall have as vice-king. Go you andbuckle with it in the name of Heaven, and let us see what

youwill bui ld it to.

’

Though these words were spoken of the WestInd ian colonies

,I think that

,muta tis mutand is

,they are

equally applicable to the East Indian Empire ; and theyindicate to me the spirit of courage, but yet of humility ,

of high as piration, but sti l l more of duty , in which anym an should approach such a task . I have often seendur ing the past few weeks my acceptance of this officeattr ibuted to a variety of causes to personal ambition ,to the disappointment of Parliamentary hopes, to fai linghealth. My own experience of public l ife

,such as it has

been, leads me to think that the Simplest explanation of the

phenomena of human action—human beings being more orless a lways cast in the same mould— is l ikely to be the mostcorrect, and that the recondite is apt to be the fal lacious aswell as the obscure. Is it permissible, therefore, for me tosay in this company of old school- fel lows and of personalfriends that

,whatever may have been the views of those who

thought me worthy of this offi ce, I gladly accepted it becauseI love India

, its people, its history, its government, theabsorbing mysteries of its civi lisation and its l ife ? Ithink it was while I was at Eton that a sense of its overwhelming importance first dawned upon my mind . Therewe were perpetual ly invited by a body of assiduous andcapable mentors,— I need hardly say that I al lude to

the Eton mas ters, and we responded with greater orless re luctance to the appeal , to contemplate the pompand majes ty

,the law and the living influence, of the Empire

of Rome. We had at Eton in my day,and I hope it sti l l

flourishes,an institution cal led the Literary Society

, of

which ,I bel ieve, my friend Welldon was one of the first

pres idents , and in which I afterwards had the honour tofollow in his foots teps. To this society, from time to time,came down eminent men to preach to us about the widerworld outside. Among those distinguished persons whocame in m y day was Sir James Fitz-James Stephen

,but

just returned from India—the father of my dear friend , J imStephen, the

“

J . K. S.

”of the literary world, that bril liant

4 D INNER GI VEN B Y OLD E TONIANS IN LONDON

but meteoric inte l lect that all too soon plunged into the

abyss and was lost from View. Sir James Stephen camedown to Eton and told the boys that listened to him , of

whom I was one, that there was in the Asian continent an

em pire more populous, more amazing, and more beneficentthan that of Rome ; that the rulers of that great dom inionwere drawn from the men of our own people ; that some of

them m ight perhaps in the future be taken from the ranksof the boys who were l istening to his words. Ever sincethat day, and stil l more since my first V isit to I ndia in 1 8 8 7 ,

the fascination and, if I may say so, the sacredness of Indiahave grown upon m e, unti l I have come to think that it isthe highest honour that can be placed upon any subject ofthe Queen that in any capacity , high or low, he shoulddevote such energies as he may possess to its se rvice.But may I carry my suggestion one step further I' May

I not say that the growth of the ideal of duty has been themost salient feature in the history of our relations with Indiaduring the past hundred years, and sti l l more during the

reign of the present Queen A century ago India in the

hands of the East India Company was regarded as a mer

cantile investment, the business of whose promoters and

agents was to return as large dividends as possible—and thelarger, of course, the better—to the pockets of their shareholders at home. I n the course of these proceedings manyof those men amassed great wea lth

,almost beyond the

dreams of avarice—wealth, the display of which was apt tobe vulgar, and the source of which was Often impure. I ndianposts, low as wel l as high, were the spoils of political patronage at home, and were exclusively distributed according to

the narrowest and most selfish exigencies of party polemicsin England . We have only to look to the treatment of

Warren Hastings to realise how little the welfare of I ndiawas thought of in comparison with the loss or gain to Whigsand Tories in London. I do not say that we have altogetherextricated India from the perils and the contamination ofthe party system ; I do not say that our administration of

that great empire is altogether free from blemish or taint .But I do say that it is informed with a spirit of duty

,and that

it is ed ified and e levated by that influence. I do say that

D INNE R GI VEN B Y OLD E TONIANS IN LONDON 5

we thi nk m uch of the welfare of India, and but little of itswea lth that we endeavour to administer the government oftha t country in the interes ts of the governed that ourm iss ion there is one of obligation and not of profit and thatwe do our hum ble best to retain by justice that which wem ay have won by the sword . May we not

,indeed

,say that

at the end of the nineteenth century the spectacle presentedby our dominion in India is that of British power sustainedby a Christian ideal ?What then is the conception of his duty that an out

go ing Viceroy should set before himself ? I have no newor startl ing definition to give, but the light in which it

presents itse lf to my mind is this. It is his duty,first and

forem ost, to represent the authority of the Queen -Empress,

whose name, revered more than the name of any other livingsovere ignby all races and classes from Cape Comorin to theHima layas, is in India both a bond of union and the symbolof power ; and to associate with the personal attributes thatcling about that name the conviction that the justice of her

government is inflexible, that its honour is stainless, and thatits m ercy is in proportion to its strength . Secondly

,he

should try to remember that all those people are not thesons of our own race, or creed, or clime, and that it is onlyby regard for their feelings, by respect for their prejudices,I wi l l even go so far as to say by deference to their scruples

,

—tha t we can obtain the acquiescence as well as the submission of the governed . Thirdly

,his duty is to recognise

that,though relatively far advanced in the scale of civi lisation

compared with the time of Lord Wellesley, or even LordCanning, India is stil l but i l l-equipped with the material andindustrial and educational resources which are so necessaryto her career and so to work that she may, by slow but suredegrees , expand to the ful l measure of her growth. Andlastly, it is to preserve intact and secure, either from internalconvul sion or external inroad, the boundaries of that greatand Im perial dominion .

This,I would venture to suggest, is the conception which

every outgoing Viceroy sets before himself. He is probablyunwise if he attempts to fi l l in the details too closelyin advance . The experience in which he must be sadly

6 DINNER GI VEN B Y OLD E TONIANS IN LONDON

lacking at the start,but which will come to him in increas ing

volume day by day,wil l, with slow and sometimes with

painful touch, fi l l in the details as he proceeds. For afteral l—and I speak to those, if there are any here present, whohave travel led in the Eas t and have caught the fascinationof its mysterious surroundings—the East is a Univers ity inwh ich the scholar never takes his degree . It is a temple inwhich the suppliant adores but never catches sight of theobject of his devotion . It is a journey the goal of which isalways in sight but is never attained. There we are alway slearners

,always worshippers, always pilgrims. I rejoice to

be allowed to take my place in the happy band of studentsand of wayfarers who have trodden that path for a hundredyears. I know that I have everything to learn . I have,perhaps, many things to unlearn . But if the test of the

pupil be application, and of the worshipper faith, I hope thatI may pass through the ordeal unscathed . At any rate

,I

have among the long list of names inscribed on the back ofthis m enuthe example of three immediate Eton predecessorsto guide me—of Lord Dufferin , whose Indian Viceroyaltywas but the culminating point in a career which for over thirtyyears has been the property less of himself than of his

country ; of Lord Lansdowne, who left I ndia amid greatermanifestations of popularity and esteem than any departingViceroy since the Mutiny and of my immediate predecessorLord Elgin

,who has confronted a time of storm and

stress with a fortitude and a composure which are worthyof the high name that he bears and of the race from whichhe is sprung. I know that with these distinguished predecessors I cannot hope to compete. But there is onecharacteristic which I share together with them, and whichwe derive from our common part in the Eton heritage, andthat is the desire to be true to the honour and the credit ofthat ancient foundation . I am not so foolish to-night as toutter any vain prophecies

,or to indulge in any illusive hopes ;

but I shall be satisfied if I can carry out the work whichthey have begun, and if at the end of my time it can be saidof me that I have not been unworthy of the traditions of thegreatest and the noblest of schools.

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8 DINNER GI VEN B Y ROYAL SOCIE TIE S CLUB

po l itica l and Imper ial centre—o i the Briti sh Empire.

1 Tomy mind we are before and beyond all else an As iat icdominion ; and I venture to th ink that the man who hasnever been east of Suez does not know what the BritishEmpire is. Here in Europe we occupy a few sm all islandsthat are scattered on the surface of the NorthernSea. We

possess a number of carefully - selected and we l l - adaptedpoints of vantage along the highways of commerce in the

Mediterranean and we have also a Navy so form idable thatit constitutes us the most powerful maritime nation in the

world. Elsewhere, in the American Continent, and in the

At lantic and Pacific Oceans, we possess great tracts of

territory, amounting in some cases to the size of continents ,which are peopled by men of our own blood, flying the sam e

flag , and enjoying the sovereignty of the same Queen . Suchpossessions have been acquired, and such colonies have beenfounded, not of Course on the same sca le, but on a sm a l lersca le, by other nations. But it is in Asia and in I ndia thatthe great exper iment is being made. I t is there that we are

doing a work which no other people has ever attem pted todo before, and by the doing of which we shall be judged inhistory. There lies the true fulcrum of dominion

, the real

touchstone of our Imperial greatness or fai lure.Why were we first tempted into Egypt ? Because it

lay on the route to India. What was the reason of our oldtraditional policy as regards Constantinople and the TurkishEmpire Because their possession by a hosti le power washeld to be a danger to our Eastern dominions. Why do wemaintain an expensive establishment in Persia and exercisea supreme control over the Persian Gulf ? Because the

former is on the road to India, and because the waters ofthe latter mingle with those of the Indian Ocean and opena path to Indian shores. What was the origin of ourColonies at the Cape ? Because we went by that way toI ndia. Why do we subsidise the Amir of Afghanistan

, and

why have we twice or three times sent military expeditionsinto that fateful country ? Because it is a glacis of the

Indian fortress, on which we cannot afford to permit thelodgment of an enemy. Why are we interested in the forlorn

1 Compare pp . 28 , 107.

DINNER GI VEN B Y ROYAL S OCIE TIE S CLUB

and inhospitable wastes of the Pam irs ? And why havesuch per i lous diplomatic controversies arisen in connectionw ith territories so intrinsically abominable andvi le ? Becausethey command the northern passes into I ndia. Why did we

guarantee the main part of the kingdom of Siam ? Andwhy do we take so keen an interest in the fortunes of that

p icturesque country and in the policy of its enlightenedm onarch Because it is one of those border States that arecoterm inous with British territory in India and that separatethe Indian frontier from a rival European State. Why

,in

conclusion , do men talk so much about the Upper Yangtseand about Szechuan and Yunnan Because those provincesare contiguous with Upper Burma, that is, with India itself.I m igh t pursue this subject indefinitely, but I think I havesa id enough to show how the casual stone, which was throwninto the sea of chance by a handful of merchant adventurers200 years ago, has produced an ever-extending circle of

r ipples , unti l at the present moment they embrace the l imitsand affect the destinies of the entire Asiatic Continent. Iam one of those who think that the Eastward trend of

Em pire will increase and not dimin ish?“ I n"

my be‘

IiEf‘

The

SM II us will become greater End not less. Parliamentw i ll lea rn to know Asia almost as well as it now knowsEurope ; and the time wil l come when Asiatic sympathiesand knowledge wil l be not the hobby of a few individuals

,

but the interest of the entire nation.

I t is because of the intensity of the conviction withwhich I hold these V iews that all my travels and studiesand writings, such as they have been, have been connectedw ith the theme of India and the neighbouring countries.No pleasure has been greater to me than that of wanderingalong the frontiers of our Indian dominions and of observingth e m anner in which we there discharge our Imperial task .

Indoing so I have learned something of the character andtemperam ent of the native tribes. Those wi ld clansmen havean individuality that is entirely their own . We have sometim es , I may even say often , been compelled to fight them .

We have never fought them gladly, and we have alwayssheathed the sword with pleasure. For there is a manlinessin their patr iotism and a love of independence in their blood

10 D INNER GI VEN B Y ROYAL S OCIE TI E S CLUB

that is akin to our own. If I were asked what appears tom e to be the secret of the proper treatment of those tri bes ,

or of Orienta l races in general, I would reply that it consistsin treating them as if they were men of l ike compos itionwith ourse lves. I do not mean to suggest that they havethe same views, the same scruples, the same precepts, or

the same codes as ourse lves ; in many instances the

diametr ically Opposite is the case. But there is a commonbond of manhood between us, the element of the hum an

in humanity, which holds us together, and is the true linkof union ; and it is the recognition of that bond, and the

sense of fel lowship that it engenders, that have been the

secret of the success of every great Frontier officer that wehave ever had. I know that there is a widespread bel iefin this country that the Oriental is a solemn and reflectivecreature from whom we are separated by oceans of m oraland intel lectual difference ; and nowhere has this idea beenbetter expressed than in the magnificent verse of MatthewArnold, in which he described the contact of the Empire of

Rome with the East and the issue of that col l ision

The East bowed low before the blas t

Inpatient deep disdainS he let the legions thunder past,And—plunged inthought again.

There is no doubt a great deal of truth in that. It isthe note of the Oriental as contrasted with the Westerntemperament. But I venture to say that, however true itmay be of the inhabitants of the soaked and low- ly ingplains, it is not true, or at any rate it is much less true, ofthe highlanders on the outskirts of our Indian dominions.There we find a light-hearted and festive temperament ; wemeet with laughter and dancing and song ; above all, werecognise the power of a well-organised and well-deliveredjoke. When I look back upon some of my experiences,and remember the dinner that Captain Younghusband

1 andI gave to the poor Mehtar of Chitral

,afterwards murdered

by his brother, or when I recal l my many conversations

1 Now S ir Francis Younghusband. Lord Curzon and he were in Ch itraltogether inOctober 1 894, as the guests of the Mehtar Nizam -ul-Mulk, who wasshot inthe back whi le out hawking, and ki l led , onJanuary I , 1905 .

D INNER GI VEN B Y RO YAL S OCI E TIE S CL UB 1 1

w ith the Amir of Afghanistan ,‘ I recognise that the saving

grace of humour is just as much a property of Orientals asof ourselves, and that the man who wants to find a key totheir heart and to their sympathies wil l do well to employthat weapon.

I have also been much struck on my Frontier trave ls bythe character and the work of the young British officerswho are there engaged in positions of responsibi lity orcom mand . It may be thought perhaps that I have anatural and even selfish propensity towards youth . SoI have . I should be the last to deny it

,and I hope I may

reta in it even when I am old. For of one thing I am

certa in , that the old men who have rendered best service tothei r country have been those who have also been capable ofstim ulating, encouraging, and utilising the services of theyoung. I t may also be thought that youth is synonymousw i th im petuosity. Nevertheless I have found in thoseregions just as keen a sense of responsibility, as cool ajudgment, and as wise a forecast among the young menas I have among their seniors. In a sense it is even moreso in proportion ; since the young officer who exceeds hisinstructions or who takes the bit between his teeth hasno previous reputation to save him from the consequencesof disas ter. We employ, and we rightly employ, the greyb eards in our councils and in positions of supreme controlbut on the outskirts of civil isation we require the energy,the V ital ity, and the physical strength of youth. I lookforward with enthusiasm to being the colleague and theleader of those young men

,and I wish them God-speed

inthe work that they have undertaken .

Then , again, upon the Frontier one sees something atfirst hand of the native soldiers of the Indian Empire.I w ish those brave men were better known at home.

From time to time,at a Jubilee celebration or otherwise,

we See detachments of them in the streets of London .

But , for the most part, their services are rendered andthe ir gal lantry displayed in fields that are far removed

1 The allus ionis to Lord Curzon's vis it to Kabul as the guest of Am ir AbdurRahmanKhaninNovem ber 1894. The Am ir

’

s account of the sam e conversations is to be found inh is Life, edi ted by Mir Munsh i SultanMohammed Khan

(3 vols ,

1 2 D INNER GI VEN B Y ROYAL S OCIE TIES ’ CLUB

from the public gaze at home ; and I doubt if our peoplehere or if the nations of Europe have any idea of the

magnificent Native Army that we posses s. I can onlyattribute to this ignorance the utter ly inadequate responsethat has been made to the appeal for the Indian Heroes ’

Fund,which was organised for the relief of the fam ilies

of those who fought so bravely for us in the Frontiercampaigns of last year. Those men laid down their l ivesfor us, fighting in some cases against men of their own

race, of their own religion, sometimes of their own fam ily,with as much strenuousness and loyalty as if they had beenBritish redcoats defending a British home. But in proportion to the ignorance which prevails Upon this subject isthe duty which rests upon those who know to speak .

When it is said that we hold India by the sword, be itremembered that that sword is two- thirds forged of Ind ianmetal, and that in real ity we defend her frontiers and fighther battles by the aid of her own sons.The march of science and the improvements in steam

communication are every day bringing India nearer to ourselves. From one point of V iew that is a great advantage ;for in proport ion as we know more

,so shal l we m isunder

stand less, and there wi ll be less chance of mistakes and

blunders and crimes. But there is something to be said on

the other S ide also. I n the old days a m anwho went outfor an Indian career

,whether as Viceroy or Governor, or in

some subordinate post of administration , went out for the

work of a lifetime. I t took him,in fact, no inconsiderable

part of a lifetime to get there. When Clive went to Indiain 1 742 he was more than a year upon the way ; whenWarren Hastings first went out in 1 7 50 he spent from eightto nine months upon the journey

,and when he fina l ly

returned in 1 7 8 5 his passage occupied four months, and wasregarded as exceptionally quick. The average intervalbetween the issue of a despatch and the receipt of a replywas one and a half years. The consequence was that mensettled in India, so to speak, for a lifetime. They we recontinued in positions for which they were fitted. Theycame home for a holiday perhaps once in their career. Rightinto the course of the present century a Viceroy Occupied

DINNER GI VEN B Y ROYAL S OCIE TIE S ’

CLUB 13

the Viceregal Chair for a period of ten years.1 There weregreat advantages in that system . There grew up from it aso l id arity of interests between the rulers and the ru led

,and

a sym pathetic and intimate knowledge which was an immeasurable gain inthe development and pacification of thecountry. Nowadays al l that is changed. The journey toIndia is accomplished in a fortnight. An Englishman inIndia m ay enjoy six weeks in London, and wil l be back ath is pos t inth ree months from the date at which he left it .The te legraph repeats to him every morning the news andthe excitements of Europe . Of course this has a fresheningeffect upon his intellect ; but it has a disturbing effect also.

The consequence is that he looks less to India and more tohom e . He does not merge the European in the Asiaticintere s t ; but is the temporary exile who is always lookingto hi s return home . This is the tendency, perhaps aninevi table tendency, of our modern system, but it is one theseri ous side of which it would be well to recognise. Anyhow, the term oi the Viceroy is fixed. By a practice whichhas become almost invariable, he cannot leave the shores ofIndia for five years. During that time he is a prisoner,though in my case it will be a happy imprisonment, behindthe bars of that gilded cage. Whether the period of five

years is a long enough time for him to do his work, whetherinthat period he can make any lasting impression upon thetrem endous problems that come before him, or upon the vast

populations committed to his care, is a question which Ishal l be better able to answer five years hence than now .

Anyhow,they are certain to be the most crowded and

responsible years of his life. As he takes up the task therecomes upon him a fee l ing that there is much in it that isaltogether beyond his powers, and exceeds perhaps his mostextrem e desires. But I believe that he may confidently relyupon the indulgence and the toleration of his fel low-countrymen, who are just to their servants beyond the seas, andthat they wil l echo the God- speed which you have givento me to-night.

The Marquis of Hastings , 18 13- 1823.

I4 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPALI TY

ADDRESS FROM BOMBAY MUNIC IPALITY

Lord and Lady Curzon landed at Bombay on December 30,1 898 . In rep ly to anAddress of welcom e from the Municipality ,Lord CurzonSpoke as follows

I accept with pleasure the Address which you have jus tread out to me, and I have been struck by the cordial ityand eloquence of the terms in which it is expressed . No

Viceroy can set foot on these shores, which are to be hishome and the scene of his labours for five years, without akeen and almost overpowering sense of the importance of

the V ista that opens before him, or without a correspondinggratefulness for the first words of we lcome that fal l from the

l ips of those over whose fortunes he is about to preside. To meit is some slight alleviation of the anxiety inwhich any m anmust be placed at such a moment, that I do not comealtogether as a stranger to your country, and that the

intimate concern which I have long entertained in its peop leand problems, and which wil l be commensurate with my lifeitself

,is based not exclusively upon hearsay or upon reading,

but upon some small personal acquaintance with India.

This is the fifth time that I have gazed from the sea uponthe majestic panorama of your city of palaces and palm s ;and if my previous visits have been those of a privatetraveller only, they have yet given me an interest, whichoffi cial experience can but enhance, in your city—its elf soworthy a gateway to a land of enchantment—and in itsoccupations

,so typical of the busy industry to which the

peoples of I ndia have turned under the security assuredto them by British rule. I am glad to note that in th isAddres s you speak of the earnest and devoted loyaltywhich the whole Empire entertains for the Queen-Empres s .”

My first sentiment in accepting this great office when it wasbestowed upon me was one of pride that it has fallen to mylot to be one of the Governors-General—the fifteenth innumber, but I would fain hope not the las t—lnher long andi l lustrious reign . Such a recol lection fires a wonderful train

of memory, for it brings before one a stately procession of

names, many of which have passed into the Valhal la of history,

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16 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNI CIPALI TY

nationalities and interests he is confronted—with his own

countrymen , few in number, and scattered far and wideunder a trying climate in a foreign land, and with the m anifold races and be l iefs, so composite and yet so divergent,of the indigenous population, in its swarming and evermultiplying mill ions. To hold the scales even under suchconditions is a task that cal ls indeed for supple fingers and

for nerves of steel. But there is another reflection that leadsm e to place some restri ction upon anything that I m ay say

about the future. N0 one can be more conscious thanmyse lf that the verdict to be passed upon my administrationdepends not upon glittering promise or fair prophecy now,

but upon actual performance later on . The time for rejoicingis not when a man putteth on his armour

,but when he taketh

it off. I thank you for your friendly greeting, because noman can be insensible to the encouragement of a generouswelcome. But I shall be tenfold better pleased if, when Iweigh anchor from these shores, and when al l eyes are

turned towards my successor, any of you who are now presentcan come forward truthfully to testify that during my timeI have done something, if it even be but little, for this land,which, next to my own country, is nearest to my heart.

1

I n your Address you cal l my attention to the fact that,during the past few years, I ndia has been subject to the

triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine, and that yourown Presidency has suffered sorely from the ravages of the

two latter in particular. In England our hearts have goneout to you in your trouble—our purse-strings have

, as youknow

,been unloosened on your behalf. The unceas ing and

devoted efforts of your rulers—of the present il lustriousViceroy

,

2 and in this place of your Governor,

8 whose ap

plication to the onerous work imposed upon him by the

plague has excited widespread gratitude and admirationhave, I be lieve, enabled India to cope with these trials in amanner more successful than on any previous occasions .

I n this great city the patience of your people, the voluntaryco-operation of your leading Citizens, and the natural vitality

1 Vida the allusionto this passage in Lord Curzon’s farewell speech at the

Byculla Club , Bom bay, sevenyears later, p . 5 74.

3 The Earl of E lgin.3 Lord Sandhurst.

ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPALITY

of your resources have greatly assisted in the work of te

cuperation; and I would fain bel ieve that the corner hasnow been turned and that an era of reviving prosperity isalready beginning to dawn . To that movement it will bemy agreeable duty to lend whatever impulse I can and itis wi th fee l ings of sympathy that I regard, and shal l take anearly opportunity of inquiring into, the great undertaking towhich ,

with so marked a combination of courage and wisdom,

you are about to address yourselves in Bombay.

1 I n conclus ion, it only remains for me to thank you for the graciouswelcome that you have extended , along with myself, to LadyCurzon . She comes to this country with predispositionsnot less favourable and with sympathies not less warm thanm ine ; and with me she looks forward with earnest del ightto a l ife of labour, but of happy labour, in your midst.Allow me, Sir, to thank you in conclusion for the Address,and for the handsome and artistic casket in which it is

l The Ci ty Im provement, since carried into executionby a Specially constitutedTrust.

GE NE R A L

DURBAR AT LUCKNOW

ON Decem ber 1 3, 1 8 99 , the V iceroy held a Durbar at Lucknow,

for the receptionof the Talukdars and other Durbaris of Oudh.

The proceed ings took place ina large tent pitched inthe MartinierePark, and the total num ber present was over 1 000 . The V iceroydelivered the following speech

I n the concluding stages of a tour,which

,while it has

been one of hard work and of some strain,has yet taught

me much and enabled me to see much that a Viceroy of

I ndia ought to know,it is with no smal l pleasure that I

meet,in the dignified and time - honoured function of a

Durbar,so famous and so loyal a body of Her Majesty’s

subjects as the Talukdars of Oudh. Already,upon my

arrival at Calcutta, you have paid m e the compliment of anAddress of welcome, presented to me by the hands of yourPresident

,the Maharaja of Ajudhya . And now, in the

historic capital of your own province,to which so many

memories Cl ing that are dear both to your race and mine,the opportunity is presented to me of returning the com

plim ent, and of receiving you in a manner befitting the

rank and traditions of the Talukdars of Oudh.

I regard a Durbar as an occasion of no ordinary s igni

ficance ; not merely because of its picturesque and state lyceremonial, or of its harmony with the venerated traditionsof an ancient polity, as because of the opportunity whi ch itfurnishes to a Viceroy to meet in becoming surroundingsthe leading men in the community

,and to exchange with

them those formal assurances which to my mind are investedwith a much more than conventional courtesy

,inasmuch as

they are the real foundation - stones of the stable fabric of18

DURBAR A T LUCKNOW 19

Her Majesty’s Indian Empire. Open speech and clearunderstanding between the Queen’s representative and hertrusted l ieges are essential to the solidarity of a dominionwhich is built upon the co-operation of both ; and while Iam honoured by holding my present offi ce

,I shall welcome

,

instead of shrinking from, any occasion for such an interchange of confidence and renewal of understanding. I ndeedto m e it seems that the times have passed by when rulers,or the deputies of rulers, can anywhere live with impunityamid the clouds of Olympus. They must descend from the

hi l l tops and visit the haunts of men. They must speak tothe ir fe l lows in their own tongue, and must be one in purposeand in heart with the people. Only so will they justifytheir high station only so wil l their authority be free fromchal lenge, because it wil l be founded upon trust.I t was in such a spirit that Lord Canning came to

Lucknow in October 1 8 59 , to obliterate the scars of theMutiny, and to inaugurate the new reg im e of generousclemency and benefaction to which the Talukdars of Oudhowe their status and their rights. In this assemblage to-daythere are doubtless some who remember that historic occasion,and call to mind the assurance of Lord Canning, that so longas the Talukdars remained loyal and faithful subjects andjust masters

,their rights and dignities should be upheld by

every representative of the Queen , and that no man shoulddisturb them . It was in pursuit and in confirmation of

Lord Canning’s policy that Sir John Lawrence came herein 1 8 67 ,

to acknowledge the liberal manner in which theTalukdars had met his efforts to mitigate certain hardshipswhich had resulted from the arrangements of 1 8 5 8 . It wasina similar Spirit that, in 1 8 8 2 , Lord Ripon received theTalukdars Upon the very spot where Lord Canning had

presented to them their charter twenty- three y ears before .

And while it is on the same site, it is also, I assure you, inan identical Spirit, that after a further lapse of seventeen

years another Viceroy has come here to-day to renew to youthe friendly assurances of the sovereign power, and to mark

yet another stage in the history of the undisturbed andhappy relations that subsist between the Talukdars and theBritish Government. I t was not ti l l I had ascertained from

30 DURBAR A T LUCKNOW

inquiry that you yourse lves were most anxious that thisDurbar should be held, and that you recognised in it a

compliment to your position as we l l as a confirmation of

your privi leges , that I arranged wi th Sir AntonyMacDonnell

for the ceremony of this afternoon .

I am not one of those persons who would venture to

claim that the pol icy of the British Government in I ndia hasa lways or everywhere been distinguished by consistency, orforesight, or wisdom . We have made many experiments ,and we have perpetrated some failures. I am not sure thatOudh has not been the scene of some of these experiments ,and perhaps also the witness of some of these failures . We

have sometimes poured new wine very hasti ly into old

bottles,and have been surprised if they have burst in our

hands. But whatever the errors or miscalculations of

British government in the past, we may, I think , claim withtruth that we do not depart from our pledged = word

,and

that British honour is stil l the basis, as it is the safeguard,of British administration. It was once said by the mostbril l iant writer who has yet devoted his genius to the

i l lumination of Anglo- I ndian history 2 that English valourand English intel l igence have done less to extend and to

preserve our Oriental Empire than English veracity. Iagree with those words. Where the faith of Governmenthas been pledged, there, even at loss to ourselves, at thesacrifice of our material interests, and sometimes even to

our political detriment, we have, so far as my knowledgeextends

,uniformly held to our bond, and I hope shall con

t inue to do so to the end . If ultimately we have profitedby this conduct, no such considerations of expediency,be l ieve me, have been our motive. We have pursued justiceand truth, it may be sometimes with faltering steps, but fortheir own sake and for that alone.

Our relations with the Province of Oudh afford a notinapt il lustration of steadfast adherence to this high standardof publ ic honour. For forty years our policy towards Oudhhas never deviated from the ideal which

,when the Mutiny

was over, was deliberately accepted and promulgated by

Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces and.

Oudh .

2 Lord Macaulay.

DURBAR A T LUCKNOW 2 1

Lord Canning, and at a later date was ratified by Sir johnLawrence, viz. that of maintaining the existence and privileges , guaranteed by binding engagements, of the landedar istocracy of this province. With this object have beendevised the var ious measures of legislation that have fromtim e to time been passed with reference to the LandQues tion in Oudh— the Oudh Estates Act of 1 869 , the

Talukdars’ ReliefAct of 1 8 70, the Oudh Rent Act of 1 8 86 .

It is with the same object in view that your presentLieutenant-Governor, Sir Antony MacDonnell, has recentlyfram ed the Settled Estates Bill, which, with a patienceworthy of the statesman, and with the anxious desire toconsider every point of view, and to concil iate all reasonableOppos ition , that has uniformly characterised his public career,he has successfully guided through the earlier stages of its

inception and introduction .

I t is unfortunately but too true that some members atany rate of your body have fal len upon evil times, and thatthe pressure of financial embarrassment

,due sometimes to

ex travagance and folly,but sometimes also to the force of

c ircumstances beyond human control,has resulted in the

increas ing transfer and alienation—in other words,in the

brea king up—of the estates which it has always been thedes i re of the British Government

,equal ly with yourselves,

to conserve . From these dangers,the unarrested progress

of which would be fraught with mischief to the entire commun ity , the Talukdars themselves petitioned the Governm ent to find for them some relief ; and it is in deference tothis request that the Bil l of which I speak has been drawnup and brought in.

It rests with yourselves whether,when this Bil l has been

passed into law, you take advantage of it or not. Indeference to our engagements

,in faithful execution of our

pledged word, we cannot and we should not propose todicta te to you a curtailment of rights which

,if acceptable to

some , might be superfluous and obnoxious to others. Wecanbut provide the means by which, rwithout prejudice tothe legi timate rights of creditors

,those of you who desire to

ensure the maintenance of their hereditary estates by directse tt lement may be able to do so. If the Court of Wards

22 DURBAR A T LUCKNOW

Bil l, which has been introduced and passed by the LocalLegislature with the same disinterested and conservativeaim

,be regarded by the Talukdars as the supplement of the

Settled Estates Bill, to whose successful operation it shouldlend a great reinforcement of strength, I see no reason whyyou should not obtain speedy and permanent relief from the

embarrassments of which you complain . But I repeat that,the Government having played their part

,it is now for you

to play yours, in the same temper of loyalty and good faiththat has uniformly marked your relations with the Suprem eGovernment since the present system began.

Everywhere throughout India I observe an increas ingspirit of public activity, and an awakening to the conditionsof modern life

,which convince me that the conservatism of

the most conservative of countries is not incompatible witha keen recognition of the necessities of an age of progress.

The spread of rai lways,the increase of education, the d iffu

sion of the Press, the construction of public works, the

expansion of manufacturing and industrial undertakings, allof these bespeak

,not the placid reveries of the recluse who

is absorbed in abstract thought or in numb contemplationof the past, but the eager yearnings of a fresh and buoyantl ife . This spirit

,as is natural

,is most visible in the great

centres of population,and in the dis tricts which are traversed

by main lines of rail . But it is also penetrating to uncons idered corners, and is slowly leavening the mighty mass.In this province, the natural richness of which has caused itto be designated the garden of I ndia,

” you have greatlyprofited by recent rai lway extensions, and you possess arailroad system which

,running parallel in the main to the

course of your great rivers,with frequent lateral connec

tions, appears to be well adapted to the exploitation of yourabundant resources. We hope, before any very long time hase lapsed, to supply you with a further connecting l ink , in theshape of the Allahabad-Fyzabad l ine

,with a bridge across

the Ganges.1 This important l ink , together with shortercommunication with Lucknow, should be of great benefit tothe province .

1 The line and bridge were opened inthe month after Lord Curzonleft Ind iain1905 .

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24 DURBAR A T LUCKNOW

is only an adaptation in Wes tern form s of a custom fam iliarin the East, has found so congenial a cl imate in the Provinceof Oudh ; and I should like to tender m y thanks to thosenative gentlemen who have thus assisted Government byacting as Honorary Magistrates. Every case which by a

simple and straightforward decision they succeed in keepingout of the Law Courts involves, in m y judgment, notmere ly a saving of expense, friction, and heart -burningto the parties concerned , but also a positive service to the

community.

Final ly, let me say with what satisfaction I have m et

to-day in this great assemblage and have had presented to

me a number of chiefs, some of them the sons or grandsonsof those who stood by us in the great hour of trial forty-twoyears ago, some of them—a dwindl ing number—the stillsurviving actors in those solemn and immortal scenes . I

have noticed upon the breas ts of others here present—4seamed and gallant band—the medals that tell me of

participation in the defence of the Residency, of l ives ri skedand of blood shed in the cause of the British Government,with which was indissolubly bound up, in the agony of thatfateful struggle, the cause of order as against anarchy, of

civil isation as against chaos. Standing here at this distanceof time, I , who am of a later generation , and was not evenborn when these brave men performed the deeds at whichthe who le world has since gazed wi th admiring awe, count itas among my highest privi leges that I should see the faces ,and

,as Her Majesty’s representative, receive the homage of

these il lustrious veterans. Stil l prouder and more inspiringis the thought that in this great Durbar, where are gatheredin loyal harmony with our old al lies the descendants of somewho took another part, I may read the lesson of the Grea tReconcil iation, and may point the eternal moral that mercyis more powerful than vengeance.

ADDRE S S FROM 3 0m m y MUNICIPALI TY 25

ADDRESS FROM BOMBAY MUNIC I PALITY

InNovember 1 900 Lord Curzonvi sited Bom bay for the thirdtime during h is adm inistration, and onthe oth drove in S tate tothe TownH all, where he was presented wi th a Special Address ofwelcom e from the Municipal Corporation. The Address referredto the m anner in which the V iceroy had redeemed the p ledgeswhich he had givenwhenfirst assum ing office, and said that intheshort per iod of two years he had

“ wontheir hearts, captured the

imaginations, and extorted the respect and adm irationof the wholecountry. The V iceroy rep lied as follows

When I landed at the Apollo Bunder in December189 8 , I l itt le thought that, within less than two years

’ time,I should twice again visit this great city. Stil l less could Ihave anticipated that, within so short a period of my assuming office , I should be deemed worthy of the honour of sucha ceremony as that of this morning. I t is, as you know, thetrials and the sufferings through which Bombay has been

passing that have brought m e back into this Presidencyupon the two occasions to which I have referred. It is your

gracious recognition of the motive that actuated these visits—a recognition very characteristic of the warm - heartedIndian people—that has brought me to this Town Hall today, and has made me the recipient of the exquisite andsunnptuous gift in which the Address that has just beenrea d from the Bombay Corporation wil l henceforward be

enclosed.

Youhave said with truth in this Address that the troublesby which India in general, and this Presidency perhapsmore particularly

,have been affl icted

,have gone on increasing

and multiplying during the past two years. Lord Elginthought that he had coped with the worst famine of the

century : we have now gone through a worse. I t was hopedthat plague would soon be extirpated from your midst butit has grown into an annual visitor, whom,

in spite of all ourefforts, we can neither altogether elude nor defeat. True,there is one calamity which we have been fortunate enough toescape during our time of trial , and that is warfare in our ownterritory or upon our frontiers. Indeed

,the most striking

26 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPALI TY

incident in recent Indian history, the most conclusive testimony to the loyalty of her princes and people, and the mostabsolute demonstration of the reality of the peace that wehave enjoyed ,

is the fact that we have spared betweenand soldiers from the IndianArmy for the

wars being waged elsewhere by the forces of the Queen,and have thus not unhandsomely borne our share in that

great outburst of Imperial sentiment that has marked the

disappearance of the old century and the opening of the

new .

You have been good enough to speak in terms of praiseof the manner in which we have met our misfortunes. I donot take this praise to myself. For instance, in our strugg lewith plague and famine

,the Captain can do little but fram e

his orders, see closely to their execution, keep an eye uponevery part of the fie ld, and encourage his men . When,therefore

,I see or hear the head of the Government pra ised

for the effi ciency or l iberality of the measures that have beentaken

,or given the credit for their success, I fee l almost a

'

sense of shame. For I think of all Lthe accumulated adviceand experience that have been freely placed at his disposalby those who know so much more than he ; and I remem berthe brave men who

,with no reward to hope for, and no

public applause to urge them on,have

,for month after

month, whether in the scorching heat,or through the soak

ing rains, spent of their energy and life-blood and strengthin fighting the real battle, wherever the enemy threatened orthe worst danger lay. The irs is the true credit ; and it isonly on their behalf, and as their official head , that I canaccept with contentment what I could not

,without injustice,

appropriate to myself.You have also spoken of the impartial administration of

justice, not so much in the Law Courts, since they are in

dependent of official control, as in the exercise of executiveand administrative authority, as having been the guidingprinciple which I have borne in view. I t is true that I havetried never to lose sight of the motto

,which I set before

myself when I landed here, namely, to hold the scales even.

l

Experience has shown me that it is not always an easy task

Vide pp. 1 5 and 574 .

ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPALI TY

but expe rience has also convinced me that it is always theright one . If a man is to succeed in carrying it out, hemust expect sometimes to be abused , and frequently to bemisunderstood . By one party he wil l be suspected of disloyalty to the rights of his countrymen ; by the other, ofimperfect sympathy with its aspirations or its aims. Everyone appreciates the advantages of an umpire . But thereare always some players of the game who think that themain duty of that functionary is to give their own side in .

I sometimes note symptoms of this tendency in India. One

side interprets an act of justice as a concession to clamour ;the other laments that it does not straight away secure al lthe articles of an impossible charter.1 These little drawbacksmay som etimes worry and sometimes impede ; but they donot for one m oment affect the conviction with which I startedtwo y ears ago, and which I now hold, if possible, morestrongly st i l l, that it is by native confidence in British

justice that the loyalty of the Indian peoples is assured . Anyman who, either by force or by fraud

,shakes that confi

dence, is deal ing a blow at British dominion in India. If to

justice we can add that form of mercy which is best expressedby the word consideration, and which is capable of showingitself in almost every act and incident of l ife, we have, Ithink, a key that wil l open most Indian hearts. A centuryago there was a very intelligent and observant French priest,the Abbe Dubois, who spent thirty years of his life in India,and who wrote a most admirable book upon the mannersand customs and feelings of the people.2 I quote himbecause

,as a foreigner and a Catholic missionary, he could

not be suspected of any undue partial ity to the BritishGovernment

,and because as a Frenchman , with the memory

of the French dominion in India, of which the British armshad only recently robbed his countrymen, fresh in his mind,he could hardly be expected to bless the conquerors. Thiswas what he wrote The justice and prudence which the

present rulers display in endeavouring to make these people

The extrem e native Press persis ted in seeing in this remark anal lusiontothe Q leen

’s Proc lamationof 18 58 . The remark was general , and no such idea

a ltered the m ind of the speaker .

H induManner s , Cus toms , and Ceremonies . Trans lated by H . K . Beau

28 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPALITY

less unhappy than they have hitherto been ; the anxietywh ich they manifest in increasing their material comfort ;above all , the inviolable respect which they constantly show

for the customs and religious bel iefs of the,country ; and,

lastly,the protection which they afford to the weak as well

as to the strong—al l these have contributed more to the

consolidation of their power than even thei rvictories andconquests.” Gentlemen, the era of victories and conquest!is now over , but the other and more abiding source of

strength remains and an English Viceroy may safely repeat

at the dawn of the twentieth century what the French Abbesaid at the opening of the nineteenth as to the character andm otives of British rule in this country.

I was asked the other day whether, after two years’

Indian experience,I had at al l changed the views to which

I have often given expression regarding the importance of

the part that is played by India in the structure of the BritishEmpire. My answer was that they have not been changed.but confirmed . In the writings of a political philosopher Irecently came across the astounding utterance that there ismore true greatness within a two miles’ radius of the Br itishMuseum than in the whole of Asia.

” In my judgment thiswas a very arrogant and a very foolish remark. I t is a proposition to which history is every day giving the lie. I t isthe Eastern and not the Western problems that continue toag itate the world, and Asia has stil l to be disposed of beforethe intel lect of the West can exclusively concentrate itselfupon Western concerns. The past year has

,moreover

, beenone which has conspicuously demonstrated the part that isplayed by India in the Imperial system . I t was the promptdespatch of a contingent of the Indian Army a year ago

that saved the Colony of Natal . They were Indian regimentswho accomplished the rescue of the Legations at Peking. We

have rendered this service to the Empire in a year whenwehave been distracted by famine and plague, and weigheddown by our own troubles. If our arm reaches as far as

China in the East, and South Africa in the West, who can

doubt the range of our influence, or the share of I ndia inImperial destinies ?I have also been asked, since I came to India, whether I

ADDRE S S FROM 3 0m m y MUNICIPALI TY 29

was at all disil lusioned with my work, and whether my lovefor the country had at al l diminished. Again my answerhas been in the negative. The work to be done seems tome jus t as important ; the opportunities for doing it to beevenm ore numerous. More than a century ago the oratorBurke remarked that the British Empire in India was anawful thing. He had not seen it ; he had only studied itfrom a distance of miles ; and the Empire of whichhe spoke was but a fraction of that which now acknowledgesthe sway of the British Crown . If it was awful a hundred

years ago , what is it now ? Is not the custody of the livesand fortunes of 300 mill ions of human be ings—between onefourth and one-fifth of the entire human race—a responsibilitythat m ight daunt the boldest energy and sober the flightiestimagination Moreover, they are not members of one race,or evenof a few races, but of a swarm of races. As I goabout ontour and see the people in the streets, the differenceto the outward eye is enormous. A street crowd in Lahoredoes not present the smal lest resemblance to one in Bombay.

Bombay is utterly unl ike Calcutta. And what is this ex

ternal difference compared with that within , the differenceof feature compared with that of character and creed ? Andagain, what are any of these differences compared with thosethat separate the huge Indian majority from the microscopicBritish minority to whom their rule has been committedThes e are the commonplace everyday reflections that arehom e in upon me every hour that I spend in this country.

How can a man be anything but absorbed, anything butenthusias tic, about such a work ? Every day some freshthing seems to require doing, some new subject demandsto be taken up. There is, I know, a school who say,“Leave well alone. You are in the unchanging Eas t.Don’t worry yourself unduly about reform . N0 one everwanted to be reformed in Asia. Gentlemen

,do you

remember the answer of the economist Turgot, in the reignof Louis XVI . of France ? He was always pushing freshreforms. Perhaps if he had pushed even more, there wouldhave been no French Revolution. When his friends cameto him and said that he was going ahead too quickly, hereplied, You forget that in my family we do not live

30 ADDRE S S FROM 3 0m m y MUNICIPAL ITY

beyond fifty. If th is was the defence of the Frenchstatesman, may not a Viceroy of India reply to a similarcharge, You forget that I only have five years—five yearswithin which to affect the movement, or to influence the

outturn, of this mighty machine For such a task everyyear seems a minute, every minute a second, -one m ight

a lmost say that there 15 hardly time to begin.

There is one respect in which it has been my constante ndeavour to infuse an element of the modern spirit intoIndian administration. I can see no reason why, in Ind ianse lsewhere, the official hierarchy should not benefit by pubficopinion . Official wisdom is not so transcendent as to be

superior to this form of stimulus and guidance. Indeed,my inclination where Government is attacked is notassume that the critic must inevitably be wrong, but that

it is quite conceivable that he may be right. I n any case,

I inquire. Of course, it is easy to disparage publ ic op inionina continent l ike India to say that it is either the op inionof the merchants , or the Civil Service, or the Army, or ofamateurs ingeneral ; or, if it be native public opinion, thatit only represents the views of the infinitesimal fraction whoa re educated. No doubt this is true . But al l these are

the various sections upon whose intel l igent co-operation theGovernment depends. To the masses we can give little

more than security and material comfort in their humblel ives. They have not reached a pitch of development at

which they can lend us anything more than a passives upport. But the opinion of the educated classes is onethat it is not statesmanship to ignore or to despise. I

do not say that one should always defer to it. If a rulerof India were to adopt al l the wild suggestions that aremade to him by the various organs of public opinion

, he

would bring the fabric of Indian Government topplingdown in a month. Neither must he carry deference to

the pitch of subordination ; for I can conceive nothingmore unfortunate, or more calamitous, than that Government should abrogate one jot or tittle of its own respons ibility . A benevolent despotism that yielded to agitationwould find that, in sacrificing its despotism,

it had also losti ts benevolence. All these are truisms which no one will

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32 FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON

PRESENTATION OF FREEDOM OF CITY OF

LONDON

OnJuly 20, 1 904, Lord Curzon, while in England during the

interval betweenhi s first and second term s of office, was presentedwith the Freedom of the City of London in the Guildhall. Inrep ly to the address of the City Chamberlain, Sir Joseph Dim sdale,he Spoke as follows

Let me begin by thanking the Chamberlain very warm lyfor his kind reference to Lady Curzon . Though, as he

remarked, not ofl‘icially present here to-day, she is yet inth is hall to hea r the courteous things that he said abouther, and with which, in regard to the assis tance she has

rendered to me and to the work that she has done in India,I venture cordial ly to associate myself.My Lord Mayor, I do not suppose that there is any

honour which a public man can value more high ly thanthe Freedom of the City of London . No fee can purchaseit

,no conqueror can claim it as his own ; it is the free gift

of the corporationof the greatest city in the world, and ithas the added dignity of the associations that accom panyit, and the memory of the il lustrious names with wh icheach fresh recipient is proud to find his own enrolled . Butthe honour seems to me to carry an especial grace whenit is conferred upon those servants of the Crown who havebeen serving their country in distant parts, for it showsthem that in their absence they have not been altogetherforgotten

,and that those of you who are at the hear t of

the Empire are not indifferent to what is pass ing on the

outskirts.By a law which was designed for different times, and

which,in my Opinion, is now obsolete, no Viceroy of I ndia

can leave India for England, whatever the urgency, publicor private

,without vacating his office ;

1 and so it is that

133 Geo. I I I . e. 37, repeated in 3 and 4 Will . IV . c. 85, 73.

Under these Acts neither the Governor -General, nor the Comm ander-ia-Chief,nor the Governors of Mad ras and Bom bay, can depart from India wi th intentto returnto Europe without thereby vacating his office. I t was because of this

provis ion of the law that Lord Curzon ceased to be V iceroy during the intervalbetween his first and second term s of office, Lord Am pthi ll, as the senior in

FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON 33

a manm ay be absent, as I have been, from his country foranunbroken period of five and a half years without sightor sound of home. During his long exile the weight andisolation of his great post tel l heavily upon him . Fatigueof body and spirit often press him down ; the volume of

work that he has to discharge is such as no man who hasnot undertaken it can we l l imagine. You may judge,therefore, what a reward—I had almost said, what a tonicto body and soul—is such a reception as this to such aman; how his heart warms within him at the sympatheticrecogni tionof his countrymen , and how fresh courage andspirit are infused into him to go forth again and renew

My Lord Mayor, the City Chamberlain in his speech hasdrawn an appreciative and flattering picture of some of

the aspects of the administration with which I have beenconcerned . If I detected in some of his remarks the too

generous part iality of one old Etonian for another, I am

yet conscious of the service that he has rendered to Indiaby invi ting the attention of this representative assemblageto some features in our recent administration .

May I also take advantage of the present Opportunity tosay a few words to my countrymen about that great charge,the grea test that is anywhere borne by the English people,nay, more, in my judgment the most onerous and the mostirnpress ive that has ever rested upon the shoulders of aconquering and civi l ised race ? I sometimes think that themost remarkable thing about British rule in India is the

general ignorance that prevails about it in England.

Seventy years ago Lord Macaulay said , in his speech aboutthe Government of India, that a broken head in ColdbathFie lds produced a greater sensation amongst us than three

pitched battles in India. Twenty years later Lord Dalhous ie ,that celebrated proconsul , wrote that nothing short of a

great victory or a great defeat in India was sufficient to

standing of the two Pres idency Governors, being appointed under the Act of

1861 (24 and 25 V ict. c. 67 , 50-5 1 ) to officiate during h is absence. Lord

Cannonwas himself of opinionthat the earlier law, by which leave of any kind isdeified to the above-nam ed high officials alone of all the pub lic servants of the

Empire, ought to be repealed . But H is Majesty’s Government have never so farconsented to the proposa l.

34 FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON

create in English society even a transient interest in I ndianaffairs. If these are the tests of English interest in India,then

,my Lords , any such se rvice as it may have been inmy

power to render must be, indeed, unknown. But I thinkthat things have somewhat advanced since those days.Communica tions have greatly improved between the two

countries ; postal and telegraphic charges have beencheapened ; more cold -weather visitors come out to us inIndia every year ; and there is always an inte l l igentminority of persons here who follow,

with the utmost interest,everything that goes on there. Yet, in its main essentials,the indictment stil l remains true, and you have only to

look at the morning newspapers, with rare exceptions—andthere are exceptions ; for instance, I was delighted to see,

only a day or two ago,that the T!mes has announced its

intention of recommencing the series of period ical articlesupon India which those of us who are interested in thatcountry used to read with so much delight in bygone daysI say you have only to look at the newspapers to see that,with rare exceptions, the average Englishman is much moreconcerned in the latest footbal l or cricket match

,in a m otor

trial, or a wrestling encounter, than he is in the greatestresponsibi lity that has been undertaken by his fel lowcountrymen on the face of the earth. Even if he looksabroad he sees more and hears more about the 1

who inhabit the Colonies than he does about thewho inhabit India. In the happiness of our insular detachment, or in the pride of racial expansion, he forgets that thegreatest constituent of the Empire in scale and in importancel ies neither in these islands, nor in the Colonies, but in ourAsiatic dependency. I t is true that for this ignorance and

want of proportion on his part there is abundant excm e.

Here are our own people ; this is the hearthstone of theEmpire and the nursery of the race ; these islands mustalways be our first concern ; even the Colonies are, in a

sense, only one stage more distant, because they are peopledby our own kith and kin . India

,on the other hand, is very

remote and very unintelligible,and the average Englishman,

if only he hears nothing about it from day to day,is apt to

think that matters must be going on sufli ciently well .

FRE EDOM OF CITY OF LONDON 35

My Lords and gentlemen, I have always ventured tohold a different idea about British rule in India. To me it isthe greatest thing that the English people have done, or aredoing now ; it is the highest touchstone of nationa l duty.

If the nations of the earth were to stand up to be judged bysome supreme tribunal, I think that upon our Europeanrecord

,or upon our colonial record, we should survive the

test. But if there were the sl ightest hesitation on the partof the judge or jury I would confidently throw our Indianrecord into the scales. For where else in the world has arace gone forth and subdued , not a country or a kingdom,

but a conti nent, and that continent peopled, not by savagetribes, but by races with traditions and a civil isation olderthan our own

,with a history not inferior to ours in dignity

or romance ; subduing them not to the law of the sword,

but to the rule of justice, bringing peace and order and good

government to nearly one-fifth of the entire human race, and

holding them with so mild a restraint that the rulers arethe merest handful amongst the ruled, a tiny Speck of

white foam upon a dark and thunderous ocean ? I hope Iam no rhapsodist, but I say that I would as soon be acitizenof the country that has wrought this deed as I wouldhe of the country that defeated the Armada or producedHampden and Pitt.But we all l ive in a severely practical age, and I can

afford to be rather more concrete in my il lustrations. Ishould l ike to convey to this audience some idea of the partthat India is capable of playing, nay, of the part that it hasrecently played, in the Imperial burden . As I say, my illustrations shall be drawn from recent history and from myown experience. Two of them have been mentioned bythe City Chamberlain in his speech. I f you want to save

your Colony of Natal from being overrun by a formidableenemy, you ask India for help, and she gives it ; if you wantto rescue the white men’s legations from massacre at Peking,and the need is urgent, you request the Government of

India to despatch an expedition, and they despatch it ; if

youare fighting the Mad Mullah in Somali land,you soon

discover that Indian troops and an Indian general are best

qualified for the task, and you ask the Government of India

36 FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON

to send them if you des ire to defend any of your extremeoutposts or coaling stations of the Empire, Aden, Mauritius,Singapore, Hong-kong, even Tien- ts inor Shan-ha i-kwan, itis to the Indian Army that you turn ; if you want to builda rai lway to Uganda or in the Soudan , you apply for Ind ianlabour. When the late Mr. Rhodes was engaged in developing your recent acquisition of Rhodesia, he came to me

for ass istance. It is with Indian coolie labour that youexploit the plantations equal ly of Demerara and Natal with

Indian trained officers that you irrigate Egypt and dam the

Ni le with Indian forest officers that you tap the resourcesof Central Africa and Siam with Indian surveyors that youexplore al l the hidden places of the earth.

Speaking before an audience such as this, I should wish,if I had time, my Lord Mayor, also to demonstrate that, inmy opinion, India is a country where there will be muchlarger openings for the investment of capital in the futurethan has hitherto been the case, and where a great work dindustrial and commercial exploitation lies before us.Then, again, how familiar we are in recent times wi th

the argument that India is the vulnerable point of the Empire.And assuredly it is true that if we were engaged in a greatinternational war—which God forbid—it is not at Dover or

London that one, at any rate, of your possible antagonistswould strike. He would not bombard Quebec or land a

force in Sydney Harbour. It is in Asia that the pressurewould be applied it is your Indian frontier that would hearthe brunt. It is there or thereabouts, in all probability , that

the future of your dominion might be decided.

There is an old proverb which says, He that Englandfain would win , must with Ireland first beg in.

” I havealways thought that this was rather a dubious complimentto our brothers across St. George’s Channel , but I supposeit alludes to the times when the foreign enemy who hadaggressive intentions upon us used to begin his invas ioninthat quarter. At al l events, if you were now to subst itute“ I ndia ” for “ I reland ” in the refrain

,I do not think you

would be so very far from the mark. I hope I have said

enough, therefore, my Lords and gentlemen , to show youthat you cannot . afford to leave India out of your calculao

FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON 37

tions. She is as important to you as youa re beneficial toher. I n the world - politics of the future believe me thatIndia wi l l play an increasing part, and a time wil l comewhen in our reformed Board Schools the average Englishboy wi l l require to know more about India than he doesnow, will require to know as much about India as he nowdoes about Marathon or Waterloo.

I grant, my Lord Mayor, that the features of governmentinthe two countr ies are very different ; and perhaps thisis the m ain cause of the ignorance and misconception towhich I have referred. We have in India a good many of

the problems that you have here, but they are magnifiedalmos t beyond recognition by the complexity of the factorsand the immensity of the scale. We also have our own

problem s , to which, in the tranquil uniformity of life in theseislands, you are fortunately strangers. You have not the

perpetual and harassing anxiety of a land frontier 5 700miles in length, peopled by hundreds of different tribes, mostof them inured to religious fanaticism and hereditary rapine.

A single outbreak at a single point may set entire sectionsof that frontier ablaze. Then , beyond it, we are broughtinto d irect contact with the picturesque but peri lous debilityof independent, or quasi- independent, Asiatic States, someOf them incurably diseased, and hastening to their fall andbehind them

,again, are the muffled figures of great European

Powers, advancing nearer and nearer, and sometimes findingin these conditions temptations to action that is not instrict accordance with the interests which we are bound todefend. That

, m y Lord Mayor, is the external problem of

India.Then, if we look within, whereas you in England have a

population that is relatively homogeneous, we have to dealinIndia with races that are as d ifl

'

erent from each other asthe Esquimaux is from the Spaniard or the I rishman fromthe Turk , with creeds that

'

range between the extreme po intsof the basest animalism on the one hand and the mostexalted m etaphysics on the other, and with standards of l ifethat cover the whole space between barbarism and civil isation. You have here an aristocracy that is drawn from the

peop le, and that goes back to it. Our aristocracy in India

3s FRE EDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON

consists of native Chiefs of diverse races, many of them as

much aliens to the people as we are ourse lves , presentingevery variety of status and privi lege, from the magnificent

potentates that you sometimes see in this country to the

petties t landed proprietor.You hardly know here what the phrase “ land revenue

means. In India it is the be-al l and end-al l of m i l l ions of

the population, and it is the mainspring of our internal

administration. I n England your ra ilways are built, managed,and financed by private enterprise ; in India they are one of

the chief charges of Government. I remember that it fellto me

,as Viceroy, to issue orders, on my own responsibi lity ,

for the better accommodation of native passengers inthirdclass carriages. Here, 1nEngland, your education problem ,

as any Parliamentarian present wil l bear m e out, is thornyenough ; but it is as nothing compared with ours in India,where we are trying to graft the science of the Wes t ontoan Eastern stem ; where we have to deal with re l ig iousdifferences compared with which al l your sectarian an imosities sink into the shade where we have a chaos of languages,and stages of mental organisation that extend, as I haveremarked , from the transcendentalist to the savage.Then , here inEngland, you do not know what fam ine is.

My Lord Mayor, I thank the Chamberlain for the rem arksthat he made on that subject in his address . I t is quite truethat I had to administer in India the greatest famine thathas befal len that country in modern times with in the rangeto which it applied, and I can assure you that it is anexperience that would wring blood from stone. You haveyour sunshine and storms, your drought and floods, in th iscountry, but you do not know the awful possibil ities thatare summed up in the single word “ monsoon ,

” and wh ichspel l the difference in India between life and death to areas

in any one of which the whole of the United Kingdommight be swallowed up. You have your suffering and destitution, but you have not such an appall ing visitor as the

plague—the plague, now in its seventh year in India, defyinganalysis, defeating the utmost efforts of medical skil l andadministrative energy, inscrutable in its origin, merciles s inits ravages, sweeping off, as our records show, very often

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4° FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON

policy wh ich should profit by the experience of the past andput us in a position to cope with the next visitation whenunhappily it bursts upon us ; an education policy whichshould free the intellectual activities of the Indian people, sokeen and restless as they are, from the paralysing c lutch of

examinations ; a railway policy that wil l provide adm inistratively and financially for the great extension that webe l ieve to lie before us an irrigation policy that will uti l ise tothe maximum, whether remuneratively or unremuneratively ,all the available water resources of India, not m ere ly incanals, —I almost think we have reached the end there—butin tanks and reservoirs and wells ; a police policy that willraise the standard of the only emblem of authority that themajority of the people see , and wil l free them from pettydiurnal tyranny and Oppression . I t is impossible to satisfyal l classes in India or anywhere else. There are some peoplewho clamour for boons which it is impossible to give. Butthe administrator looks rather to the silent and inarticulatemasses, and i f he can raise, even by a little, the leve l ofmaterial comfort and wel l -be ing in their lives, he has earnedhis reward.

I am glad that our finances in India have placed us in aposition to give the people the first reduction of taxationthat they have enjoyed for twenty years. We have endeavoured to render the land revenue more equable in its

incidence, to lift the load of usury from the shoulders of thepeasant, and to check that reckless alienation of the soil

which in many parts of the country was fast converting h imfrom a free proprietor to a bond slave. We have done ourbest to encourage industries which little by little wil l rel ievethe congested field of agricu lture

,develop the indigenous

resources of India, and make that country more and more

self-providing in the future. I would not indulge in anyboast, but I dare to think that as the result of these effortsI can point to an India that is more prosperous

,more con

tented, and more hopeful. Wealth is increasing in India.

There is no tes t you can apply which does not demonstrateit. Trade is growing. Evidences of progress and pros

perity are multiplying on every side. Six years ago,just

before I left England, a committee of experts was sitting in

FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON 41

London to provide us in I ndia with that which is the firstcondition of economic advance—that is, a sound currencypolicy. I thank Sir Henry Fowler, the chairman of thatcomm ittee , and the authorities co -operating with him, for

the grea t service that they rendered to India. Profiting bytheir labours, we have introduced there a gold standard andestablis hed fix ity of exchange, and we seem to have put anend to the fitful and demoral ising vagaries of the silverrupee.

But I think I can point to more satisfactory symptomsstill. I be lieve there to be a steady and growing advanceinthe loyalty of the Indian people. When the late QueenVictoria died there was an outburst of sorrow throughoutIndia almost equal to anything that you could see here inEngland . A little later, when the present King succeededand we ce lebrated his Coronation at Delhi, there was asim ilar display of national fee ling, not at Delhi alone, butinevery vil lage and hamlet throughout that vast continent.I know it has been the fashion in some quarters to deridethat great ceremony at Delhi as a vain and unprofitabledisplay. My Lord Mayor

, if we spent about as much, andI do not think we spent more, in crowning the Emperor of

as you spent here in crowning the King of

I do not consider that we need reproachourselves very much for our extravagance. But we didmuch m ore than that. Already the people of India knewand revered the Prince of Wales, because they had seenhim . We brought home to them at Delhi that that Princewas now their ruler, and that in his rule were their securityand salvation. We touched their hearts with the idea of

a common sentiment and a common aim. Depend uponit, you wi l l never rule the East except through the heart,and the moment imagination has gone out of your Asiatic

pol icy your Empire wil l dwindle and decay.

There is another respect in which India has beenadvancing by leaps and bounds

,and on which I should

like to say a br ief word. In the point to which I am aboutto refer I doubt if modern India would be recognised bythose who knew it a generation ago. The British publicknows that between one-fourth and one-fifth of the popula

42 FREEDOM OF CITY OF LONDON

tion there is under the rule of native Princes and Chiefs ,though subject, of course, in all essentials to the BritishPower. There are many hundreds of these Chiefs all

included, but the most important of them number lessthan one hundred. In this country you know al l abouttheir ancient l ineage

,their costumes and courts, their

l iberality and loyalty to the Crown . But it has been too

much the fashion here to regard them as so many pictoresque excrescences from the dul l uniformity of Indian life,to look upon them as survivals of an obsolete era, withoutany practical uti lity ,

and sometimes sunk in selfishness and

lethargy. My Lords,that is not my idea of the Indian

Princes . I have always been a devoted be l iever in the

continued existence of the Native States in India and an

ardent well-wisher of the native Princes. But I bel ieve in

them not as relics, but as rulers ; not as puppets, but as

l iving factors in the administration . I want them to sharethe responsibil ities as well as the glories of British rule.

Therefore it is that I have ventured to preach to them the

gospel of duty, of common service in the interests of the

Empire, of a high and strenuous aim . But you cannotexpect them to attain these standards unless you give theman adequate education ; and accordingly, in consultationwith them , we have revised the enti re curriculum of the

Chiefs’ Colleges in India,which have been set up for their

instruction. And if you thus train and educate them youmust give them an object and a career. I t is for thisreason that, by permission of His Majesty the King, Ifounded the institution known as the Imperial Cadet Corps ,where we give military education to the pick of the Indianaristocracy, and which wil l eventuate as time goes on in the

bestowal for the first time of commissions as British officersupon Indian chiefs

,nobles

,and gentlemen . This is a

policy of trust, but I am confident that it wil l be repaid, foralready the Princes of India are giving to our efforts thereply that might be expected of their nobil ity of characterand their high traditions. They are coming forward inresponse to our appeals. They welcome and do not resentthese changes, and we are gradually, nay, I think we are

quickly, creating there the spectacle of a throne supported

FRE EDOM OF CITY OF LONDON 43

by feudatories who not only render military service,—theydo that without stint,—but who also vie with it in adm inis

trative energy and devotion to the welfare of their people.My Lords and gentlemen, I ought not to conclude these

remarks without saying a word about another and a wideraspect of our pol icy—the problem of Frontier Defence.It is not necessary for me to sing the praises of the IndianArmy. The Indian Army has written its name on the map,not only of India, but of the British Empire. It is writingit in the windy passes of Tibet at this moment. Armyreform is very much in the air, and I can assure you that inIndia we are not free from the contagion . We are doingour bes t there in respect of equipment

,organisation

,and

arm am ent, in readiness to mobil ise, and in facilities of communica tion, to carry out the lessons of the most recentscience and the most recent experience. And since

,as we

have been told, you have banished our modern Hercules tothe Himalayas, we are not letting him rest, but are util isinghim in the execution of labours every whit as important asany on which he might be engaged here.

We have had a period of almost unbroken peace for six

years onthat stormy frontier of India which looks towardsthe North-West and Afghanistan. And I think the reasonis this—that, abandoning old and stale controversies, wehave hit upon a policy in India that is both forward andbackward—forward in so far as we hold up to our treatyfrontier, neither minimising nor shirking our obligations ;backward in so far as we do not court a policy of expansionor adventure , but depend rather on a policy of co-operationand concil iation than one of coercion or subjugation of thetribes. I do not prophesy about the future. No man whohas read a page of Indian history wil l ever prophesy aboutthe frontier. We shal l doubtless have trouble there again .

Turbulence and fanaticism ferment in the blood of thoseraces . But we have given you peace for a longer periodthan you have enjoyed at any time during the last thirty

years, and I believe that slowly and surely we are buildingup the fabric of local security and contentment on theborder .

But I am not sure that some student of public affairs

44 FRE EDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON

wi l l not interpolate at this moment the ques tion—What, then,are you doing in Tibet, and how do you reconcile this wi ththe policy of peace and concil iation that you have described ?My Lord Mayor, the instruments of Governm ent often

cannot speak their own minds, and my lips are tied byobligations which you will be the first to recognise. Atthe same time, as the recent head of the Government ofI ndia

,I may perhaps say this. Though we shrink in Ind ia

from expeditions, and though we abominate a policy of

adventure, we had not the slightest hesitation or doubt inrecommending the policy that we did to His Majesty

’

s

Government. We felt that we could not afford any longer ,with due regard to our interests and prestige on thatsection of the frontier, to acquiesce in a po l icy of unprovoked insults, endured with almost unexampled patience,at the hands of the Tibetan Government ever since they,and not we—please remember thi s, ever since they, and

not we—assumed the aggressive, and first invaded Bri tishterritory eighteen years ago. And stil l less could we

acquiesce in this treatment at the very time when the

young and perverse ruler of Tibet, who it seems to m e has

shown himself to be the evil genius of his people, wh ilerefusing to hold any communication with us

,or even to

receive letters from the representative of the British Sovereign , was conducting communications with another greatPower, situated not at his doors, but at a great distanceaway, and was courting its protection. I was sent to India,amongst other objects, to guard the frontier of India

,and I

have done it. I was not sent there to let a hostile dangerand menace grow up just beyond our gates

,and I have

done my best to prevent it. There are people so ful l ofknowledge at home that they assure us that al l these fearswere il lusory, and that we could with dignity and prudencehave gone on turning our other cheek to the Tibetan sm iter.These fears were not illusory. The danger was imminentand real . Perhaps the frontier States may be taken to

know something about it, and if we have, as we have neverhad before, the frontier States of Nepal and Sikkim andBhutan , the major ity of them al lied by rel igious and racialaffinities to Tibet, all supporting our action and deploring

FREEDOM OF CI TY OF LONDON 45

the folly and obstinacy of the Tibetan Government, theremust be strong pr im fad e ground that we are not entirelymistaken in our views. No one regrets more than myse lfthe fighting with innocent people or the slaughter of il larmed but courageous men . I should have l iked to carrythe m atter through without firing a shot, and we did ourbest to do so. Months were spent in the sincere but futileeffor t to avoid a conflict. But only the meanest knowledgeof the frontier is required to know that it is not vaci llationthat produces respect, and that the longer you hesitate andpalter the severer is the reckoning you have to pay. I hopethat as a result of these Operations we shall be able to introduce some measure of enlightenment into that miserableand m onk- ridden country, and without adding to our ownresponsibilities, which the Government of I ndia are withoutthe least wi sh to extend, that we shall be able to ward off

a source of political unrest and intrigue on this section of

our border, and gradually to build up, as I believe it to beinour power to do, harmonious relations between the harmless people of Tibet and ourselves.My Lords and gentlemen , these have been the main

incidents of the pol icy of the Government in India duringthe last six years. There is only one other feature of thesituation to which I wish to allude, if you wil l bear withme

,because it is in one sense the most important of all .

I have been speaking to-day about the acts and symptomsof Briti sh rule in India. What is its basis ? I t is notmilitary force

,it is not civil authority, it is not prestige,

though al l these are part of it. If our rule is to last inIndia it must rest on a more solid basis. I t must dependonthe eternal moralities of righteousness and justice. This ,I can assure you

,is no mere phrase of the conventicle .

The matter is too serious on the l ips of a Governor-Generalof India for cant. Unless we can persuade the mil lions ofIndia that we wil l give to them absolute justice as betweenmanand man , equality before the law, freedom from tyrannyand injustice and Oppression, then our Empire will not touchthei r hearts and wi l l fade away. No one is more ready toadmit than I that if you put side by side the rulers of aEuropean race and the ruled of an Asiatic, and particularly

46 FRE EDOM OF CITY OF LONDON

such races as the I ndian and the English, where youhave a

smal l minority face to face with avast alien conglom eration,youcannot expect to have complete coalescence. Onthe

one side you have pride of race, the duty of self-protection,the consciousness of power on the other you have strugglingsentiments and stifled aspirations. But

,my Lord Mayor, a

bri dge mus t be built between the two, and on that bridgejustice mus t stand with unerring sca les . Harshness

,opp res

sion,i l l-usage, all these in India are offences, not only against

the higher law, but against the honour and reputation of the

rul ing race. I am as strong a believer as any m aninthe

prestige of my countrymen . But that prestige does notrequire artificial supports ; it rests upon conduct, and conduct alone. My precept in th is respect does not differ frommy practice. During the time that I have been in India theGovernment have taken a strong stand for the fair treatm entof our Indian fellow- subjects, who are equal with us in the

eyes of God and the law. I rejoice to say that the conductof Englishmen in general in I ndia towards the Indians isexemplary

,even in trying and provocative circumstances ;

but where exceptions occur I think that the sentiment of

the majority should be as quick to condemn them as is theirconduct, and that the Government, which is above race or

party, and against whom any injustice is a reproach and a

slur, should receive the unhesitating support of the entirecommunity. That is the policy which the Government haspursued in my time, and by my conduct, my Lord Mayorand gentlemen

,I am wil ling to be judged.

I will now bring these remarks to a close. I t is seventeenyears since I first visited India ; it is thirteen years since Ifirst had the honour of being connected with its administration. India was the first love

,and throughout all that time

it has been the main love, of my politica l l ife. I have g ivento it some of my best years. Perhaps I may be pri vilegedto give to it yet more. But no man could do this unlesshe saw before India a larger vision or were himself inspiredwith a fuller hope. If our Empire were to end to-morrow,

I do not think that we need be ashamed of its epitaph.I t would have done its duty to India

,and justified i ts

mission to mankind. But it is not going to end . I t is not

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4a LUNCHEON A TMANS ION HOUS E

noon. I expect that they would ca l l aloud for anallopathir

treatment. I remem ber reading a story of Lord Macaulaywhen he was firs t appo inted a mem ber of the Board 01

Control inEngland while he was sti ll study ing the questiorof India he wrote a letter to his sister in wh ich he said

Am I not in fair training to become as great a bore as i

I had been in India myse lf—that is, as great a bore as thr

greatest W ith this warning ringing in my ears , I fear

that I must not show any great eagerness to respond tr

the lead wh ich you have given me in the graceful and

complimentary rem arks to which I have jus t listenedYour speech was in itse lf a high compliment to m e. ll

contained a statement of further compliment, about whichunti l the moment that you announced it, I was not m ysel:certain—namely, that I am at th is moment the youngestFreeman of the City of London. It was accompanied b)y et another compliment in the shape of the letter whict

you read from the head of His Majesty’

s Government. 1

was sent out to India by one Prime Minister, LorriSalisbury ; when I left England my health was proposed at

a valedictory banquet by another Prime Minister , LordRosebery and now to day you have read out thr

language of compliment of a third,Mr. Balfour. Lorr

'

Salisbury had a peculiar acquaintance with India, for 1101

only was he twice Secretary of State for that greatdependency, but his despatches and minutes about thr

Government of I ndia are among the very best models 0

oflicial l iterature in the English language. Lord Roseberjis

,I believe, the only English Prime Minister who has beer

out to India since the days of the Duke of Well ingtonand I should like to commend his example to the man)embryonic Premiers who are possibly seated at this table

Mr. Balfour has never yet done us that honour, but I

should like also to suggest to him a visit to that greadependency as a preferable alternative to some of the

experiences which wil l possibly lie before him in the

ensuing years. However that may be,Mr. Balfour ha:

devoted to the military and political problems aris ing onof our Indian Empire an amount of attention unequalletby any of his predecessors, and likely, in my Opinion, to bl

fraught with inestimable advantage to the interests of theEmpire as a whole .

My Lord Mayor, I detect only one omission in yourremarks, and it has reminded me of a stil l greater omissioninthe speech that I made in the Guildhal l this morning.

Whenany assemblage of Englishmen meets together to extolthe manner in which India is governed , do not let themforget the men by whom it is governed . This is themore necessary because, owing to the conditions of theirwork, the majority of them are unknown at home. TheViceroy, the Commander- in-Chief, and a few high oflicials

more or less fi l l the public eye and earn praise for the workwhich is done by others. Sometimes

,it is true

,they are

criticised for acts on the part of their subordinates of whichthey have never even heard. But there can be no questionthat the ba lance is largely on the other side, and that manyanoffi cial name has been written in characters that havelasted on cairns that others have raised. And who

,if I may

pursue the subject for a moment, are these men of whom ISpeak They are drawn from every part of this countryand from every rank of society. They are typical of thebest of the British race and of British life. Some of themare the pick of your Universities. Others carry to Indianames that have already been borne in that country by

generations before them . Accident, no doubt, takes someinto the Civi l Service

,heredita ry associations take others

,

but I be l ieve that it is the Engl ishman ’s passion for responsihility , his zest for action on a large field, that is the rul ingmotive with most. And I think that they are right ; forinIndia in itiative is hourly born; there great deeds areconstantly being done, there is room for fruition, there is ahorizon for results . I do not mean to say that it is not soat home

,but to one coming back from a long service abroad

those considerations are less patent to the ey e. In theGuildhal l this morning I saw m en who had administered

provinces with a population double that of the UnitedKingdom

,with a population half again as great as that

(India excluded) of the whole British Empire. I havemyself served with col leagues in India who would have beenentitled to a place in any Imperial Cabinet, and who would

E

so LUNCI IEON A TMANS ION HOUSE

have risen to high place inany Government in the wor ldI t is true that the names of these men are not onthe lips oftheir countrymen ,—their faces are unknown,—but allow me

to say for them , on th is rare occas ion when I have the

Opportunity of speaking, that they are the rea l Empirebuilders

, for in the sweat of their brow have they laid the

foundations of which you in England only see the fai r and

g littering superstructure as it rears its head into the sky.

I sometimes th ink that in the catalogue of our nationa'

virtues we hardly lay sufli cient stress upon the enormousadministrative ability of the English race— I speak of

abil ity as distinguished from the moral ingred ients ol

character and courage, which are the more obviouselements of success. And yet, in al l parts of the Em pireand more especially in India, we have an amount of

administrative ability which could not be purchased for

mil lions of pounds sterl ing, and which is the envy of ever)other empire-possessing nation in the world. I hope tha1

in what I have just said I have not given the im p ress iorthat I think the service of such men is unrecognised a1

home. I do not believe there is any deliberate lack 0

interest or want of pride in their work. It arises rathelfrom the Englishman ’s familiar indifl

'

erence to the grea“

things that he is doing on the face of the earth,and hi.

fussy and parochial agitation about the smal l .If I may keep you a moment longer

, there is one othe:aspect of the work of the Civil Service in India to whiclI should l ike to refer. I spoke th is morning about thr

magnitude of the undertaking ; let me add a word abouthe industry that it entai ls. I sometimes hear people a‘

home speak about the members of the Indian Civi l S ervieas though they were persons who had little else to do i1

India but perspire. At least, that is their idea about thrmen who live and work in the plains ; and as for thoshappy ones, including myself, who go up to Simla or thchi l l stations, we are regarded as the lucky denizens 0

places where a mild frivol ity alternates with an almosOlympian repose. That is not my experience of any sea

of government in India, whatever its altitude. There ia story told of two eminent Frenchmen—I believe the

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52 LUNCHE ON A TMANS ION HOUSE

this morning is one which must have imposed a heavystrain on their energies, I have never from any one of

them,young or old

,high or low, heard one murmur of

protes t or complaint. You wil l pardon me if I refer to

this fact on the present occasion , and if I say that, inaccept

ing the compliment you have offered to m e, I think muchmore of them. It is on their behalf, even more than on

my own,that I gratefully acknowledge the gracious words

that you have spoken , and thank you for the m anner inwhich you have proposed my health.

1

PRESENTATION OF FREEDOM OF BOROUGHOF DERBY

On July 2 8 , 1 904, the Freedom of the Borough of Derby waspresented to Lord Curzon, in the Drill Hall at Derby, before anaudience drawn from all parts of Derbyshire, his native county.

After s igning the roll Lord Curzonspoke as follows

[The earlier part of the speech, wh ich was mainly of local

interes t, is om itted ]

Party has nothing whatever to do with India,and ought

never to have anyth ing to do with it. India stands outs ideof party. We know nothing there of the party labe ls of

Liberal and Conservative, or Unionist and Radical . Duringthe time that I have been serving in India I have almostforgotten to what party I originally belonged in this country ,and I have received—and am grateful for the fact—thesupport of both political parties at home. I should likemyself to go further. I should like to place a ring-fenceround the whole British Empire, with a notice-board, onwhich should be written,

“ Any party man wil l be prosecuted who trespasses here. For to me the Empire is so

sacred and so noble a thing that I cannot understandpeople quarrel ling about it, or even holding opposite opinionsabout it. But I know as a matter of fact that they do,and that what to one man appears to be a splendid and

1 With this speech may be com pm ed Lord Curzon’s farewell to the IndianServices , at the United Service Club dinner, at S im la, onSeptem ber 30, 1905.Vida p . 555 .

FREEDOM OF BOROUGH OF DERB Y 53

beneficent conception strikes another,some others

,at any

rate, as a vulgar and even contemptible form of greed.

Therefore I am afraid that I must remain an idealist inrespect of the Empire. But as regards India let there beno dispute and no doubt that party and India ought neverto have anything to do with each other

,and must never be

brought into the same connection .

There was a time in the past when the Government ofIndia was made the sport of political parties in this country.

Indeed, there have been two periods in British history whenthis was pre-eminently the case. The first was at the endof the eighteenth century

,when the government of India

,

or the misgovernment of India, whichever it was, wasundoub tedly treated as a move in the political game. That

great and i l l-used man, Warren Hastings, one of the mosteminent a lthough the most suffering public servants thatwe have ever known

,was prosecuted

,not for what he had

done or what he had not done in India—for most of thecharges against him were false , —but inorder to do injuryto the pol itical party that had appointed and supported himat home Then later on

,in the middle of the nineteenth

century, the Manchester school of politicians—that schoolof high aspirations and futile performance— took up the

question of India,and once again nearly converted it into

a party cry . Fortunately the danger of both these periodshas passed away, and I hope that it is now impossible torevive them . The reasons for which it would be so

pernicious to introduce anything like party into the government of India are very obvious

,and must be known to al l

of you. In the first place,remember this : the lines of

cleavage in India are entirely different from what they are

here. Here they are mainly political between the two

parties , both of whom I am glad to see represented in thishall. I n India they are racial, religious, and social. In sofar as they are political at all , they represent the inevitableline of cleavage between the rulers and the ruled , and thatis a gap which in India we are always doing our best tobridge over and to fi l l up. You may imagine, therefore,what a mis take it would be to add another to the numerouscauses of fissure that already exist in that country, and

54 FRE EDOM OF BOROUGH OF DERB Y

particular ly one so m ischievous in its character and s

de leterious in its results . The second reason is th is : if theris one thing that India wants for its gradual recuperatior

and that the Government of India more than anything els

des ire in their effort to ca rry it out, it is continuity t

adm inistration. Noth ing can be more fatal than the

violent osc i l lations of policy should either occur, or shoulbe expected to occur, when one party goes out and anothe

party comes in in th is country. It has been one of th

mainsources of the weakness and even of the fa ilure of on

frontier policy in India, that the two parties in this countrhave held different views about it, and that one party wesupposed to be always wishing to push forward, whils t thother was credited with a des ire to hang back. More thanone of my predecessors in the Governor-Generalship c

India have been recal led or have retired for this rea ct

when their party was defeated at the po l ls in Eng land, a sthis fata l system has been the cause of more blunders an

bloodshed on the Indianfrontier than any other cause theI can for the moment think of. But the third reason i:

I think, the most important of al l . In the trem endoutask that confronts us in India we want al l Englishmeto be united . We cannot afford to have any divis ionamongst ourselves. If I may take an illus tration fror

another sphere, we have many of us seen how terrib l;handicapped the Christian Church is in its struggles witipagan religions by its own subdivisions into so many sect

and denominations and creeds. Do not let us repeat themistake in the sphere of Imperial statecraft. Let everman who works for India in India

,or who thinks abou

India in England,do it not as a party man , but as

national man . Let India be regarded as so sacred a th in;that it ought never to be fought about on Briti sh busting:and never introduced as a plank into a party programmin this country.

I was wondering a day or two ago upon what part iculaaspect of Indian government I should say a few words ti

this audience this afternoon,when I found in my library

volume of the col lected speeches of John Bright. He, a

you know, took a great interest in India, and his speechc

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56 FREEDOH OF BOROUGH OF DE RB Y

what men of genius alm ost invariab ly do : he made

everyth ing round him palpitate and glow with the reflex

of h is own intellectual force. But his Ess ays , which I

suppose are the foundationof all that nine out of ten of

us in this hall know about India, contained quite as muchfiction as fact, and are often most vexatiously inaccurateand m is leading. Finally, we come to the time of JohnBright. His views about Ind ia, which I shall br ieflymention to you in i l lustration of the pos ition that I takeup, were, in some respects , the most erroneous of all. I do

not allude to the picture that Mr. Bright drew of the

Government of India in his day, though I believe it to havebeen grossly exaggerated. He described the Civi l Serviceof I ndia as arrogant and tyrannous, the milita ry service as

clamorous and insatiable for expenditure, the people as

crushed and downtrodden,education as trampled upon,

crime as rampant, trade as stifled , communications as nonexistent. I bel ieve that that was not a true picture in histime, and it is certainly not a true picture now. He sai d

that the Government of India was not a Government forwatching over the people or conferring blessings uponthem .

I be lieve that that remark was not wholly true then; Ibe lieve it to be wholly untrue now. But I th ink that hisforecasts were even more erroneous than his opinions . He

held that the post of Govem or-General was one so high and

so great that it ought not to be fi l led by any subject of theCrown, and he laid down that the indispensable pre lim inaryto the good government of India was the abolition of that

post. I should not be addressing you here this afternoonif that advice had been followed, although it is not onpersonal so m uch as on public grounds that I greatlyrejoice that it was never done. He went on to say thatthe only way by which good government could be securedin India was to split up that country into a number of

separate presidencies or provinces, each with a separate andalmost independent Government

,and with a separate arm y

of its own . I greatly rejoice that that advice was nevercarried out. I bel ieve it would have been almost disastrousin its results. In 1 8 5 8 he said,

“ The immense Em pirethat has been conquered by you in India is too vast for

FREEDOM OF BOROUGH OF DERBY 57

management ; its base is in decay. When he spoke thosewords the population of I nd ia was I 50 millions ; it is now295 m illions. When he spoke, the revenues of India were30 m il lions ; they are now nearly 80 mill ions. And yetthe Em pire of India is no nearer dissolution than it wasinhis time ; on the contrary, I think it is a great dealfurther from it ; and so far from its foundations being basedindecay, I believe that every year that passes it is strikingits roots deeper and deeper into the soi l.Then I come—and I have only one more quotation—to

the fam ous passage in which he said, Does any man withthe smallest glimmering of common sense bel ieve that so

great a country, with its twenty different nations, and itstwenty languages, can ever be bound up and consol idatedinto one compact and enduring Empire ? I believe such athing [he said ] to be utterly impossible ; we must fai l in theattempt if ever we m ake it.” Well, we have added a goodmany nations and a good many languages to that Empiresince then, and I am here to-day to say that in my opinion ,and, I be l ieve, in the opinion of most of those who knowanything about India and who have worked with me duringthe pa st five years

,that which Mr. Bright regarded as an

utter im poss ibil ity is neither a chimera nor a dream . Let

me at once concede the extreme difficulty of the task. I donot say that we have attained our goal . Perhaps we are noteven in sight of it. I t is impossible to produce absoluteunity am ong 300 mil lions of people. I n the speech whichI made the other day at the Guildhall I said somethingabout our rule in India covering the whole space betweenbarbari sm at one end and civilisation at the other. Let metell youa little story which, in a parable, will indicate thatwhich otherwise might take a great many words. I re

mem ber hearing of an Engl ish sportsman in India whoexam ined the arrows in the quiver of a native sla

'

karz’

be

longing to one of the aboriginal tribes. He found the firstarrow tipped with a stone—a relic of the neolithic age thenut arrow was tipped with electric telegraph wire—a theftfrom the twentieth century . That story is typical of theWhole of India. It conveys to you the amazing synthesisOf anthropology, of history, of human experience, which is

58 FRE EDOM OF BOROUGH OF DERB Y

gathered within the boundar ies of that gr eat area. Youmay imagine that with a people so divers ified, representingsuch oppos ite poles of creed and civi lisation

, com p lete unityis a th ing which we cannot aspire to produce. Ind ia mustalways remain a conste llation rather than a sing le s tar, mustalways be a cont inent rather than a country ,

a congeries ofraces rather than a single nation . But we are creating ties

of unity among those widely diversified peop les , we are con

so lidating those vas t and outs pread territories , and , what is

more important, we are going forwa rd instead of ba ckward.

It is not a s tationary, a retrograde , a downtrodden, or al

impoverished India that I have been governing for the pa!five and a ha lf yea rs. Poverty there is in abundance. I

defy any one to show me a great and populous country , or a

great and populous city, where it does not ex ist. Miseryand destitution there are. The question is not whether theyexist, but whether they are growing more or growing less.In India, where you deal with so vas t a canvas, I daresaythe l ights and shades of human experience are more vividand more dramatic than elsewhere. But if you compare theI ndia of to-day with the India of any previous per iod of

history—the India of Alexander , of Asoka, of Akbar, or ofA urungzeb—you wil l find grea ter peace and tranquillity,more widely diffused comfort and contentment, superior

jus tice and humanity, and higher standards of m aterial

well-being, than that great dependency has ever p reviouslyattained.

I am sometimes lost in amazement at those cr ities who

fail to see these things, who protest to us that our rule inIndia is ruining the country and crushing the people ; andI am sti l l more amazed when I reflect that that class of criticis, as a rule, to be found among a small set of my owncountrymen. I t seems to me so perverse—I had almostsaid so wicked. The cant of self-praise is a disagreeablething, but the cant of self-depreciation seems to m e to be

even more nauseating. Of the two types of Pharisee, theman who takes pride in his virtues is often a less offens ivespectacle than the man who revels in imaginary sins. If it

were strangers or foreigners or outsiders who held theseviews, and announced to us that our rule in India was a

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60 FREEDOrlI OF BOROUGH OF DERB Y

prevai l . For instance,if I take any particular branch of

the adminis tration and endeavour to reform it wi th the

object of producing a higher state of efficiency and that

alone , I find myse lf at once exposed to the cha rge that I amcreating a number of unnecessary and lucrative bi l lets to befi l led by my countrymen from England. As if an adm inis

trator cares one snap what is the nationality of the manwhom he wants for a post ! What he wants is the best

manfor the post, and the work to be best done. If he can

get a native, so much the better. The service of the nativeis cheaper ; they know the language, the traditions, the

customs of the country ; they are inured to its climate.We take them where we can but if we cannot find a nativewith the requisite scientific knowledge or the expert training, then we have to come to th is country to get the man,even if we have to pay rather more for him. Well, the

whole thing seems to m e—would seem to any of us—soobvious as scarcely to require explanation . Yet I canassure you that it is one of the most fertile causes of m is

representation and attack from one end of India to the

other.In this state of public feel ing we have to be very

patient in India,and to be indifferent to the various forms

of misrepresentation and abuse. For my own part I thinkthe highest duty that a ruler of India can set before himselfis to create, if I may so describe them , special interpretersbetween the people and ourselves, to explain our ideas tothem and theirs to us. I t is with this object that whi le Ihave been there I have done my best on all occasions totake the public into my confidence

,and to explain to them

what I have done or what I meditate doing. The one thingin governing an Asiatic country is to break down the

barriers between the hearts and consciences of m en; and

the man who can bring together the hearts of the peoples or

races who are on either side of the barrier, and make them

heat more closely together by a single pulsation, is a greaterpublic benefactor than the conqueror of kingdoms. I haveonly one more thing to say. When I hear eulogies pas sed,as I did three-quarters of an hour ago, upon the administration in which I have taken a part during the past five years,

FRE EDOM OF BOROUGH OF DE RB Y 6 1

I am sometimes afraid lest people should think that it differsve1y much from that which has preceded it, or from thatwhich wil l follow. No one man is necessary in any post inthe world. I have come to the conclusion that no one manis very important. One who may be younger and toughermay ca rry on his work longer and more energetical ly beforehe breaks down . One man may enjoy good fortune andopportunities that are denied to another. But that is aboutall the difference. The machine in India is so vast that it isindependent of the ind ividual, or, rather, it is composed of

the concentrated energies and abil ities of so many individualsthat to single one out for praise is merely to follow therecognised practice of rewarding troops in the person of thecommander. I should not have been standing here toreceive the Freedom of the borough of Derby to-day if greatand dis tinguished Viceroys and Governors General , withwhom I do not venture to compare myself, had not precededme and built the foundations uponwhich I have only laidanother

‘

course. And when I have passed away and amforgotten, other and abler men will come after me, who will

produce better results , and earn a more deserved applause.

My sole ambition has been , during the time al lowed to me,to add something to the solidity of that marvel lous fabric ofBritish rule in India

,to repair, if possible, some of its weak

places, and to leave it more enduring. No greater rewarddo I desire, or can I receive, than that the people of mynative country, and perhaps even more the inhabitants of

m y native county and native town, should recognise that myintentions have been sincere, and that I have not labouredaltogether in vain .

62 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPAL ITY

ADDRESS FROM BOMBAY MUNIC I PALITY ON

RESUMPTION OF OFFICE

Lord Curzonlanded at Bom bay onDecem ber 9, 1 904, afiu'n

absence from India of sevenm onths, to assum e for the second tithe V iceroyalty of India. In reply to anaddress from the Mullicipnl Corporationhe spoke as follows

I thank you, S ir , and the members of the MunicipalCorpora tion of Bombay, for the Address which youhave jutread, the third wi th wh ich thi s body, so worthi ly repres entative of this great and re nowned city, has honoured m e duringthe pas t six yea rs.Landing on this quay again this morning, I cannot but

reca l l the occasion when I stood here almos t exactly six

years ago. There is one grea t difference wh ich must beapparent to all

,but which is most apparent to m e. I land

alone to resume this great burden, without the sym pathy andthe so lace at my side that have been my ma instay duringthese ha rd and often wea ry years. But that fact , so sad and

so serious to me, reminds me of the comfort that has come

to me from India in such rich measure during the past fe'months of anxiety and suffering, and which you, Sir, haveechoed in your address this morning. I des ire to thank all

classes—the Princes of India, several of whom have journeyed to meet me here to day and with whom I have justshakenhands, public bod ies and societies , the officers of theServices, and I ndian sympathisers of all classes who havewritten to me in such numbers—for their tender interes t andsolicitude. There is warmth of heart in India as great anda s l ife-giving as there is of sky ; and neither Lady Curzonnor I can readily forget the wealth of it that has been givento us in our hour of trial . I endeavoured to answer as

many of these messages as I could with my own hand or

through that of others. But if anywhere I fai led,I beg the

kindly correspondent whom I have unwittingly ignored to

accept this acknowledgment.The question m ay , perhaps, be asked why in these

circumstances I should have come back at all . I t is true

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64 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y MUNICIPAL ITY

We are intrainto do this by the grea t schem e of m i litaryreorganisa tion to which the present Com mander - in-Ch ief inIndia is devoting his unique experience and authori ty ,

l by a

po licy of fr iend ly alliance and unders tanding w ith our neighbours on all our frontiers from Lhasa to Kabul, and by a

better co-ord ination of our military resources within 01!

borders, both those wh ich are under the Imper ial Government and those which are supplied by our loyal coadjutorsthe Native States. If, when the tim e comes for m e to go, I

canfeel that these plans are either rea l ised or are sure of

thei r ultima te issue, I sha l l contentedly depart, and shall

leave what I hope wi l l be quieter days and less laboriousnights to my successor.

During the time tha t I have been in England I havefound many signs among my own countrymen of a warm

and steadily growing interes t in India. There is not, Ibe lieve, a single thoughtful Briton who looks at the connection between the two countries from a selfish or sofi d a

purely material istic point of view. There are few, if any,among them who do not real ise the responsibility and desire

tha t it should be discharged faithful ly. I pray you, I praythe native community in India, to be l ieve in the good faith,in the high honour, and in the upright purpose of mycountrymen . In England there are no two parties aboutI ndia. It is the desire of al l parties that the governmentof this dependency should be conducted with insight andsympathy, and that our guiding stars should be mercy andjustice. Some perhaps would advance more quickly, othersmore slowly, but all would advance, as we are advancing.I s it an impossible aspiration to ask that in India there

should be no two parties about England ? Disagreementthere may wel l be as to method s and details ; but in principles and essentials let us be one.

[The remainder of the Speech, wh ich related to local subjects, isom itted ]

Lord Kitchener.

ADM I N ISTRATIVE AND FINANC IAL

PROGRESS

FIRST BUDGET SPEECH (LEGISLATIVE

COUNCIL AT CALCUTTA)

Marc}: 2 7, 1 8 99

IT is a source of no slight pleasure to me, that the firstFinancial Statement to which I should have listened in thisCounci l has been one of so gratifying a description . Mybelief, more than once expressed on previous occasions, inthe economic vita l ity of this country, in the solidity andrange of its resources, and its capacity for an industrialexpansion far beyond what has hitherto been deemed possible,is confirmed by the experience of the past year. I recognisethat the circumstances have been exceptionally favourable .

War has fortunately ceased upon the frontier. There hasbeen a high and ana lmost uniform rate of exchange. Therehas been a notable expansion in certain industries. Theharvests have been abundant. On the other hand, therehave been corresponding sources of depression and alarm inthe recurrence of plague, which neither the resources of

science nor the utmost administrative vigilance have so farsucceeded in defeating, and which has made heavy inroadsupon the Imperial as wel l as uponthe Provincial Exchequers.That the net result of these contending influences should ye tbe a balance of 4% crores is indicative to my mind notmerely of uncommon powers of recuperation , but of am arvellous latent reserve of strength .

We have been criticised in these circumstances for not

having proposed a remission of taxation; and that criticismhas found capable expression in more than one quarter at

65 F

66 FIR S T B UDGE T SPEE CH

this table to-day. I quite understand,and I do not in any

degree deprecate, such criticism . It is the natural and

legitimate desire of tax -payers all over the world to obtainrel ief from what they regard, or at least represent, as theirburdens

,and to feel the passion for relief swell ing in their

bosoms in proportion to the apparent existence of the m eans

for satisfying it. I doubt not that the payers of incom e- tax

would have welcomed an extensionof the scale of exem ption.I may add also that it is equal ly the desire of Governm ents

not merely to earn the popularity that may result from a

remission of taxation—although my experience is that

popularity so won is a very ephemeral asset—but also intheinterests of good government itself to reduce the burdensupon the people. But there are considerations in th is case,

both normal and exceptional,which decided us to take the

Opposite course .

The normal consideration of which I speak was that ofordinary caution. Though I have spoken of the astonishingrecovery of the past year

,though I bel ieve it to represent a

much more than transient improvement in the resources of

the country,and though Sir J . Westland 1 budgets for a

surplus of nearly 4 crores in the coming year, I am yet too

conscious of the part played by what I may describe as the

swing of the pendulum in the economic world to be w illingto sacrifice any portion of a hardly won advantage by beingin too great a hurry. The Hon . Sir G . Evans has te

minded us that India is a land of surprises,and these

surprises are l iable to start into existence equal ly in the

spheres of politics and finance. Even in the more soberatmosphere of England we have had during the past year astartl ing instance of this phenomenon; for whereas, in theplenitude of our wealth and substance

,the Government of

which I was a member a year ago agreed to a remiss ionoftaxationby which we forfeited inthe case of one duty a lone ’

a sum of nearly 1g mil lions sterling without, so far as I

remember, exciting any gratitude from anybody, within thespace of a year the balance has so completely swung roundowing to unexpected ca l ls that

,if what I read in the papers

1 Finance Mem ber of the Governor-Genera l’s Counci l, 1 893- 1899 .

2 The tobacco duty , takenoff in 1898, reimposed in 1899 .

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68 FIRS T BUDGE T S PEE CH

in so doing—that this underestimation, for so I think itmay be ca l led , mus t not be taken to indicate the least wantof confidence on the pa rt of the I ndian Government. For

my part I have every belief that the rupee will retain

throughout the ensuing year the same position that it hasdone during the past ; and I may even go further and say

that I shal l be disappointed i f we are not able to invest the16d. rupee with a greater durability than any wh ich it hashitherto attained.

[H ere followed som e paragraphs of local interest, which havebeenom itted ]

I am entirely in agreement with some of the remarksthat fel l from the Hon . Mr. Arthur with respect to the

present high rate of Telegraphic charges. [ regard that

rate as inimica l to trade , as being a barrier to the evergrowing intercourse between India and the mother country.and as being obsolete and anomalous in itse lf. I havealready considered the question

,and I may say that I have

placed it ina category of twelve important questions, all ofthem waiting to be taken up, al l of them ques tions whichought to have beentaken up long ago, and to which, as soonas I have the time, I propose to address myself. Whatthese questions are I do not propose to relieve the curiosityof hon. members by now informing them 1 But anotherquestion has been raised by an hon . member sitting at

this table which I am unable to add to the dozen . I am

unable to add to it the suggestion of the Hon . Mr.

Ch itnavis that I Should acquiesce in the reduction of the

British soldiers in India. I can assure him that no suchproposal will form part of the programme of the Governm ent

of India during my time.As regards Ra ilways, Sir J . Westland has indicated in

his Budget Statement that for the moment our motto is

fes tz'

na lente, although this must not be taken to mark any

policy of revulsion from that which has lately been pursued.

There are times , however, at which it is desirable to go a

l ittle slower than the maximum pace. I am,however,

rather in sympathy with what fel l from the Maharaja of

I 7d: p. 76 for the list.

FIR S T B UDGE T SPE E CH 69

Darbhanga concerning the encouragement of l ight gaugefeeder railways ; and since I came here I have authorisedthe cons truction of some hundreds of miles of such l ines. Ishould say in thi s context that one of the subjects to whichI propose to turn my attention while at Simla is the whole

question of the policy of Government in respect of railwaysin Ind ia, and our attitude towards private enterprise in

particular . I am not satisfied with a condition of affairswhich lays the Indian Government open to the chargewhether it be true or false I have not as yet the knowledgethat enables me to pronounce—of indifference to the offersof assis tance that are made to it, and of hosti l ity to the investm ent of British capital in the country. We may hopemuch from fix ity of exchange i f we can succeed in establishing it. I should be glad if the Government could at thesame time by its own attitude encourage what I hope maybefore long be a pronounced inclination towards India of thefinancial currents in the mercanti le world .

[Here followed a paragraph uponI rrigation, wh ich has beenreproduced under that head ]

SECOND BUDGET SPEECH (LEGISLATIVE

COUNCIL AT CALCUTTA)

Ma rc/i 2 8,1 900

In closing this last debate of the present Session of

Council,I am constrained to admit that it has not been a

session very prolific in legislation . I t has not,for that

reason, been, in my opinion, any the worse. On the contrary, I think that we Opened the session with too full awallet. Our session is, owing to the conditions of our lifeat Calcutta, necessari ly limited in duration. All the stagesof legislation, after the preliminary inquiries and introductionof the various Bil ls, have practically to be got throughinthe space of three months. In the case of small oruncontentious measures this is enough

,and more than

enough. In the case of an important measure which hasbeen long debated , and has probably only reached the

7a S E COND B UDGE T S PEE CH

stage of legi sla tion after years of previous discuss ion, itmay also be sufficient. But I doubt if it is sufficient in

cases where several important measures may be simultaneous ly on the Agenda paper, and where, in the course d

the examination of the Bil ls themselves , acute d ifferencedopinion may be developed

,or alterations may be m ade in

a Bill in Se lect Committee or elsewhere that radicallyaffect its original character. I n such cases I would som e!

be charged with undue caution than with extravaganthaste. We are free in India from the particular tempt!tion that impe ls Governments to leg islate at all hazard!

in the British Parliament, namely, the desire either to

fulfi l the promises sometimes rashly given upon platform!at a previous election , or to establish a better record

than their political opponents for the purposes of the en‘

suing one . Being free from these temptations,and having

no standard of action beyond our own sense of responsi

b ility and of the public needs, I think that it bellow!us to legislate sparingly

,to look very closely to the quality,

and not too much to the quantity, of our output, and.while very jealously guarding the duty of Government,which is to lead public opinion and in no way to abrogatethe supreme authority vested in us

,at the same time not

to push our measures through with undue precipitation.above all , not to give to any party or interest the ideathat its views have been imperfectly considered or con

tem ptuously brushed aside.For these reasons we have, during the present sessiom

postponed the Assam Labour Bil l,upon which we did not

receive , until too late a date, all the replies that we hadasked for ; and the Coal Mines Bill , in which am endments

so substantial were introduced in Se lect Committee that

we felt it desirable again to consult the loca l Governments before proceeding further with the Bill.1 I t was onsimilar grounds that I announced the withdrawal of the

Press Messages Bil l ten days ago. Now there m ay be some

people who may make this series of postponem ents a

source of reproach, and may interpret them as a s ignof

weak or distracted counsels. I do not think that, at any

Both these Bills were passed into law in 19m .

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72 S E COND BUDGE T S PEE CH

notable Budget, of a large surplus, of great schem es, of a

sensible relief of taxation—infact, all the legi timate aspira

tions of a financier ,—stolen from him by the sad fam ine

against wh ich we are now struggling. One by one, therefore, his Span ish castles have been dissolved in thinair

, andhe has been compe l led to present a curtailed programmeand a stern busines s statement

,in which

,if there is nothing

startl ing or sensational, it is yet a matter of sincere congratulation , not mere ly that equilibrium is maintained, butthat a slight surplus is even estimated for the forthcom ingyear. Nevertheless, in his year of office Mr. Dawkins hasnot failed to leave his mark

,and it will be found to be a

durable mark upon our financial history and system . He

has successful ly inaugurated the new era under which the

sovereign has become legal tender in India, and stabilityin exchange has assumed what we hope may be a stereotyped form .

This great change has been introduced in defiance of the

vaticinations of al l the prophets of evil , and more especiallyof the particular prophecy that we could not get go ld to

come to India,that we could not keep it in our hands if

we got it here, but that it would slip so quickly through ourfingers that we should even have to borrow to maintai n the

necessary supply. As a matter of fact,we are almost in

the position of the mythologi cal king, who prayed tha t allhe touched might be turned into gold, and was then ratherpainful ly surprised when he found that his food had beenconverted into the same somewhat indigestible material.So much gold, indeed, have we got that we are now givinggold for rupees as well as rupees for gold, i t . we are reallyin the enjoyment of complete convertibility—a state of

affairs which would have been derided as impossible by theexperts a year ago. Mr . Dawkins has further introducedseveral useful reforms in the method of stating our accounts.That delusive column that appeared to represent Loss byExchange has vanished . The dreadful and bewi lderingsymbol of Rx . has been politely bowed out of existence.

I remember last year,when sti ll a newcomer from England,

and before I had become accustomed to the multipl icity of

Indian financial symbols, being considerably puzzled at the

S E COND B UDGE T SPEE CH

occurrence in the same statement of no less than fivedifl

'

erent methods of computation, viz. Rupees,Tens of

Rupees, Pounds Sterling, Lakhs, and Crores. Now,I have

never myself understood why finance, because it is complex,need also be made obscure. But Mr. Dawkins is one of

the few financiers whom I have found wil l ing to subscribe tothat elem entary proposition . A useful step has also beentaken by him, by which the only public works that will infuture be charged against the Annual Famine Grant, or, asit is sometimes cal led, Famine Insurance Fund, of I i crores,will be works that are designed and executed exclusivelyas a protection against famine. This does not mean thatsuch works can be brought up to the full margin of the

grant, for protective public works are necessari ly limited innumbe r. What it does mean is that the allocation of the

grant for such famine protective purposes as are avai lablewi ll be more easily traceable, the unappropriated balancebeing devoted as now to avoidance of debt. Perhaps inthis respect we may be able to carry correct definitionevenfurther in the future. During his term of office Mr.Dawkins has further adopted a liberal policy in his attitudetowards banking and other enterprise in this country ; andif he has not been here long enough to carry to a finalconclusion the important question of banking amalgamationor reform

,he has appreciably expedited the solution of the

problem ,and has facilitated the labours of his successor by

the free and fearless discussion which he has inaugurated,both in private conference and in public despatch, uponthis momentous issue. Finally, in the reply to which we

have just l istened , Mr. Dawkins has shown an abil ity tomeet the criticisms which have been passed upon his Budgetin the course of this debate which renders it a cause of

additional regret that this is the last occasion on which weshall listen to a similar performance from him.

[Here followed a num ber of paragraphs about Fam ine, I rrigation, and Military Adm inistration, wh ich have been reproducedunder those headings ]

74 TH I RD B UDGE T SPEE CH

TH IRD BUDGET SPEECH (LEGISLATIVECOUNCIL AT CALCUTTA)

Ma rch 2 7, 1 90 1

We have arrived at the close of what I venture to claim

as a practical and business- l ike session. A year ago, inmyBudget speech, I had to confess and to explain the withdrawal or the postponement of our most important leg is lativemeasures. I n the present year we have a better record ;

for not merely have we placed upon the Statute- book a

number of subsidiary measures, to one of which, providing amuch-desired relief in respect of inheritance and of succession duties to native Christians, I attach no small weight,but we have also carried into law two Bills of the highest

importance, the Assam La bour Bil l and the Mines Bi l l, bothof which raised issues of a very controversial character, andwere keenly watched by public opinion . I ventured to

prophesy last year that we should profit rather than loseby postponement and I have little doubt that, whereas wehave in both cases secured genera l assent

,and in one cas

absolute unanimity , in the final stages of these measures,we should not have been so fortunate had we persisted inpushing them forward at that time. I feel therefore thatwe may all compliment ourse lves upon good work done ;and although my test of the success of a legislative sess ionin India certain ly would not be the amount of the legislative out- turn

,I yet feel that, even judged by this standard,

we have not done amiss. It is hardly necessary for m e to

reiterate the opinion to which I have given expression ona

previous occasion , and which, I am sure, wil l meet with the

enthusiastic acceptance of the Hon . Mr. Buckingham ,

l

that I am not anxious to strain too heavily the productivecapacity of our legislative machine during the remainder ofthe time that I am in India .

If our session has been one of a workmanlike character,we may also claim that it has terminated in a very business

Afterwards S ir J . Buckingham , representative of the Assam tea-

plantinginterest onthe Legis lative Council .

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76 TH IRD B UDGE T SPE ECH

already beg inning to tread upon a br ighter and happier

pathway.

[Here followed a passage about Military Adm inistration, whichis printed under that head ing ]In my first Budget speech two years ago, I a l luded to

twelve impo rtant reform s to which I hoped to addressmyse lf while in India. I was sufficiently cautious at the

tim e not to indica te their nature, and I rem ember that theresome playful conjecture as to what they migh t be.

Inasmuch as before we meet again at this table more thanhalf of the normal term of office of a Governor-General willhave elapsed, and as I shall be terminating my third and

entering upon my fourth year of administration, I mayperhaps take advantage of the present occas ion to indieateinmore precise language how far the Government of India

has travelled up to the present date along the road whichwe then set before ourselves.‘ I hOpe I may not be m is

understood . Neither my colleagues nor I desire to claimfor ourselves any premature credit for measures as yet onlyrecently introduced , and to which the test of experience hasyet to be applied . We also know enough of I ndia not tobe sanguine or to prophesy. Just as two yea rs ago I

never anticipated that we were standing on the brink of an

appalling famine— the second within three years,—so now

there may be vicissitudes or risks ahead of us of which weknow nothing

,and which may upse t al l our calculations.

All I desire to do upon the present occasion is to take the

public into our confidence as to the meas ures which we

have placed before ourselves,and to indicate to it that we

have not so far been idle.

[The ensuing paragraphs dealt with the first and second inim portance among the twelve objects,viz. the creationof a soundFrontier Policy, and the constitution of an efficient FrontierAdm inistration. They are reproduced under these head ings ]

I From this and subsequent references it appears that the first Twelve Subjea lwere the fol lowing : Frontier Policy and Province, Refom t of Leave Rules,Secretariat Reform , Currency Reform , Rai lway Reform and Creationof Ra i lwayBoard, I rrigation Reform ,

Relief of Agricultq Indebtedness, Reduction d’

Te legraph ic Rates, Preserva tion of Ancient Monum ents , Universities Bi ll andEduca tiona l Reform ingeneral , Police Reform , Policy towards Native S tates andChiefs .

THIRD B UDGE T SPE E CH 77

Thi rd in order of importance I place the steps that wehave taken

,with the consent of the Secretary of State

,to

remedy wha t I hold to have been one of the greatest abusesthat have grown up in recent years in this country, and the

most subtle and insidious danger to Indian Administration .

I allude to the frequency of official transfers,arising partly

out of our Leave Rules, partly from local systems of official

promotion, partly from a preference of the convenience of

the individual to the exigencies of the publ ic service. It ishopeles s to expect good administration without continuity,intell igent administration without local knowledge, popularadministration without personal interest. If these considerations apply to government in any country, much more arethey true of a country like India, where large masses of

people are being ruled by a small minority of alien extraction. The abilities, the training, and the enthusiasm of thelatter are al l discounted or thrown away if the officers areshifted hither and thither before they know the distr ict, orhave m astered the local dialect, or have acquired the confidence of the inhabitants. It is as though the captainof a

cricket eleven were to place his field indiscrim inately and toshift a man from post to post before he had learned thework of one. This great danger in Ind ia, as to which Inever fai l to make inquiries wherever I go on tour

,and

which in some parts of the country has attained to extravagant dimensions, has attracted our earnest study ; and thereform in the Leave Rules which we have instituted

,and

which,without detracting from the privileges of the Service

,

will prevent the frequent removal of officers upon leave at

short and insufficient intervals , with a consequent cha in of

transfers and far- reaching dislocation , will , we hope, tendvery great ly to mitigate the evil . At the same time we aretaking up independently the case of particular Presidenciesor Provinces where a bad system seems to call for specialtrea tment

,and we have issued general rules, applicable to

all,as to the conditions under which d istrict posts should in

future be held . Any administrator who in his time can feelthat he has done something to draw closer together the t iesbetween rulers and ruled in this country, and to producethat sympathy that canonly result from mutual knowledge,

78 THIRD BUDGE T SPEE CH

may go away with a consciousness of not having a ltogetherfailed.

A corol lary of this abuse is the divorce that has beenbrought about between an officer and his work

,or at any i

rate the most important part of his work, by the inner- lminable writing that has grown up in the admin istrat ion d

'

this country,and that threatens to extinguish al l persona,lity;

'I

or initiative,or despatch, under mountains of m anuscr ifl

and print. The real tyranny that is to be feared in Indfi '

is not the tyranny of executive authority, but that of t“pen . I do not say that the system is without its goal

-

lfeatures. It could not have grown up, it could not have 1reached its present dimensions in India, had it not hadsubstantial justification . I n a country so large, where tinl ife of officials, even the most sedentary, 15 so fleeting

, where

customs and traditions and practice vary so greatly, all!

where such importance rightly attaches to precedent, it isessential that there should be prese rved the written recorfi

not merely of administrations, but of departments . Inthinway only can an officer upon arrival in a new distr ict findout what has been going on there before him ; and in thiniway only are the perpetually changing officers In the varioulSecretariats able to deal with cases

, of which, without thewritten records, they would be in entire ignorance. Theseare the good and necessary sides of the system. But thereis a consensus of opinion among those who are qualified tospeak that the engine has become so powerful as to havegot the better of its driver, and that those who should bethe masters of the system have become . its slaves. In the

departments of Government I found when I came here

inordinate writing, unjustifiable repetition, unbusiness - likeprocedure, and much easily avoidable delay. I do notthink that any individual or series of individuals could beblamed for this. I t had grown up, so to speak, by stealth ;and every one was a half-unconscious victim . Three thingswere necessary. The first step was to make a careful studyof the system in the various departments

,and to ascertain

when and how and why it had grown. I found that i t wasalmost entirely the product of the last twenty-five years

, andthat it synchronised with the great development of com

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80 TH IRD B UDGE T SPEECH

able to strike a mean , both as to contents , and character,

and length. A great many have beenfound to be useless,and have been abolished altogether. W'

ith regard to the

rem ainder, we have issued definite orders in each ease.

prescribing the manner of compilation and the lim its of

length. We have invited the local Governments to do the

sam e with the Reports that go up to them but do not comeonto us. We are thus th inning the forest, not by a general

order to reduce the amount of superfluous tim ber that it

conta ins, but by ringing every tree in it that ought either tobe lopped or to be cut down, and by sending in the wood

m enwith axes to perform the task. But, I m ay be as lced,

wha t is going to come out of all this ? W il l not thi s te

form atory zea l soon die down, and be replaced by the

normal apathy Who is going to secure continui ty either

of energy or plan I observe that this was the tone of

a recent gathering in England that met to discus s this

question . A large number of Indian officers of authorityand experience attended, and they were al l good enough tosay that our reforms were excellent, but a good m any added

that they would be ephemeral. Indeed , one gentlemansaid

that no permanent reform would ever originate in India.

Let us wait and see . I at any rate do not m ean to be putoff by these counsels of despondency and despair. A s I

said inthe Government Resolution,there is no reasonwhy

a good practice should not endure just as well as a hadpractice, if once it be given a fair start ; and I think I havea right to appeal for the co-Operation of every officer of

Government, from a Governor to a Deputy Collector, to see

that that start is given . I t is true that Viceroys are fleetingphantoms, whose personality is transient, and whose term is

soon over. But th is is a work in which is involved not theprestige or the whim of an individual

,but the entire credit

of British rule in India ; and it is even more to the interestof every local administration that it should continue thanit can be to mine.

Fifthly comes the great change in our Currency sys tem ,

to wh ich I have already adverted , and which is now in the

second year of successful and tranquil Operation. It is, I

think , a considerable thing to have escaped for so long from

THIRD B UDGE T SPE E CH 8 !

all the inconveniences and troubles arising from an unstableand fluctuating exchange. I t was fatal to accuracy of

financial forecasting, and it was in the highest degree prejudicial to trade. We are now all settling down to a16d. rupee as if it had existed since the beginning of time

,

and we make our calculations upon a basis of reasonablecertainty. Even the prospects of a redundant circulationof rupees , by which some are frightened

,are rendered

innocuous by the Gold Reserve Fund which we have established upon the advice of Sir E. Law, and which is to holdinreserve the gold with which to meet any sudden plethorainthe silver coinage. It really seems as though India wereentering upon a period of reasonable stability as regardscurrency ; and this new and happy era, which was inaugurated by Mr. Dawkins, may, I hope, be converted into asettled tradition by his successor.One of the objects with which I have always welcomed

the introduction of the Gold Standard, placing India as itdoes in closer contact, and upon even terms, with the moneymarket of Great Britain, has been the hope that it mightaccelerate the flow of capital to this country in industrialand other undertakings. This will not come all with arush ; but I think that I see signs that the movement isspreading. And this brings me to the sixth subject

,upon

which I have bestowed close attention , and to which I havebeenanxious to communicate a positive impetus. I al ludeto Railways

,and I speak not merely of railway construction

,

but of rai lway policy and of railway finance. I remember,

before I came out to India, saying that I hoped thatmiles would be completed in my time. I erred on the sideof caution . Though we have had to deal with a curtai led

programme in consequence mainly of famine, this total hasalready been reached and passed. When I made my firstBudget speech the total length of open l ines wasIt is now 2 5 5. In the last two years our rai lway accounthas, for the first time in the history of Indian railways,exhibited a net surplus—a result which must be very

gratifying to my hon . colleague Sir A . Trevor,who

has adm inistered the Public Works Department with somuch acumen for five years ; and we are proposing in the

G

8 2 TH IRD B UDGE T S PE E CH

forthcom ing year to Spend over 10} crores upon railwa

as compared with 8} crores during the past yea r of fam i

and 9 crores inthe preceding year .

1

But here I am confronted by a po int to which I m

m ake a pass ing allusion . I observe that a questionhas blraised as to whether the increase in rai lways is not an inj=

rather than a gain to India, and whether by carrying as

the food supplies of the country intimes of plenty , they

not leave the raiyat impoverished and exhausted whenfamcomes. It has been suggested, inconsequence, that if wenot stop our railways, which are supposed to swel l our expowe ought to restrict the latter. Inasmuch as these argume

appear to me to involve a fallacy of the first order, andrest upon presumptions for which there is no foundab

'

I may perhaps halt for a moment in order to expose tb

The first of these presumptions is that our export of fograins is largely upon the increase , and that th is increhas been in the main caused by railways. There is

ground for this hypothesis. The total export of food-gr!from India between 1 8 80 and 1 8 90 was tc

between 1 8 90 and 1 900,tons

,or an aver

annual increase during the second decade of onlytons over the first. Had the exports increased in proporlto the extension of railways

,the volume of trade in

second decade would have been half as much again as t

in the first. I n the last year the grain export has hfar be low the average of any previous year. The sec:

presumption is that a large proportion of the tota l grproduce of I ndia is exported. This again is not the c

Out of a total estimated production of bl

l ittle more than 3 per cent is exported , and if rice

excluded, less than 2 per cent, the bulk of the export brwheat, which is not the food of the people in time of famIf then we place a check upon exports in order to mow

the population with more grain when famine comes, al l 1we shall do will be to ruin Burma

,which lives upon

great export of rice to I ndia,notably in times of fam

and to deprive the wheat grower of the Punjab of

market which rai lways have created for him .

1 Com pare this with Lord Curzon’s final statement just before he left India, p.

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34 TH IRD B UDGE T S PEE CH

keepso

alive the whole popnla tion. I gave just now the

experience of Raipur under the old cond itions. Let me tell

hon. mem bers what it has been under the new. [ will

quote the words of the Ch ief Comm iss ioner , Mr . Fras er,1

with reference to the recent fam ine.

“ I t is im pos sible,”he

wri tes ,“to overestim ate the benefits which ra i lway exten

sion has conferred upon the province. If Chattisgarh, fix

ins tance, had not beenOpened up by rai lways , it is horrifymgto th ink of wha t might have occurred . The recent extensions of the Benga l-Nagpur Rai lway poured in supp lies of

the cheap scalded rice of Orissa, which penetrated far into

the interior . In 1 8 9 7 this source of supply was wanting.and the more expensive rice from Burm a was the chief food

stuff brought in. In the fam ine of 1 8 9 7 , when expor ts were

earried away in the early months,the Chattisga rh people

pointed to the ra ilways as an exaggera tion of their ills . Inth is fam ine they have regarded them as the ir salvation.Within one year the railways have brought into the pro

vince grain enough to feed three mill ions of peop le for a

year.” Now this is a very instruct ive quotation ; for it

shows how in 1 8 9 7 , when the Chattisgarh people held fai rlylarge stocks, they resented the depletion of these by the

rai lway and a rise in prices later on . On the other hand.in 1 8 9 9 there was in over two- thirds of Chatt isgarh no cropat all . Where, I wonder, in such a case would the gra in-

pits

have been Onthis occasion, had it not been for the rail

way,the entire population would have perished like flies

Storage may for a time supply a restricted area. I t neverhas saved, and never will save, a district or a province .

There remains the third fal lacy, as I regard it, that railways have raised prices to a prohibitive level . I can discover no ground for this al legation . The export trade infood-grains cannot have produced any such result becauseI have shown it to be infinitesimal . Railways them selvetcannot raise prices ; their tendency is to equalise them

Prices may rise from an increase of demand over supplythat is, by the increase in the number of those to be fetor in the standard of l iving. But rai lways are not accountable for this consequence. I t has been due in India to a

1 Afterwards S ir A. Fraser, L ieutenant-Governor of Bengal.

TH IRD B UDGE T S PE E CH 85

number of economic causes to which I need not now refer,and, before we set it down as a hardship, we should have toinquire whether there had not been a corresponding increaseinthe purchasing power of the population.

I therefore shal l certainly not be deterred by any of

these economic heresies from a steadfast po l icy of rai lwayconstruction in my time. I regard railways as a blessingto this country as a whole, and as the most unifying agencythat exi sts in India. Indeed I would like to go farther, andto free rai lway policy and finance from many of the shacklesby which it is now hampered. Almost ever since I camehere I have been examining this question, and we have beentrying, by discussion amongst ourselves and with theSecretary of State, whether we cannot do what the Hon .

Mr. Ashton has urged us to do, namely, find some means ofseparating railway finance from general finance

,or for

putting productive railways which pay more than theinterest charges on their capita l into a category apart from

precarious or unremunerative concerns. I t is easy enoughto make out a good case on paper ; but it is difficult toconstruct a workable scheme in practice. I n the long runthe money for rai lways has been

‘

raised by loan,whether in

England or in India, and the greater part of it has to beSpent in India in rupees. The one is a question of borrowing, the other of ways and means for expenditure. Both

questions fal l at once within the range of the financialOperations of Government. Sir E. Law

,however

,is not less

interested than myself in this question,and we hope to carry

it to a successful issue. I have no time on the presentoccasion to speak of the steps which I have taken by theinstitution of a Travel l ing Rai lway Commission, which hasalready done valuable work, and by the publication of anannual summary of al l the railway proposals before us andof the attitude of Government towards them , to take the

public into our confidence, and to conduct railway development in this country on commercial rather than departmental l ines. I hope to carry these efforts even further bymeans which I have in view but already I claim that wehave m ade not inconsiderable progress.Side by side with railways in India we always consider

86 TH IRD B UDGE T S PEE CH

the subject of I rri gation ; and this is the seventh branch of

administrative po l icy in which I have been m os t desirous toinitiate a positive advance.

[Here followed a paragraph about Irrigation, which has beenextracted and inserted under that head ]Eighth among the problems that I hinted at two years

ago was the vexed question of the increasing Indebtednessof the agricultural population, and the extent to which the

land is passing out of their hands into those of the m oneylending clas s. We have already dealt with the ques tioninthe Punjab by the Land Alienation Bil l which was passedlast autumn . That Bil l was an act of innovation, but itwas also an act of courage. It was to m e a matter of surprise that so many organs of native opinion should havecombined to attack a measure which was exclusive ly badon considerations of public interest, and to which, whether itsucceeds or fails

,it was impossible to attri bute a selfish

motive. The same problem meets us elsewhere in everincreasing volume and seriousness

,and each case will require

to be considered upon its own merits .

Two years ago, in reply to the Hon. Sir Allan Arthur,1

I promised to take up the question of a reduction in the

present high rate of Telegraphic charges between India andEurope, which I described as inimical to trade and intercourse, and as obsolete and anomalous in itself. He has

reverted to the subject in tones of anguish this afternoon.I had hoped long before now to be able to announce thesuccessful termination of the negotiations which we undertook inprompt redemption of m y pledge. My view was thatno reform would be worth having that did not provide fora reduction of at least 50 per cent in the present charges .

Our negotiations were so far successful that we did persuadethe companies to agree to an immediate reduction to

25 . 6d . a word, with a prospective reduction to 2 5 . a word assoon as the increase of traffic justified it ; and in order tosecure this end we undertook to give a very liberal guaranteefrom Indian funds. So far all went well . But since thenthe matter has been hung up

,owing to clauses in the Tele

graph ic Conventions which require the assent to any changeVida p. 68 .

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88 THI RD BUDGE T SPE E CH

contrary , it is desired to give them such openings in the

fulles t m anner compatib le with the discipline and routineof m i l itary life, and as a well-eam ed relief therefrom . Onthe other hand, it is imposs ible for those who are entrustedwith the Government to view with equanim ity any risk

to these relations aris ing from care lessness , or ignorana .

or lack of restra int That such ris k has in m any cases

ari sen it is im poss ible to deny. I m ake no attem pt to

apport ion the blam e. Som etimes there m ay have beenrashness resulting in collision on one side. I have heard of

conspiracy culminating in attack upon the other . Whatwe, as a Government, have to do is to m inim ise the oppcb

tunities for such fri ction and to induce mutua l se lf-respect.For such a purpose stri ct rules are required, and strict

attention to the rules when formulated .

Now upon this po int I wish to be especially c lear. The

civi l and the mil itary authorities have been and are abanlutely united in the matter. The responsibility is shared

between them . It cannot be shifted from the shoulders ofone party to those of the other. The head of the civiladministration could not in a matter of di sc ipline act inindependence of the milita ry authori ties . They, on the otherhand, make a point of co-operating wi th the civil power.There is no single rule now in operation as regards the

reporting or trial or treatment of cases or otherwise which hasnot emanated from the military authorities in the firs t placeThere is no measure

,proceeding

,or step wh ich has not been

taken upon their authority and with their ful l consent.When the Shooting Rules were revised last autumn, the taskwas entrusted to a Committee upon which the military andcivil elements were equal ly represented

,and

,further

, one of

the civil ians was an old m i litary officer. Their report, andthe rules as revised by them

,were accepted without demur

by the Government of Ind ia.

l I make these remarks, becaux

The Shooting Rules are a body of Regulations drawnup by the Governm ent of India, specifying the conditions under which British so ldiers m ay go outwi th guns or rifles in pursuit of gam e. It was found that the major ity of thecol lisions betweensoldiers and na tives , and the som etim es very serious accident:resulting therefrom , arose from ignorance or neglect of the Rules by the soldiers,from their im perfect nature , or from fai lure to enforce them on the part of tbauthorities. Hence the appointm ent of the Comm i ttee here referred to. The

TH IRD B UDGE T SPEE CH 89

itcannot be too widely known that there has existed throughout this unity of action

,and because I have seen or heard of

the most erroneous al legations to the contrary effect. Iremem ber a case in which a local Government reported tous what it cal led a gross miscarriage of justice in a trial forthe murder of a punkah coolie. The civil authority doesnot exis t to rectify the errors that may be committed in acourt of law, and there was, unfortunately, nothing to bedone. Some time later the Commander- in-Chief, havingsatisfied h imself that the acquitted party had so conductedhimse lf as to be unfit to wear Her Majesty’s uniform, decidedto dismiss him from the Army. This proposal was submittedto, and of course received the sanctionof the Government ofIndia, who would not interfere in a disciplinary matter withthe supreme military authority. Forthwith arose an ignorantoutcry that the civil power had usurped the functions of afinal cour t of judicial revision . I merely mention this caseas typica l of the misunderstandings that are apt to prevai l inthese matters. I wil l only say for the Government, that ourattitude has been inevery case one of the most scrupulousimpartiality. Our one desire is to draw closer the bonds offriendly feeling that should unite the two races whom Providence has placed side by side in this country ; and I ventureto asser t that no higher motive could inspire any body of

menwho are charged with the terribly responsible task of

Indianadministration.

There remaina number of subjects, high up in the list ofthe original dozen

,upon which we are stil l busily engaged,

but as to which we have not found time as yet to carryour views to fruition. First among these I would nameEducational Reform

, the placing of Education in I ndia, in itsvarious branches , University, higher, secondary, technical,and elementary, upon a definite and scientific footing, andthe clear determination of the relations between privateenterprise and the State. This great object has been for along time occupying my attention

,and I hope that we may

beable to deal with it in the forthcoming summer or autumn.

utmost care is now takento acquaint the soldier wi th the conditions under whichshooting is permitted , and to ensure that due preeautions are taken for the

protectionof native life and crops.

90 THIRD BUDGE T SPE E CH

Another matter that is one of anxious preoccupationtous is the reform of the Police. Grave abuses have crept

into th is branch of the service, and are respons ible for

adm inistrative and judicial shortcom ings that are generallydeplored , bes ides producing a wide- spread and legi timate

d iscontent. We have already sanctioned very cons iderableimprovem ents, notably in the direct ion of securing a better

class of man in the higher grades at a superior rate of pay,

both in the Punjab, the North Wes tern Provinces, and

Bengal. I wil l say no more at present than that the m atteris one into which I hope to go more deeply.

There are a number of other subjects which fall withinmy category, but of which I prefer not to speak at presentlest I might arouse false expectations. There are others.again, which can seldom be absent from the m ind of anyruler of India

,and to which, though he mus t speak with

caution upon them,there is no need why he should not refer.

The possibility of fisca l reforms, leading, if circum stances

permit, to a reduction of taxation, is an object that is a lwaysin the background of his imagination . The protectionandsc ientific propagation of Agriculture, for which we haveinstituted a separate office of Inspector-General , the poss ibleinstitution of agricultural banks, the question of assessments.the fostering of native handicrafts, and the encouragement ofindustrial exploitation in general—these are al l aspects of

the larger question of the economic development of the

country uponwhich my col leagues and myself are bes towingthe most assiduous attention . S ala s populz

'

suprem o 1a ;

and al l the reforms to which I have been al luding are, after

al l, subsidiary to the wider problem of how bes t to securethe happiness and prosperity of the helpless millions.Uponthis subject I should like to add a few words which

I hope may tend to dissipate the too pessimistic views thatappear to prevail insome quarters. There exists a schoolthat is a lways proclaiming to the world the sad and increasing poverty of the I ndian cultivator

,and that depicts him as

l iving upon the verge of economic ruin . I f there were truthinthis picture I should not be deterred by any false pridefrom admitting it. I should

,on the contrary, set about

remedying it to the bes t of my power at once . Wherever

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91 TH I RD B UDGE T SPE ECH

d im inish pro tanto the stra in uponthe agricultural population. That they are br ing ing money into the country andc irculating it to and fro Is evident from the

“

Imm ense incrensin ra i lway traffic both of goods and passengers , in postal

and te legraph and money order bus iness , in im ports fromabroad, and in the extraordinary am ount of the preciousm eta ls that is absorbed by the people. These are not tinsymptoms of a decaying or of an impoveri shed population.

Turning, however , to Agriculture alone, concerning whichthe loudest lamentations are uttered , I have had worked outfor me, from figures collected for the Fam ine Comm issimof I 8 9 8 , the latest estimate of the value of the agricultural production of India . I find that inm y des i re to be onthe safe side I underrated the total inmy Simla speech. I

then said between 3 50 and 400 crores . The total is 450crores . The ca lculations of 1 8 80 showed anaverage agri

cultural income of Rs. 1 8 per head. I f I take the figures ofthe recent census for the same area as was covered by tinearlier computation , which amount to 2 2 3 millions , I findthat the agricultural income has actual ly increased, notwithstanding the growth inthe population , and the increasinglystationary tendency of that part of the national incom e whichis deri ved from agriculture ; and that the average per headis Rs . 20, or Rs. 2 higher than in 1 8 80 . If I then ass umeand I know of no reason why I should not—indeed I thinkit an underes timate—that the non-agricu ltural income In:increased in the same ratio, the average income wi l l be Rs . 30

per head as against Rs. 2 7 in 1 8 80.

I do not say that these data are incontrovertible. Thereis an element of the conjectural in them ; but so there wasin the figures of 1 8 80. The uncertainty in both is preciselythe same, and if one set of figures is to be used in the argument, equal ly may the other. Again, I do not claim that

these ca lculations represent any very bril liant or gratify ingresult. We cannot be very happy in the face of the recentcensus, which shows an increase of population so much lessthan we had anticipated—a fal l ing off which is no doubt duein the main to the sufferings through which India has passedand which by so much reduces the denominator in our

1 Le. 300 m illions sterling.

fraction . But at leas t these figures show that the movementis for the present distinct ly in a forward

,and not in a

retrograde direction , that there is more money, and notless money in the country, and that the standard of l ivingamong the poorer classes is going up and not down . Aboveall

, they suggest that our critics should at least hold their

judgm ent in suspense before they pronounce with so muchwarm th either upon the failure of the Indian Governmentorupon the deepening poverty of the people.

There is one point, however, in these calculations wherewe are upon very firm ground . I n 1 8 80 there were only194 mil l ions of acres under cultivation in India. There arenow 2 1 7 millions, or an increase in virtually the same ratioas the increase in population . This alone would tend toshow that there can have been no diminution of agriculturalincome per head of the people. The case for increase resultsfrom the increased standards of yield between 1 8 80 and 1 8 9 8 .

Perhaps the earlier estimates were too low. That I cannotsay. The fact remains that the 1 8 80 figures showed a yield

per acre of food crops in British India of 7 30 lbs those of1898 show a yield of 840 lbs. In some cases this will be dueto improved cultivation, perhaps more frequently to extendedirrigation. They are satisfactory so far as they go for theyShow that the agricultural problem has not yet got the betterof our rapidly increasing population . But they also showhow dangerous it will be in the future if India

,with this

increase going on within , continues to rely mainly uponagriculture, and how important it is to develop our irri

gational resources as the most efficient factor in an increaseof agricultural production .

I have now brought to a termination this review of the

present position in India and of the policy and attitude ofGovernment. I have

,I hope, extenuated nothing and exag

gerated nothing. I am a believer in taking the public intothe confidence of Government. The more they know, themore we may rely upon their support . I might have addedthat the policy which I have sketched has been pursued at atime when we have had to contend with a vio lent recrudescence of plague and with a terrible and desolating famine.But these facts are known to every one in this Chamber, and

94 TH IRD BUDGE T SPEE CH

an al lowance wil l be made by every fair m inded person

for conditions so unfavourable to advance or prosperi ty ill

administration. Should our troubles pass away, I hope thatinfuture yea rs I may be able to fi l l in with br ighter coloursthe picture which I have delineated to—day, and to point

to a realisation of many of our projects wh ich still remainuntouched or unfulfi l led.

FOURTH BUDGET SPEECH (LEG I SLATIVECOUNC IL AT CALCUTTA)

Marc}: 26, 1 902

We have had a somewhat discursive discuss ion and as

people are, as a rule, discursive only when they are ina

good temper, I hope I may conclude that the secondBudget of Sir E. Law is one that in its broad outlines hascaused general satisfaction . There are several features of itwhich deserve to produce that result. The conversion of s

modes t into a handsome surp lus in 1 90 1- 2 , even if we have

been as sisted by good fortune, is itself gratify ing. Buteven el iminating the accidental element from this expansion.and al lowing for the caution with which my honourablefriend framed his estimates a year ago, there remains intheelasticity exhibited by our main heads of revenue, and inthe steady growth Of receipts from those sources whichindicate purchasing power and prosperity, sufi

'

icient can:

for temperate congratulation . It is a great thing,for

instance,to know that, after years of adversity and un

favourable criticism, we have final ly turned the corner as

regards our Railways, and that, in addition to the innumerable benefits which they have brought to all classes in the

country, they are now a steady recurring source of profit tothe Indian taxpayer. During the three years since I tool:over my present Ofl

'

i ce, more than 3000 miles of ra ilroadhave been Opened in India. Over 2000 additional m ilesa re under actual or impending construction, and we are

gradually fi l ling up the blank spaces in the map and the

more obvious gaps in the public needs. The increased

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96 FOURTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

imposed inthis country and afterwards takenoff. He forgot

that only an hour or two earlier he him self and all of ushad voted for the abolition of the Pandhri -tax in the CentralProvinces. But the ques tions wh ich we had to ask ourselves on the present occas ion were these : A re the burdensimposed upon the community by exis ting taxation so

heavy as to stand in urgent need of m itigation Is ourposi tion sufficiently assured to enable us to make wlntmus t be a perm anent sacrifice of revenue, and to make it

on a sufficient scale to relieve the people upon whom it

presses with greates t weight P After a per iod of except ional distress that has been confined to distant parts of tincountry, is a reduction Of taxation wh ich is bound to be

general , rather than part ial, in its application, the bestmethod of se tting the sufferers upon their legs aga ina Wecould not truthfully answer these ques tions in the affirm ative.Though we have had surp luses now for three years, we could inot say with absolute confidence that we have entered upon4

an era of assured annual surpluses . There is st i l l a gooddea l Of distress, and of conditions bordering upon fam ine, it!other parts of India, and we all felt that we should like

to see the outcome Of the next monsoon . Again, we convinced ourselves upon inquiry that, even if we had run the

risk and had reduced taxation, we should not have broughtour charity home to those who most need it with the directness that we desired . A good deal of the sacrifice wouldhave been spent upon clas ses and persons who, though theywould have welcomed the relief, and though we might havebeen glad to give it, do not stand in real want. I do notshare the Hon . Mr. Gokhale’s views on our taxation. I

do not bel ieve that its total burden presses with cruelty uponthe people. If the hon. member were to transfer hisresidence to any European country, I expect that he wouldvery soonbe back again here with altered views about fiscalmatters. I n the case of taxes affecting the entire community , it is further certain that, unless the reduction were ona very large scale indeed, the benefit would never reach theconsumers at al l. Sir E. Law, in his reply, has g iven the

figures Of what a substantial reduction of the salt- tax wouldmean . I wonder if half the speakers and writers who so

FOUR TH BUDGE T SPE E CH 97

glibly recommend it have worked out what it would cost,and have paused to consrder whether we could, in thepresent year

,have afforded such a sacrifice. I t is a ques

tion Of capacity much more than Of incl ination . When the

sacrifice entailed is to be reckoned not in lakhs , but incrores

,the critics Of Government can afford to be generous,

because they have no responsibi lity ; but Government,which is responsible, is bound to be circumspect.We did not, however, come to our decision without

consulting the heads Of local administrations,and we

found that, without an exception , they were in favour of

rel ief in preference to reduction. The point upon whichwe laid the greatest stress was that relief, if given, shouldbe given to the needy. Now the neediest among the needyin British India are, as no one wil l dispute, the cultivatorswho, in Bombay, the Punjab, the United Provinces, the

Central Provinces, and the British district of Ajmer,have,

during the past two years, been so grievously smitten byfamine. We ascertained that the total arrears of landrevenue already suspended in these areas was just shortOf 2 crores, or a sum of 15 We therefore resolvedto wipe Off the whole of these arrears by a stroke of the

pen. It would have taken three or four years to col lectthis sum

,and a good deal of it, no doubt, would have never

been collected at al l. We thought it better, however, toremove al l doubt upon the matter by writing off the entiredebt, and by compensating the local governments for the

portion of it that would, in ordinary circum stances , havefallen to their share. I have not yet heard of anybody,and there has been no one in this debate, who has seriouslyquestioned the propriety Of this decision. Looking to all

that we have gone through, and may perhaps have to gothrough again, I am not going to claim this as a ProsperityBudget. But I do emphatical ly claim it as a Poor Man’sBudget and a Peasant’s Budget, and it has been a source of

the greatest pleasure to my colleagues and myse lf to beable to evince our sympathy with those classes in this practical form. I was glad to hear from the Hon. Mr. Bose,who is such a firm friend Of their interests, that our gift hasbeen received with deep gratitude.

9s FOURTH BUDGE T S PE ECH

Our second object was m set going agaim at a bec

rate of speed, the adm inistra tive m ach ine in the vprovinces . Owing to the strain of the past few yea

furnaces , and the engines have not beengo ing at much

than half speed. Every branch of adm inis tratio

safl'

ered in consequence —education, police, public

fata l to efficiency, for the machine its elf gets rustunequal to its m aximum capacity , while the en;becom e indifferent and slack. Our first proceedin]out of the large realised surplus of the past year , to

40 lakhs , or as grants - in-aid to those proviz. Bom bay , Madras , the Central Provinces , and the Iwhere the suspension of work had been most mark!

most seri ous. This was for non- recurring expen

intended to res tore the provincial adm inistra tions 1

norm al level of capaci ty and outturn. Our next etc

to provide the provinces in general with the materi

the fresh burst of activity which we des ire to presthem, by grants from our anticipated surplus of the e

financial year. With this object we have g iven t'

further 90 lakhs, or Of this, 40 lakhs arrdevoted to educa tion. A good deal of this wi l l clernon-recurring expenditure. But we entertain such

views about the need of a greater outlay upon edt'

and the measures which we alreadvhave in hand ,about to undertake

, for the expansion Of every braeducational effort in India must require such a contexpenditure, that the charge is not likely to be redusucceed ing years. The remaining 50 lakhs we hamto public works and sanitation, in both of which r

progress has been arrested in many quarters, and to I

up the deficiencies in provincial establ ishments ; of thlakhs it is es timated that 30 will be recurring. I ha\glad to hear from the Lieutenant-Governor of Benfrank a testimony to the wisdom as well as the gen

of our policy in this re spect . It is quite a new 86 1

for the Government of India to be applauded as th

parent of a large family of devoted though imper

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100 FOURTH B UDGE T S PEE CH

[H ere followed a passage about Frontier Policy and the FrontierProvince that is printed under that heading ]

During the past year the Imperial Cadet Corps , whichis a dear child of mine, has started into be ing. We havewithout d ifficulty selected over twenty young men from the

princely and aristocratic families Of all India, drawing themfrom districts as far apart as Hyderabad, Vizianagram, the

Frontier,Rajputana

,and Kathiawar. The Corps includes

four Ruling Chiefs, who have come to us at their ownwish.

1

The discipline and training provided are in the m ainmilitary

,and the standard of living enforced is simple and

strict. I am hopeful that in this institution we shall havefound a means of providing honourable employment forselected scions of the Indian aristocracy, and of trainingthe pick of their number so as to qualify for future m i l itaryrank and service.

[H ere followed a pas sage about Military Adm inistration, whichis printed under that heading ]

I am happy to be able to record the fact that we have inthe past year secured that reduction in the Telegraphic rates

between Europe and India for which I undertook to pres

three years ago. I t is not as large a reduction as I shouldpersonally have liked or as wil l one day come. But wehave secured a conditional promise Of a further reductionfrom 2 5 . 6d . to 2 5 . a word if the returns from trafii c are

found to justify it .2 I should like also to find time to consider the question raised by the Hon . Mr. Turner, of tele~

graphic charges within this country, which seem to m e to

admit of some reform .

a

I t is gratifying to find that the policy which we initiatedhere three years ago Of combating by such means as lay inour power the inequitable system of Sugar Bounties has notbeen without its effect upon public Opinion elsewhere. I do

not doubt that it has played its part in contributing towardsthe practical abolition Of those bounties, which has beenthe

1 They were the Maharajas of Jodhpore and K ishengarh , the Nawab ofJaora, and the Raja of Rutlam . Other Ruling Chiefs have since passed throughthe Im perial Cadet Corps.

3 Th is took p lace in 1905.3 This was carried out in 1904. Vida p. 285 .

FOURTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

result of the recent Brussels Conference,and which is one

among many evidences Of the shrewd and tactful diplomacyof Lord Lansdowne. The Convention has not y et beenratified by the Legislatures of foreign Powers, and until itcomes into operation we must continue our precautionshere. We must also be on our guard that the real objectsof the agreement are not evaded by indirect bounties in one

or other of many forms.Pass ing to the sphere of internal administration , there are

many respects in which we can claim that distinct progresshas been made. The singularly able Report of Sir AntonyMacDonnell and his col leagues upon the Famine Commission of last year has enabled us to frame definite rulesuponmany disputed points of famine policy and procedure ;and we are, I hope, in process Of evolving a Famine Codeof general acceptance, which wil l guide our officers in futurestruggles.In the course Of last summer we completed a most careful

and searching survey of the whole Of our Land Revenue

policy, and we endeavoured, in answer to our critics, tofurnish to the world no mere departmental defence of ourmethods and objects

,but a serious and conscientious ex

amination of the subject of assessments in relation to thevarious parts of India, and to define the lines of broadand generous treatment in the future. Our pronouncementwas not an academic treatise

,meant to be read, or perhaps

stripped, and then forgotten . We intend it to be a rule of

guidance to the local administrations ; and on points wheredoubt exists , or where the local practice does not appear tohe in accordance with the principles laid down , we haveaddressed them with a view to ensuring conformity in the

future. I am grateful for the reception that this documenthas met with from the public, which has more than repaidme for the months of labour that were devoted to the task .

I hOpe that it has removed some misconceptions and distipated some doubts.

1

I have already mentioned the large grants that we are

making in the forthcoming year to Education. These are

1 The allusionis to the ResolutiononLand Revenue policy , which was issued

102 FOURTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

the prelude to a policy of educational reform that warinaugurated with the del iberations Of the Simla Conferencrlast year

,that is now being further investigated in respec

of University education—a most important branch of thr

subject—by the Commission that is sitting under the presideney of the Legal Member, and that wil l not stop untiit has embraced every branch Of educational activitysecondary

,primary

,technical

,industrial, and comm ercra

In al l these respects money has been grudged in the past

and effort has been wasted or diffused, in the main fromwant of a definite plan . I conceive that a ruler could nobequeath to India a better legacy than the introduction0

system,shape

,and consistency into that which has h ithertr

been somewhat formless and void . Upon every one of tb

particulars that I have named the local Governments hawbeen addressed : their opinions have been invited as t

positive suggestions and definite needs ; and before anothe

year has passed I hope that we may appear before th

Indian public with a concrete policy that will communicatto Education in its various branches an impetus that vinot quickly faint or fade away. A D irector -General 0

Education has arrived from England to act as adviser to thGovernment of India, and to assure that continuous intererin the matter at headquarters which has sometimes beelacking.

1 There is only one consideration that I would asthe public to bear steadily inmind . Education , if it is tbe reformed , must be reformed for education

’s sake,not fit

the sake of political interests, or racial interests, or clar

interests, or personal interests. If that golden rule be bornin mind, both by the Government and the public, we she

get through. If it be forgotten , then the most strenuous refforts may be choked with d isappointment, or may perisin recriminations.Throughout the past cold weather the most m om entor

of our recent Commissions has been taking evidence idifferent parts of India upon the question of future e:

tensions of I rrigation in this country. The figures thathave previously quoted wil l have reflected the genessympathy with which the Government of India regard

1 Mr. H . W. Orange. Vida p. 350.

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104 FOURTH BUDGE T S PEE CH

perishing art indus tries of India,by holding an Exhibition

in connection with the Coronation Durbar at Delhi inJanuary next. I should be very sorry if that great function ,even though it be one of official ceremony and nationalrejoicing, were main ly limited to pageantry and pleas ure .

I should like it to be of perm anent service to the people ;and it occurred to me that a better way of securing thatend could not be contrived than to assemble there a col leetion of al l the best that the Indian artificer or handicraftsmanis capable of producing, so as both to appeal to the taste Ofthe immense audience that will be gathered together, andto encourage and revive the industr ies themselves .

‘

Lastly,there is another subject that we are about to take

inhand . I spoke last year of Police Reform as one of the

most urgent needs of Indian administration . The matterhas not been lost sight of since, and we have recently senthome proposals to the Secretary Of State for the constitutionof a Commission, to concentrate into final shape and concludethe independent inquiries that we have been making, butthat are at present somewhat lacking in consistency andunity, because of the very varying aspect of the problem in

the different provinces. This will,I hope

,be the last big

Commission for the appointment of which I shall be

responsible, but the work that lies before it, and that touchesevery home, and almost every individual in every home, inthe country, wil l not be the least in importance. I agreewith the Lieutenant-Governor in thinking that

,in some

respects, it wil l be the first.Now I can quite believe that there will be some persons

who wil l say that the present administration is earning astrange and abnormal repute, as one of Commissions, Comm ittees , and inquiries. The charge is quite true. I do notfor one moment dispute it. We have had a Famine Commission and a Horse-breeding Commission . We have gotnow at work an I rrigation Commission and a UniversitiesCommission. We have a very alert and capable SpecialCommissioner who is examining into our rai lways ;

2 and I

1 Vida the speeches printed under the heading Art.”

Mr. T. Robertson, who spent the years Igo r-3 in exam ining the rai lwaysystems of India and Am erica, and thenissued his Report .

FOURTH B UDGE T SPEE CH 105

started nearly three years ago the plan of a Travelling Railway Commission , that has already visited and conductedlocal inquiries in several parts Of I ndia. I have myselfpresided over Conferences to inquire into the question of

Education at large, and into the teaching and system Of theChiefs’ Colleges. We have had Committees to report uponagricultural banks

,upon military decentral isation , upon

commissariat frauds, upon the starting of technical andindustrial schools, and upon other and less important matters.And now there is the proposal of a Police Commissionwhich I have just launched. What

,it may be said, is the

use of al l these investigations ? Are you not tending toObscure the issue and to delay action ? The answer tothese questions is, in my opinion , very simple. The ObjectOf all these inquiries is in every case the same,viz. to arriveat the truth. The truth ought, I suppose, theoretical ly tobe lying about, l ike an exquisite shell on the sea-shore

,open

to the eyes Of men . But in practice it is apt to be overlaid by all manner of sea-weed and sand and slime, and ithas to be dug out and extricated from its covering or itssurroundings. If I have undertaken the pol icy of reform of

wh ich I have been speaking,I positively decline to accept

the respons ibility unti l we know where we are, what are the

exact features of the problem that we have to deal with, andwhat, on the whole, is the best that it is Open for us to do.

A reform in India is a change applied not to a town, or adistrict

,or a province

,or a country

,but to a continent.

Conceive any one proposing a new plan or a new policy forthe whole Of Europe—if such a thing were practicable—anddoing it without the fullest

'

inquiry in advance—inquiryboth to ascertain the dimensions and necessities of the case,and to let the various experts and authorities have theirsay. There is no country in which this is more essentialthan Ind ia

,where there is always a danger that the executive

authority m ay be out of touch with a constituency so

scattered and so huge,and where

,therefore, I am always

insisting upon the necessity of building bridges between theGovernment and the people. I do not say that every Commission or Comm ittee is everywhere invariably appo intedwith the Objects that I have described . I have known the

106 FOURTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

opposite. They may be said indeed to fal l into twocategories—Commissions to shelve, and Commissions tosolve. If any one thinks that any of the Indian inquiries towhich I have al luded have be longed to the former class, heis greatly mistaken ; ahd if any sleeping partner in theabuses or errors which we desire to correct is hugging tohimse lf the il lusion that these Commissions wil l pass byl ike a gust of wind, and leave no trace but a Report behind ,he wil l suffer a rude awakening. I am a disciple of thewise man who said that words are women , but deeds aremen ; and though I am far from anticipating that any of

our investigators wil l show the slightest lack of viri lity intheir reports—the Famine Commission certainly did notyet it is to the action taken upon their Reports, rather than tothe Reports themselves, that the final weight is to be attached .

Perhaps I may also add that if any one is disposed to thinkthat the constitution of an Indian Commission

,and its

process from the cradle to the grave, are light and perfunctory operations, that can be airily undertaken by one whois either a di lettante or is inclined to be a shirk, he displaysanextreme ignorance of the subject. There is the referenceto be drawn up, involving long and anxious study, theSecretary of State to be consulted, the consent of his Counci lobtained, the members to be selected by a careful ba lance ofthe interests and merits, not merely of individuals, but of

provinces,races, and even of creeds. Very often there is

prolonged correspondence with local Governments. Then,

when the work is started, references and intermediate Reportsare continually coming in , which the head of the Government is compelled to study. Later onthere is the Reportitself, which condenses the labours perhaps of a twelvemonth, and the intel lectual precipitation of a multitude ofminds. Then comes the detai led examination of the Report,the discussion of the extent to which it can or should beacted upon, further consultation with the Home Government,and perhaps with local Governments, and, final ly, the ordersof Government in a succinct form . I can assure hon .

members that it needs, not indifference, but no small spirit,to start and to see through an Indian Commission frombeginning to end, and I would earnestly recommend any

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108 FOURTH B UDGE T S PEE CH

China we sent 1 300 British officers and men, nearlynative troops, and native fol lowers

, of whomnative soldiers and 3 500 followers are sti l l away. Iventure to say that these are very large and handsomecontributions.Then I would l ike to mention another respect in which

we have been of service. This has been in the provision of

ammunition , stores, and supplies. I n these two wars wehave sent out from India 2 1 mil lion rounds of ammunitionand 1 projecti les and shells, 1 tents , 1

sets of saddlery, 3 1 helmets , blankets ,pairs of boots , tons of fodder and rations, and

garments of various descriptions. These articleshave not been required either wholly or mainly for theIndian forces. They have been ordered for all the troops inthe field. The whole of them have been manufactured inthis country

,and the benefit has not, of course, been altogether

one-sided,since their manufacture has given employment and

wages to thousands of I ndian artisans. During the sameperiod we have sent out 1 horses, 6700 mules andponies, and 2 700 bullocks. We have also despatched smal lbodies of men to take part in minor campaigns that havebeen waged in Somaliland, Jubaland, and other parts of

Africa ; and we have undertaken to raise, for the ColonialOffi ce, five native regiments for service in the AsiaticColonies or possessions of Great Britain.

But our services do not stop short at the loan of milita ryresources and men . India is becoming a valuable nurseryof public servants in every branch of administration , uponwhom foreign Governments as well as the British Empireshow an increasing inclination to indent. We have over adozenoffi cers from India in the service of Siam. We havemedical officers serving in Persia, Abyssinia, East Africa,and the Straits Settlements. We have engineers in Egypt,Nigeria, Uganda, and China. We have postal and telegraphic officers at the sources of the Nile, on the Zambesi,and at the Cape . Scarcely a week passes but I do notreceive a request for the loan or gift of the services of someofficer with an Indian train ing. This is a tribute to oursystem, and a striking vindication of its value.

FOURTH B UDGE T SPE E CH 109

Now,when the Empire cal ls upon us to make these con

tr ibutions or loans, I do not pretend that on our side of theledger is to be written only loss. Very far from it. Theentire expenses Of the troops while they are out Of India are

,

Of course,borne by the Imperial Government, and every

th ing ordered from us is paid for by them . Nay more, theabsence Of these large bodies of men in South Africa andChina for so long a period of time has resulted in the presentcase in very great savings to ourselves, owing to the relief ofal l financial responsibil ity for the absent units. Thesesavings have amounted to a sum of 3} crores, or 15and without them we should not have been able to embarkupon the policy Of military reorganisation that I have beforesketched.

We, therefore, have profited as well as the Empire,

although our profit has been pecuniary, wh ile hers has beenmora l and material . Our gain has been due to the accidentof the prolonged absence of our troops. But our contributionwas made independently of any thought or prospect of gain

,

and was a service to the Empire. By reducing our garrisonswe were content to runa certain risk—for who knows whatmay happen on anAsiatic frontier,—but we did it in theinterests of the Empire, with whose stabi lity our own is boundUp . During the past three years it has been the constantduty of the Government of India to balance the Imperialand the Indian aspects of our obligations ; and if we havebeen helpful to the Empire without detriment to the trueinterests Of this country, then I am sure that there is no onewho will not be wil l ing to endorse and even to share ourresponsibil ity. We do not go upon our knees and supplicatefor favours in return ; but we beg that the part played byIndia in the Imperial system, and the services rendered byus in time of trouble, may not be forgotten by the Britishnation

,and that they may find in it, when the occasion arises ,

good grounds for reciprocal generosity and help.

I ro FIFTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

FIFTH BUDGET SPEECH (LEG ISLATIVECOUNC IL AT CALCUTTA)

III arc/I 2 5 , 1 903

Among the objects that I have set before myself evers ince I have beenin I ndia, and high up among the tasks Ofwhich I have sometimes spoken, has been a reduction of theburdens that rest upon the shoulders of the people. I n myfirst Budget speech in 1 8 9 9 I discussed the question of

remission of taxation, and showed that the time was not yet.Then we found ourselves caught in a cyclone of famine andgeneral suffering, and al l such ideas had to be postponed.

In my third Budget speech I again cautiously alluded to thematter ; but, as we were stil l in the wood, and had not gotout into the open, I dared neither to be sanguine nor pro

phetic. Last year we had a large surplus, and I discussedin my Budget remarks the different ways in which we mighthave spent it. We decided to make a substantial gift tothose classes of the population who had been hardest hit inthe recent visitations, and we wiped off arrears of landrevenue amounting to nearly 2 crores, or a sum of

Now at last in my fifth year we are able totake the further step that has all along been in our minds ;and my present Budget speech is the pleasantest that I haveyet been called upon to deliver, since it is associated withthe first serious reduction of taxation that has been made inIndia for twenty years.My view about Taxation in this country has al l along

been this. I have never bel ieved that, judged by any or allof the tests that are commonly and fairly applied, it isexcessive or even h igh . I believe

,on the whole

,that so long

as a liberal policy of remissions and suspensions of landrevenue is pursued in bad times, it presses very l ightlyupon the people. But the material condition

,or the relative

acquiescence of a people is not the sole measure of whattaxation should be. Otherwise there would be a goodargument for squeezing everybody up to the point at whichhe can give forth moisture without an audible groan .

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1 1 2 FIFTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

the financial position and every civil ised Government musthave at its disposal the means of meeting an emergency,whether caused by war or anything else. The utmost thatthe community can demand is that taxation which has beentaken off upon its own merits shall not be l ightly reimposed,and that the financial emergency which is held to justify itsreimposition Shall be proportionate in degree to the prosperitywhich was responsible for the original re l ief. I hope myselfthat the consumption of salt may increase steadi ly under thelowered rate of duty, and that Government wil l gradually reapits reward in a recovery of revenue as we l l as in the gratitudeof the people.

One th ing it may interest hon. members to know,namely

,

that since the salt duties were equal ised throughout India,

there has never been a period, except the six years between1 8 8 2 and 1 8 8 8 , at which the duty anywhere in India hasstood so low as the rate to which we have now reduced it

,

and that since India was taken over by the Crown in themiddle of the last century, the duty in Northern India andBengal was never lower than two rupees eight annas exceptduring the period above mentioned. These facts are, Ithink, of importance as tending to show the genuine andexceptional character of the present boon, and also the desireof Government, so far from making increasing expenditurean excuse for increasing calls upon the poorer classes of thepopulation, to allow them to be the first to profit by an allround improvement inthe national resources. There is oneconsequence that I hope may ensue from these measures offinancial rel ief. I hope they may give the public at large

,

both in India and outside of it, a little greater confidence inthe position and prospects of this country. Year after yearwe have put forward at this table statements of figures andfacts tending irresistibly to show that there is a great reserveof economic vital ity in India, which not even plague andfamine and the expenditure entailed thereby have availed tosubdue. We have shown steadily improving revenues

,large

and increasing surpluses, advances in all the tests thatindicate material prosperity. We have even beenable fromtime to time to confer, as we did last year, very large andsubstantial boons. But there has always remained a school

FIFTH B UDGE T SPEE CH 1 13

of thought that declined to be convinced. With them thepoverty Of the Indian peasant, the decline of the country

,

and I may almost say its ultimate ruin , have almost becomean article of po l itical belief, based upon sentiment ratherthan reason , and impervious to the evidence of facts. Andthe final argument that has always been used by critics of

this class is the following We are not impressed by yourfigures ; we do not bel ieve in your surpluses ; we are noteven convinced by your occasional doles. Not until yougive a permanent rel ief of taxation shall we be persuadedeither Of the sympathy of Government or of the prosperityOf the country. That is the sure and final test of the condition of India and of the statesmanship of its rulers. Well

,

I feel inclined to take these critics at their own word,and

to invite them,now that we have subscribed to their test

,

to abate their melancholy, and to be a l ittle more generousand less sceptical in the future.I do not wish it for a moment to be thought that

,because

we have been able to remit the best part of Ifi mill ionsterling per annum intaxation , therefore there is no povertyin India. Far from it. There is enough, and far more thanenough. There is a great deal more than any one of us cancontemplate with equanimity or satisfaction . The size andgrowth of the population , the character of their livelihood,and to some extent their own traditions and inclinations

,

render this inevitable. But I do not believe that the peopleare getting poorer. On the contrary, I hold that they aremaking slow but sure advances, and that in normal conditions this progress is certain to continue. But in my viewthis can only be achieved if al l those who are concernedwith the problem, whether as administrators or critics, do soin a spirit not of pessimism, but of cheerfulness. As littleby little we get forward, I would crown every milestone onthe path with roses instead of wetting it with tears.There is another point of view from which I would for

a moment invite the Council and the outside public toregard the relief which has beenannounced in this Budget

,

since I think that here again we m ay find a useful correctiveto some of the dangers of premature criticism. How oftenhave we not been told in certain quarters in the pas t three

1 14 FIFTH BUDGE T S PEE CH

months that the Delhi Durbar was a foolish and evenwicked extravagance, because we spent the money of thepeople—how much or how little I shal l presently showwithout announcing to them a substantial benefit in return .

I am not sure that my hon. friend Mr. Charlu is nota little unsound on this point himself ; for he generouslyoffered to let bygones be bygones

,as though there was

something that we would rather like to forget. That is notat all our view. I may remark that I should have beenglad enough to make the announcement at the Durbar, butthat it is the usual practice Of modern Governments toconnect relief of taxation with Budget statements and withthe beginning or end of the financial year. I should havethought that this was tolerably clear from my Durbarspeech. However, our eager and incredulous friends wouldnot wait even for three months . In their view the goldenopportunity had been thrown away, and the Governmentthat had sacrificed it had proved its indifference to thepubl ic interest. I feel tempted to wonder whether theDurbar, which I firmly bel ieve that

196ths—I think I

m ight say 19096 ths—of those who either saw it or know

anything about it regard as having been a unique success,

will be relieved from the charge of failure at the handsof the minority who have hitherto so represented it, nowthat the solitary cause which was alleged to have beenresponsible for that failure has disappeared by the

announcement in March of the bounty which they wouldhave preferred to secure in January. When the Durbar iscited in the history of the future, even from the narrowpoint of view of material result alone, will it be quotedby the class of opinion of which I am speaking as a

success because it heralded the present relief, or as afailure because it fel l short by three months of anticipatingit ? I do not fancy that there can be much doubt as to theresponse .

[Here followed certain paragraphs about the Delh i Durbar,which have beenextracted from this place and reproduced underthat heading, and under the heading of Indian

Among the most contented of the participators at Delhiwere the Ruling Chiefs Of India, and not the least contented

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1 16 FIFTH B UDGE T SPEE CH

the course of which we watch with natural anxiety fromyear to year. Our currency policy is working well , andis bringing back confidence to every branch of Indianfinance and trade. Our frontier pol icy has so far beenfortunate. The new province is prospering, and we aregradually extending the application of the principles uponwhich our frontier policy depends. The Punjab LandAlienationAct is reported to be succeeding beyond expectation

,and encourages us to approach with greater confidence

attempts to arrest the evils of indebtedness and expropriation of the agricultural population elsewhere. The industrial legislation that we have passed during the past twoyears is bearing good fruit ; and the increased wage forthe coo l ie in the tea gardens of Assam will come into operation in the ensuing year. R e-armament has been completedin the regular Army, and only remains to be extended tothe Volunteers, and we are proceeding to the organisationof internal factories so as to render ourselves self- sufli cingin the future.

There is one matter which I have before now mentionedat this table

,and to which I have attached an importance

that has not always been recognised. I al lude to theorders that we passed for a reduction in the number and

length of officia l Reports—that time-honoured foible andsnare of Indian administration. Some people said thatthe idea was excel lent, but that the orders would be

nugatory, and the difference m'

l others applauded conciseness in the abstract, but deplored it in the case of everyReport to which it was applied. Of course we could notexpect al l in a moment to hit off the exact mean betweenprolixity and undue contraction , or to teach every Officerstraight away how to frame the ideal Report . But thatour orders have not only not been abortive

,but have

produced very material results, will, I think , be evident fromthe following figures. The total number of obligatoryReports to Government has been reduced from nearly 1 300

to a little over 1000. But the difference in their contentsis more notable stil l . Before the issue of the new orders,the number of pages of letterpress submitted and printedwas it is now 8600. The number of pages Of

FIFTH BUDGE T SPEE CH I I 7

statist ics was it is now 1 or a total reductionof pages of contents from to less than Ido not think that this reduction has been achieved at anycost whatever of adm inistrative efficiency. What it hasmeant in rel ief to the compiling ofli cers , and in the releaseof energy for other and more important branches of work ,wil l be patent to any one who has the smal lest experienceof Indian administration.

1 do not now propose to dwell further upon the past. Iprefer, in what I have to say, to look ahead, and to forman est imate of the work that stil l awaits my col leagues andmyse lf, before we can say that the work of reform andreconstruction that we assumed has been duly started on itsway, or before we can afford to rest a l ittle on our oars. Sometimes I confess that I get a little appalled at the magnitudeof the undertaking, and disappointed at the reception thatappears to await reform . The very people who applaud te

form and cry for the reformer are apt to express immensesurprise at the one

,and no smal l resentment at the other,

when they are forthcoming ; there are so many excel lentarguments for doing nothing, such a reposeful fascinationin just scraping along. I have even learned in this countrya new and captivating doctrine, namely, that it is considereda m istake in some quarters to inquire at all . I came herewith the idea that no sphere of administrative work in theworld admits less of hasty generalisation or abrupt actionthan India ; that the features of race, religion, and localityare so divergent

,the needs of different provinces so opposite,

the general lack of uniformity so striking, that before anyorganic changes could be introduced, profound and carefulinvestigation was required,and a consultation of local authorityand opinion

,however bewildering the differences might be,

was essential. If I held these views four years ago, stil lm ore do I hold them now. They are the commonplacesof Oriental administration . They seem to me the A B Cof Indian politics. I cannot conscientiously recede fromthem in any respect. And yet how familiar I now am withthe charge that it is a waste of time and a proof of insincerityto inquire

,that Commissions are an expensive extravagance ,

and that the problems which we are engaged in laboriously

1 18 FIFTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

investigating are so well known that only the meanestcapacity is required to solve them without further ado.

I do not think that the withers of my colleagues ormyself have been wrung by these remarks. Indeed , I havea shrewd suspicion that the very persons who protest againstinquiry before action as a superfluity , would equal ly denounce action without inquiry as an outrage . I am afraid ,therefore, that we shal l obstinately continue our policy of

ascerta ining the data before we proceed to act upon them ,

although it wil l be gratifying to those who are so impatientfor deeds to know that, in the case of the whole of ourCommissions, the stage of investigation is now almost at anend, and that there lies immediately in front of us theonerous and responsible task of translating so much of theirrecommendations as we may decide to accept into practice.

Who knows that before long we shal l not have the chargebrought against us of acting too much after having inquiredtoo l itt le ? Perhaps we shal l even be told, as we have beenin a well-known case, that it was not necessary either toinquire or to act at all.There is one respect in which we have just taken the

final steps in dealing with the policy recommended by oneof the most important Commissions that have sat andreported during my time. I allude to Sir A . MacDonnell

’

s

Famine Commission. Soon after the Report first reachedus , we issued orders to the local Governments upon so muchof the Report as we accepted ourselves without demur, andas we knew to be similarly acceptable to them . Since thenwe have conducted an exhaustive correspondence with thelocal Governments and with the Secretary of State uponthe more disputed aspects of the case, and we are nowabout to issue a Resolution embodying final orders on the

subject. A revised code of Famine procedure, based uponthe latest experience

,will then be at hand throughout India ,

which wil l regulate the operations of the next campaignas soon as it has to be undertaken . I do not assume for a

moment that the last word on Famine Relief has beenspoken, or that later experience may not guide us to evenfurther improvements of system. The utmost that we can

do at each stage is to profit by the lessons hitherto learned

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1 20 FIFTH B UDGE T SPEE CH

good deal to throw doubt upon the former statement. If

he turns to the history of Russia, he wil l find good reasonfor changing his Opinion upon the latter. Governmentshould never slacken for one moment in its peace campaign,

just as much as in its war campaign , against famine. Thuswe shall render it less formidable and shal l gradual ly gainthe upper hand . But we are not, in my judgment, as yetwi thin measurable distance of the time when the wordprevention can be much upon our lips.As to the work that stil l l ies before us, it falls under

e ight headings, concerning each of which I have a few

words to say. I t must not be thought that the order inwhich I happen to name them is the order of their importance . All are equally important, and al l are simultaneouslybeing taken up. Neither must it be thought, when I speakof them in the future, that we are now about to start workupon any of them for the first time. Throughout the pastfour years there is not one among them that has not beenalmost continuously under our notice. In every case wehave reached an advanced stage of inquiry, and in somecases of action, and it only remains for us to carry theseproceedings to the final stage, and to present to the Secretaryof State and to the country the bases of a definite policy tobe consistent ly pursued in the future.

The first of these is Education .

l DO not let any one

suppose that in any aspect of education we shrink fromthe duty that we have undertaken, which is that Of formu

lating for the country a revised scheme of Education in al lits branches

,University

,secondary, primary, technical ,

and commercial . But we must postulate a l ittle patienceand ask for a little time. The prOposals are so multiform , the needs so different, the guidance that we receivefrom the public so perplexing, that sometimes one scarcelysees light through the trunks of the trees. The subjectof Education

,however

,and particularly of University Educa

tion in India,i l lustrates very forcibly what I said a little

while back. More than a year and a half ago I presidedover a Conference of leading educational authorities, Official

1 The ensuing paragraphs may be read in connectionwith the speeches onEducation, which are printed under a separate heading inthis volume.

FIFTH B UDGE T SPEE CH 12 1

and unoffi cial, at Simla, in order to assure myself of thetrend Of expert knowledge and opinion on these subjects.I remember at that time that the prevailing apprehensionwas lest the Government should suddenly spring a neweducational policy upon the country without giving tothe interested parties an opportunity of having their say

,

and that the Simla decrees would be issued as a mandateto the nation. Nobody

,I may say, ever entertained such a

notion in the Government itself. On the contrary, wem eant from the start to give to the qualified public thefullest Opportunity for expressing its views. Accordinglywe appointed a Commission

,under my hon . col league

Mr. Raleigh , to examine into the question of the Univers ities , and we consulted the local Governments uponevery other feature of our plans. Since then the publichas had the best part of a year in which to expend its

energies upon d iscussion—an opportunity by which no onecan say that it has not profited . Whether Government hasprofited equally by these proceedings is Open to doubt ;for I observe that whereas a year and a half ago every onewas agreed that Education in India stood most urgentlyin need of reform,

that it had got entirely into the wronggroove, and was going steadily down hill, dispensing animperfect education through imperfect instruments to imperfect products with imperfect results—a great many of

the interested part ies now meet together and proclaim ininjured tones that they stand in no need of reformationat al l. Now let me say at once that this is not goodbusiness. I lay down as an absolute and unassailable proposition that our educational systems in India are faulty inthe extreme, and that unless they are reform ed, posteritywi ll reproach us for the lost opportunity for generationsto come. I remind the public that that proposition wasmost cordially endorsed by every shade of Opinion one anda half years ago. Since then we have shown a considerationfor the interests of all concerned and a reluctance to act withprecipitation that have been pushed almost to extremes, andhave exposed us to the charge of timidity and irresolution .

My Object throughout has been to carry the public withus in our reforms , and to base them upon the popular

122 FIFTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

assent. I am stil l hopeful that better counsels wil l prevai l,and I shal l spare no efl

'

ort to attain this result. But ifevery reform proposed is to be overwhelmed with Obloquyand criticism

,because it touches some vested interest or

affects some individual concern if change of any kind is tobe proscribed merely because it is change if the appetite forreform,

so strong two years ago, has now entirely died down ,then I must point out that the educated community wil lhave forfeited the greatest chance ever presented to themof assisting the Government to place the future educationof this country upon a better footing, and Government wil lbe left to pursue its task alone. I should be most reluctantto be driven to this course . I want to reform educationin India, I wil l not say omm

'

rm r com m a, because that may

be an impossible aspiration, but with the goodwil l andassent of reasonable and experienced men , and I have aright to ask that, in so far as they are dissatisfied with thes tatus quo, they shal l render our course not more d ifli cult,but more easy.

I am wel l aware that University Education does notexhaust the field or the requirements of Education in thiscountry. There are many other aspects of the problemscarcely less important which we also have under examination Secondary Education, or education in the HighSchools leading up to the Colleges ; Primary Education, orthe education of the masses in the vernacular ; CommercialEducation , or the provision of a train ing that shal l qualifyyoung men for a business career ; Agr icultural Education ,tie. a practical as well as a theoretical instruction in thestaple industry of the country ; tTechnical and IndustrialEducation

,or the application of scientific methods and

principles to the practice of national industries and handicrafts,—al l of these have come under review, and we arelittle by little shaping the principles that wil l presently formthe basis of a policy and a programme. I would onlysay to the public—Do not be impatient, and do not becensorious. Do not impute dark conspiracies or assume thatal l the misguided men in the country are inside the Government and al l the en lightened outside it. What could be

easier than for Government not to have taken up educa

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124 FIFTH BUDGE T S PE E CH

province its reasoned programme of tanks, or reservoirs, orwells, or canals , mapped out over a long series of years, anddevised with strict regard to the experiences or the exigenciesof drought. Much money wi ll be required ; many experi

ments will have to be made ; some fai lures wil l be registered .

But at least it wil l not be possible to say that the Government of I ndia has ignored this aspect of the agricultural andindustrial problem , or that we are wasting our water becausewe do not know how to use it.Then we have the impending Report of the Police Com

mission and the impending reform of the Indian Police . Iknow no more of the proceedings of the Commission thanhas appeared in the newspapers, and I am unaware whatour Commissioners wil l say. But if any one had any doubtas to the need of inquiry , I should think that this must havebeen dissipated by the nature of the evidence that has beenforthcoming ; and if any one questions the need of reform ,

he cannot, I think, be a resident in this land . Upon thissubject

,however , I should like to add one word of caut ion .

Reform we must, and reform we shall . But the main improvement that is required , which is a moral improvement,cannot come all in a gallop. Men are on the whole whattheir surroundings make them, and men do what their opportunities permit . It is not al l in a moment that you can takeone section of a society and create in it a d ifl

'

erent standardfrom that which prevails in another, even if you pay theformer to look after the morals of the latter. We shall

,I

hope, get a better and a purer police as a consequence of

the changes that we shall introduce, but we shal l notstraightway found a new Jerusalem until we have educatedthe people who are to build and to inhabit it .I have often before spoken of my desire to introduce a

more commercial element into the management of IndianRailways and already we have made some progress in thisdirection. From our published Histories of Projects, fromour Railway Conferences, and from our Travel ling Commissions—al l initiated during the past four years, - the public

,

I think , know more than they used to do of our policy and

aims. But I have never thought that this was enough .

Railways in India have now climbed out of the cradle .

FIFTH B UDGE T SPEE CH 1 25

They provide us with a recurring annual surplus. Before Icame out here as Viceroy, I made a speech in London ,

1 atwhich I was thought rather sanguine for saying that

,while

less than miles were then Open , I hoped that thetotal would exceed miles in my time. I t has alreadyreached But it is not mileage that im presses me

,

nor receipts . I am more concerned with up - to-date management and efli ciency , and I hope that the Report of ourSpecial Commissioner, Mr. Robertson , which is on the eveof be ing subm itted, may give us the clue that will guide usto far- reaching reforms

,intended to place Indian railways

and their administration on a level with the most progressiveachievements of other and more developed countries.There is a subject long under our notice which we hOpe

to dea l with in the ensuing year. This is that of the unionor separation of Judicial and Executive functions. If anyone could stand in my shoes, and, with his ten hours

’ worka day, could cast a glance at that fi le, the best part of a footh igh

,with its mass of opinions from local Governments

,

high courts,Ofli cials , and private persons, all waiting to be

read and digested , and most of them saying different things,he would probably understand how it is that everythingcannot be pushed forward at the same time. But the question is of great importance, and whatever our ultimatedecision may be

,I should like it to be taken up and dealt

with in my time .

2

I should have been tempted to say something aboutAgriculture to-day—the sixth subject in m y present category—were it not that I have been so ably anticipated by SirD. Ibbetson . When he is the inspiring genius and thespokesman of a department, it seems superfluous for anyone else to add a word. I can, however, supplement whathe has said by tracing the logical as well as chronologicalsequence of our labours. First let me say what we haveattempted so far to do. We have endeavoured to deal withthe indebtedness of the agricultural classes by the Punjab

1 At a luncheon given to Lord Curzon by the Directors of the P. O.

S . N. Company onDecem ber 2 , 1898 . I t is not reported inthis volum e.

1 This was one of the subjects left untouched owing to Lord Curzon’s reti rem ent from India before the end of his second term .

126 FIFTH BUDGE T SPE ECH

legislation , which I before mentioned, and now by theBundelkhund legislation, which he has defended to-day.

We have laid down broad and liberal principles explainingand regulating our policy of Land Revenue assessments inI ndia. We have created an Inspector-General of Agriculture at the head of an expert department, and we haveconstituted a Board of Scientific Advice. But before us l iesthe much bigger experiment of combined agriculturalresearch, agricultural experiment, and agricultural education ,which Sir D. Ibbetson has outlined, and which, if we cancarry it through, ought to be of inca lculable service tothe country. If we can simultaneously train teachers, provide estate managers and agents , and foster research, weshal l real ly have done some good in our time.Then behind these proposals lies a scheme wh ich we

have greatly at heart, and about which I should like to adda word—I mean the institution of Co-operative CreditSocieties

,or, as they are often called, Agricultural Banks.

I have seen some disappointment expressed that we havenot moved more quickly in this matter. If any one hadstudied

,as I have had to do, the replies of al l the local

Governments and their ofli cers on the subject, he would beginto wonder when and how we are to move at all . Of courseit is easy enough to express an abstract approval of agricultural banks, to denounce everybody who does not shareyour views, and to rush into experiments foredoomed tofai lure. But that is exactly what Government does notwant to do, and what the replies of its advisers would renderit suicidal to do. When there are many who say that theco-operative spirit does not exist in the rural community

,

that it is unsuited to the conditions of Indian character andlife, that the savings banks are not patronised as it is

,and

that the requisite capital wi l l not be forthcoming,it i s

impossible to pooh-pooh al l these assertions as idle fancy .

But even when we get beyond them, and justify the des irab ility of making the experiment on a moderate and cautiousscale

,we are stil l confronted with all manner of questions.

Is the experiment to be made with village or urban societies,

or with both, and which first ? Should Government aidthese societies, and if so, to what extent, and for how long ?

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128 FIFTH B UDGE T SPEE CH

Lastly, I come to the heading of Finance, and byfinance I do not mean those calculations which must inevitably lurk in the background of al l the prOposa ls that I havehitherto discussed, but the principles that regulate our controland dispensation of the Indian revenues. Here I wi l l mention two matters only that have always seemed to m e

matters of the deepest importance, and of which I shouldlike

, if it were possible, to advance the solution in my time.The first of these is the constitution and employment of thepresent so-called Famine Insurance Fund. I have neverbeen quite satisfied as to the position of this feature in ouraccounts , and for two years we have been in correspondence with the Secretary of State on the matter. There is agood dea l to be said upon both sides, and for the present wehave not been able to arrive at a solution .

‘ The secondquestion is that of the Provincial Settlements, which, thoughthey have had their obvious merits , have not been unattendedwith friction and with drawbacks in Operation . My colleagues and I would greatly like, if we can, to invest theseagreements between the supreme and the local Governments with a more perm anent character, that would stimu

late the energies of local Governments and give them agreater interest in economy and good administration

,while

retaining for the Imperial Government the necessary measureof ultimate control . I do not know whether we shall besuccessful in these efforts but we are about

,with the assent

of the Secretary of State, to take them in hand.

I have now covered the entire field of administrativework that appears to me to lie before the Government ofIndia in the immediate future. We may, to use a slangphrase

,be thought by some to have bitten Off more than we

can chew . We may be diverted from our laborious meal byother and unforeseen preoccupations. I hope myself thatneither apprehension will turn out to be genuine. Thework that I have indicated is waiting to be done

,and ought

1 The proposals put forward by the V iceroy in this connection, and three

times supported by the unanimous voice of his Counci l, were refused by the

Secretary of S tate.

3 These efforts culm inated inthe new type of perm anent or quas i -perm anentProvincial Agreements, which were introduced inthe ensuing year, and explainedby Lord Curzoninhis Budget Speech of March 30, 1904. Vida p. 1 34.

FIFTH BUDGE T SPE ECH 1 29

most certainly to be attempted . Whatever of time andenergy remains to me I hope to devote to the prosecution of

the task, and my dearest ambition is to see it ca rried safelythrough.

[Here followed the paragraphs about ForeignAfl'

airs which are

printed under that heading ]

SIXTH BUDGET SPEECH (LEG I SLATIVECOUNCIL AT CALCUTTA)

III arC/r 30, 1 904

I do not propose to say much about the figures of theBudget. They speak for themselves. Hon. members havefound no complaint to make, and nearly every speech towhich we have listened has been in the nature of a beatitude. In my remarks I propose to look rather at the

Budget as the culminating point for the moment in an eraof recuperation which has now been proceeding for five yearsalmost without a halt, and to contrast the position which weoccupy to-day with that which was presented when I cameto I ndia at the end of 1 8 9 8 . My predecessor had to fight—and he fought with great courage and cool-headednessagainst many drawbacks, famine, pestilence, earthquake, andwar. Recurrent deficits appeared in the Budget. The exchange value of the rupee touched its lowest point, only a

fractionover I s . in 1 8 9 5 . In the summer of 1 8 9 8 it wasproposed to borrow 20 mill ions sterling in order to strengthenexchange . The year 1 8 9 8

-

9 9 witnessed the turn of thetide and the first of a series of surpluses that have neversince failed us. But even then exchange was an uncertainquantity ,

and we had no guarantee that the pendulum wouldnot swing back. It was in the summer of 1 8 9 9 that SirHenry Fowler’s Committee reported, and in Sep tember ofthat year we introduced and passed the legislation at Simlawhich gave us a gold standard in India, and started ourpresent currency system on its way. Nearly five years havegone by

,and we have almost forgotten the anxieties of

those days . We have secured practical fix ity of exchangeK

130 S IXTH B UDGE T SPEE CH

at the rate of 1 6d . to the rupee . The lowest point touchedhas been 1 3 . 3§-§d . in July 1 90 1 , and the h ighest 1 3 . 41

53d .

in January 1 900 ; but the ordinary fluctuations have beenwithin much narrower limits. This has been the first andmost beneficial result of the change. Hon . members willrecol lect that another of the Committee’s proposals was thecrea tion of a Gold Reserve Fund from the profits of I ndiancoinage. It was reserved for Sir E. Law to put that planinto execution in 1 900. We began with 3 millions in thefirst yea r ; but we now have nearly 6§ millions investedin Consols and other gold securities in England , and bringing in an interest of per annum . Before manyyears have passed I anticipate that this reserve will havereached the figure of 10 millions sterling,

l which will besufficient for our purpose, and wil l give us a permanentguarantee for stability of exchange. The fund is valuableto my mind from another point of view. Constituted as itis from the profits on coinage, it points to a steadi ly growing demand for currency, and therefore to an increase inthe industrial activity and prosperity of the country. WhileI am speaking of our reserves, I must also not lose sight ofour Currency Reserve, which, though it exists for a d ifl

'

erent

purpose, viz. to secure the stabil ity of our note circulation,

and to provide for a demand for gold as distinguished fromrupees, is yet an important buttress to our financial position.

This fund now contains upwards of 105. mil lions sterling ingold.

But it is in my power to point to other and more directsymptoms of progress in a comparison of our present Budgetwith its predecessors. Our revenue has risen from 68%mil lions in 1 8 99 to 8 3 mil lions in 1 904,

and this notwithstanding one very severe year of famine and in parts of Indiatwo years, as well as the continued prevalence of plague.Nevertheless, whatever head of revenue you examine youwil l find the same marks of growth. The only heads underwhich there is a decrease in the present year are those of

Salt and Assessed Taxes, and that only because of our re

duction of taxation a year ago. For fiVe years we have

1 It contained 8} m illions sterling whenLord Curzonleft India inNovem ber1905.

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132 S IXTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

we have now secured the whole of our Indian railways andcanals for noth ing, and instead of costing us money theyhave become a steady source of income to the State. Thesefigures might, I th ink, encourage us to borrow with even

greater confidence in the future.

From a calculation that has been made for me I furtherlearn that the net imports of gold and si lver into I ndia,which between the years 1 8 94- 1 8 9 9 amounted to 2 5 millionssterling, have risen to over 46 millions sterl ing in the succeed ing five years. I do not say that I regard this influxof the precious metals with unqual ified satisfaction . ForI often wonder what becomes of it all , how much of it goesbe low the ground, and how much is left above, and whatproportion is reproductive. But when I read the familiarjeremiads about the al leged drain of capital away from India ,it is at least open to me to remark that there is also a greatdeal coming in, and the drain always seems to me to re

semble a flow at one end Of a pipe which is perpetuallybeing replenished at the other . Again , I do not see how

it is impossible to overlook the enorm ous increase in SavingsBanks deposits in India. In India these have risen fromless than 1 mill ion sterling in 1 8 70 to over 7 millionssterling in 1 90 3, out of which 196 ths are owned by natives .Within the same period the private deposits in the Presideney, Exchange, and other private Banks have risen from

to and the quantity of Government paper held by natives has risen from 1 3§ mil lionsto millions sterling.

1

Is it not time, therefore, that instead Of repeating hypothetical figures and calculations that have been exposeduntil exposure has become tedious , our critics should recognise the fact that I ndia is

,on the contrary

,exhibiting every

mark of robust vitality and prosperity ? These gentlemenremind me rather of an amiable eccentric whom I knew at

school,and who always put up his umbrel la and insisted

that it was raining when the sun shone. In my view thereare few, even among the most advanced countries of the

1 With th is entire passage should be compared the later figures and facts

contained in Lord Curzon’s farewel l speech to the Bom bay Cham ber of Com

m erce, printed at p. 28 1 .

S IXTH B UDGE T S PE E CH 133

world,that would not welcome an economic position as

sound as that which India now enjoys. There are, nodoubt

,cal ls coming upon us, urgent, incessant, and irre

s istible ; for, as I shall presently show, we are raising theadministrative standard al l round ; and administrativeefficiency is merely another word for financial outlay.

But so far as I can forecast, we sha l l be able to meet thesecal ls without any addition to the burdens of the people ;and if I were to leave India to-morrow

,I should yet be

proud of the good fortune that had enabled me to indulgein the brief analysis of our financial position which I haveundertakenthis afternoon .

There are two other items in the Budget to which Idesire to refer

,and they are both aspects of the same

question, viz. our attitude to local Governments. One

theory I hope that we have effectively kil led ; and that isthe old idea that local Governments are stinted by theSupreme Government when money is forthcoming. Yearby year we have subsidised them for the many calls,administrative and otherwise, that are made upon theirpurses

,and there is not a Governor or a Lieutenant

Governor in India from whom I have not received fre

quent expressions of gratitude. In the present Budget ourbounty has reached its maximum : for in addition to the15 crores, or 1 mill ion sterling, which has been given tofour of the local Governments to start their new settlements

,and the 40 lakhs which we have supplied for

education , we have given them 1 35 lakhs for the increaseof minor establishments, and 8 7 lakhs for such purposes asthe Calcutta Improvement Scheme in Bengal , the SimlaImprovem ent Scheme in the Punjab, and important publ icworks in other provinces. Finally

,I had been so much

struck in my various tours by the degree to which localinstitutions

,such as hospitals

,museums, l ibraries, public

parks,and the l ike

,have been starved or cold -shouldered

for m ore urgent needs, that I persuaded Sir E. Law to givea grant aggregating 2 2 lakhs for these purposes, carefullyframed lists having been submitted to me by the variousHeads of Administrations. These are just the sort of

objects that ought,in my V iew

,to profit when funds are

x34 S IXTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

available, for they represent the less material and morecultured aspects of the national l ife.The second subject is the new Provincial Settlements .

I alluded last year to the hope that we were on the eve ofa noteworthy change in this respect—no less than the substitutionof a permanent, or relatively permanent, settlementfor the present five yea rs’ plan. The latter has existed fora quarter of a century. I t was better than the system thatpreceded it, but it admitted of much improvement. It wasnot an economica l plan

,because it encouraged extravagance

in the concluding years of each term,and it was not a

satisfactory plan , because it led to a rather unseemlysquabble with the Supreme Government at the end . Thebetter method was clearly to give to local Governments apermanent instead of a temporary interest in the revenueand expenditure under their control , subject to certainbroad principles in fixing the provincial assignments. Thiswe have succeeded in doing in the cases of Madras, Bengal ,the United Provinces , and Assam , and have thereby laidthe foundations of a financial autonomy that, I hope , willsteadily develop and wil l enable the local Governmentsin the future to undertake enterprises from which they arenow debarred. I mention the matter here

,both because of

its intrinsic importance,and because I agree with the

Lieutenant-Governor in thinking that it furnishes a conclus ive answer to those who are always accusing theGovernment of India of undue centralisation . I wouldpoint out that efficiency of admin istrative control is notcentralisation

,though it is often mistaken for it. Centralisa

tion is the absorption by a central body of powers orprivileges hitherto enjoyed, or capable, if created, of beingexercised, by subordinate bodies . I acknowledge no suchtendency. We have kept local Governments up to themark, because I do not be lieve in lax or sluggish control, or in the abdication of powers which have beenprovided for special objects. But if an occasion hasanywhere arisen where it was possible to devolve ordepute powers, we have gladly taken it, and these newsettlements constitute, in my view, the most important stepin the nature of decentralisation that has been adopted for

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r36 S IXTH B UDGE T S PEECH

reduction in the Press rate. I do not know if we shal lsucceed.

l But I think that the result of the first experimentis distinctly encouraging. We were prepared for a loss onthe first year’s working of I t was only 3

We estimated for a 10 per cent increase in the traffic.The increase amounted to 26% per cent. On the l st of

January of the present year we carried out a further reduction in inland rates

,which, I be l ieve, has proved beneficial

to al l classes of the community . The figures of Januaryshow that there was an increase of 2 5 per cent in deferredmessages alone over the corresponding month in the

previous year.Next I pass to the large category of questions connected

with Education . Our Universities Bil l is now the law of

the land . But I should have felt that we had acted in avery one- sided and inconclusive manner had we held thatEducational reform was summed up in the reconstitutionof the Universities. Our recent Educational Resolution 2

crystallises the principles that result from anexamination of

every branch of educational activity, and that wil l , we hOpe,inspire our educational policy in the future. I t may surprisethose hon . members at this table who sometimes hintat the Simla Conference of 1 90 1 , as though it had been asort of Star Chamber that promulgated dark and sinisterdecrees, to learn that the results of the Sim la Conference

,

as finally shaped after consultation with local Governments,

are embodied in the recent Resolution . I observe in Indiathat if people do not approve of a policy

,they denounce it

as reactionary. If they cannot disapprove of the officialstatement of it, they describe it as a platitude. As ourEducational Resolution has had the good fortune to be sodesignated , I conclude that it has been found general lysatisfactory. Perhaps, however, I may point out that sofar from being a perfunctory statement of obvious principles

,

it is really the result of nearly two years’ hard work .

I t summarises for the public information the positionwhich we have at present reached in educationa l progress, and it endeavours to lay down the l ines of futureadvance. Many important aspects of the subject

,such as

1 The reductionwas made in 1905.2 Issued inMarch 1904.

S IXTH B UDGE T SPEECH 137

education in European schools,agr icultural education ,

comm ercia l education , industrial and technical education ,examinations for Government service, as well as the entireproblem of primary and secondary education in I nd ia, finda place in it. Some of these matters we have also dealtwith independently. Our scheme for Industrial Schools andfor State Technical Scholarships has gone to local Governments, and is before the public. I rather agree with thosehon . members who were arguing here the other day andwho repeated to day that Educational reform in India ismain ly a matter of money. I think it is. We have shownthis by the extra grant of 40 lakhs, or nearly 152 ayear

,that we have now made for three years running to the

local Governments. These grants are in addition to theordinary educational assignments in the Provincial Settlements. We have also

,as is known

,promised a contr ibution

of 2 5 lakhs to the Universit ies. I should like, however,to go further, and to provide for a serious and sustainedexpenditure upon educational improvement extending overa long series of years.There is another very im portant group of subjects to

which we have given great attention . I allude to EconomicDevelopment

,which may again be subd ivided into Agr icul

ture,I ndustries

,and Commerce. Our recent Resolution on

Agriculture sums up the practical steps that have beentaken for the encouragement and improvement of agriculture,and for the active prosecution of scientific research . Wenow have our Inspector General of Agriculture, with astaff of scientific experts ; we have the new institution atPusa springing into being, where research, the training of

students, and experimental farming wil l be simultaneouslytaken in hand ; we have strengthened the ProvincialAgricultural Departments, reorganised the Civil VeterinaryDepartment, so as to undertake the investigation of cattlediseases and the improvement of breeds of cattle, and createda Board of Scientific Advice to cc -ordinate the work thatis be ing done in these and al l other branches of scientificresearch in India. We have centralised bacteriologicalresearch at Kasaul i and Muktesar. Then I pass to thosemeasures that more directly affect the economic condition

138 S IXTH BUDGET SPEECH

of the agrarian classes. We have dealt with the system of

Land Revenue Assessments in India, tracing the historicalgrowth of the present system and its steady modifications inthe interests of the land-owning or land-cultivating classes ,and formulating reasonable and lenient principles for ob servance in the future.1 By legislation in the United Provinceswe have endeavoured to improve the relations betweenlandlord and tenant. We have attacked the problem of the

increasing indebtedness and gradual expropriation of the

proprietary body from many sides, by the Land AlienationBills in the Punjab and Bundelkhund, and by the Bil l toinstitute Co-Operative Credit Societies, which we passed inthis Council last week. We have endeavoured to provideagainst the break -up of landed properties by legislationinsti tuting a modified system of entail in Oudh, in thePunjab, in Madras, and in Bengal . Final ly, in . 1 902 , we

gave direct benefit to the cultivators by rem issions of LandRevenue amounting to nearly 2 crores of rupees, while,inthe past five years, we have advanced between 5 and 6crores to the people for the purchase of seed and the

provision of capital .The Government of India have watched with anxious

interest,and have done all in their power to develop, the

Commerce and Industries of this country, some of themsecurely established, others struggling but hopeful, othersagain nascent or sti l l in embryo. I might refer to ourlegislation in the interests of tea-gardens, and the institutionof a tea-cess, the passing of the Mines Act, the constitutionof a Mining Department, and the issue of more l iberalmin ing rules

,the countervailing sugar duties, grants for

indigo research, the passing of an Electricity Act, the openingup of the Jherriah coal fields, reductions in coal freights,the steady increase in rai lway roll ing-stock

,for which, as

Sir A. Arundel has mentioned in his Memorandum, no lessa sum than 3 crores, or 2 mil l ions sterling, has been setaside. We are proposing the creation of an ImperialCustoms Se rvice.2 We have also endeavoured to developour trade with adjoining countries

,by the Nuskhi route

1 The al lusionis to Lord Curzon’s pub lished Resolutionof January 1902 .

This was being carried into effect whenLord Curzonleft India .

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140 S IXTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

with the public at large. But we have not yet reachedthe final stage. Mr. Robertson’s Report was placed inour hands last year : and it embraced so many aspectsof reform, bringing in al ike the Secretary of State, theGovernment of India, and the Companies, and raising suchlarge questions both of administration and finance, that wecould not deal with it rashly or hurriedly. Our views wenthome to the Secretary of State at the close of last year, andare now being considered by him . They involve an entirereconstitution of our administrative machinery, and anattempt to manage our railways in future on less strictlydepartmental l ines. The object that we have in view canonly be attained by the surrender of considerable powersby existing authorities to any new authority that may beconstituted : and this is not a matter that can be easilyor speedily concluded . I am hopeful

,however, that a

decision may be given in the course of the forthcomingsummer, and that this most important project may be dulylaunched}I rrigation is also one of the works of the coming

summer. Our sympath ies with an expanded irrigationprogramme have been sufficiently shown by the increased

grants that we have given for construction in each yearsince I came to India. Next year they touch the unpre

cedented total of 1 } crores. People sometimes talk as

though practica l ly unl im ited sums could be spent uponIrrigation with little or no trouble. They could perhaps bespent, if experiments were rash ly made in every direction ,and if there were no objection to fl inging money away.

No science,however

,demands for its practice more careful

forethought and planning or more trained supervision. An

untrained or inadequate establishment cannot suddenlybegin to spend lakhs on tanks and canals. There is noanalogy in this respect between irrigationand railways : forprivate enterpr ise is ready to help us with the latter, and

the question is only one of terms. With irrigationthe caseis so d ifi

'

erent that whereas in the last two years we havegiven two crores to local Governments , they could onlymanage to spend

,in 1 902 , 8 5 lakhs, and in 1 903 , 8 1 lakhs.

The new Rai lway Board was started inJanuary 1905 .

S IXTH B UDGE T SPEE CH 141

This summer, however, we hope to address ourselves to anexhaustive examination of al l the numerous projects thatwere worked out by the recent I rrigation Commission forthe whole of India. Great expenditure will be required

,

and much of it wi ll be unproductive in the technical senseof the term . But protection from drought rather thanacquisition of revenue is our object, and I venture to thinkthat we shal l have it in our power to in itiate a comprehens ive and far-reaching policy that wil l do more good tothe cultivating classes than any Bi lls that we can pass inthis Council , or any remissions of taxation that the FinanceMember might announce in the Budget.1

The third question is Police Reform . I should havebeen glad had we been able to make public our proposalsupon the Report of the Commission without delay. Butthe Secretary of State desires to see the views of localGovernments upon them before he comes to a final decision

,

and this must inevitably occupy some time. No one needimagine that the matter is be ing burked or shelved. Butit is of such supreme importance that undue haste wouldmerely prejudice the ultimate solution.

There are two other subjects to which His Highness theAga Khanhas al luded in his excellent and patriotic speech,and which have been for some time under my consideration .

The first is the contributions made by the Indian princesin the shape of Imperial Service Troops and otherwise tothe cause of Imperial defence . There are anomalies andinequalities in the present system which must strike theeye of any observer : and I contemplate, when I comeback to India, taking the Chiefs into consultation on thematter.2 The second is the future of the young officers inthe Imperial Cadet Corps. I hope to arrive at definiteconclusions on the matter before I leave for England amonth hence. In the meantime let me assure the AgaKhan that there is nothing, in my view,

wild or visionaryin the ideas that have occurred to him . To whatdegree they may be practicable I cannot at present

Com pare wi th this passage the rem aining speeches printed under the

heading of I rrigationinthis volume.

2 The V iceroy carried out this intention, and received their replies . But them atter had not beenbrought to a final issue whenhe left India.

142 S IXTH B UDGE T SPE E CH

say. But they appear to me to be eminently deservingof consideration .

’

There are other matters which we have in view,such as

legislation for the better protection of game in India, amost d ifli cult subject upon which we have for long beenengaged,

” and many other items of administrative reform .

I will not weary the Council with these. But as regardsadministrative reform in general, I should l ike to add aremark. When I came out to India every public body orsociety without exception that addressed me urged me topursue a policy of administrative reform. Spare us

,they

said,adventure on the North-West Frontier

,extend rai lways

and irrigation, give us a sound currency, develop theinternal resources of the country

,promote educational and

industrial advancement, manage plague and famine witha due regard to the feelings of the community ,

free theGovernment machinery from the many impediments to itsproper working. I took these authorities at their word,and I have ever since pursued administrative reform ,

thoughnot

,I hope

,to the exclusion of other and equally important

objects,with an ardour that has never slackened. I have

done so,because I think that these advisers were right .

Efficiency of administration is, in my view,a synonym for

the contentment of the governed. It is the one means of

affecting the people in their homes, and of adding, only anatom perhaps

,but stil l an atom, to the happiness of the

masses. I say in no spirit of pride, but as a statement offact

,that reform has beencarried through every branch and

department of the administration, that abuses have beenswept away, anomal ies remedied , the pace quickened, andstandards raised . I t has not always beena popular pol icy ;but if I am at liberty to say so, it has been whole-heartedand sincere. And yet what criticism is now more famil iarto me than that no one in India desires administrativereform at all , and that the only benefactor of the peopleis he who gives them political concessions ? Those are notmy views. I sympathise most deeply with the aspirations

1 I t was decided in1904 that the successful candidates after the three years’

course should receive special Comm issions inthe Ind ianArmy, and the first threewere granted in1905.

Vida p. 435 . A Bil l was being prepared whenLord Curzonleft India.

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144 S IXTH BUDGE T S PEE CH

cum stances of the case impossible, the tone and standardshould be set by those who have created and are responsiblefor it. The second principle is that outs ide this m p: a

'711k

we shal l, as far as poss ible and as the improving standardsof education and morals permit, employ the inhabitants ofthe country, both because our general pol icy is to restrictrather than to extend European agency, and because it isdesirable to enl ist the best native intel l igence and characterin the service of the State.1 This principle is qualifiedonly by the fact that in certain special departments

,where

sc ientific or technical knowledge is required, or where thereis a call for the exercise of particular responsibility ,

it isnecessary to ma intain a strong European admixture, andsometimes even a European preponderance.

Now let me show how these principles are vindicated inpractice. I wil l not recapitulate the history of the case orconduct the Council through the successive stages of Govern

m ent policy and pronouncement from the Act of 1 8 33 downto the present day. I wil l give what is much more

eloquent the concrete figures and proportions. Theyhave been compiled for a period of 36 years, the figures notbeing available before 1 867 .

In 1 867 the total number of Government posts in Indiawith a salary above Rs. 7 5 , now equivalent to 5 a month,was I t is now In 1 867 Europeans, andEurasians held 5 5 per cent of the total they now hold 42 .

Hindus held 38 per cent ; they now hold 50. Moham

medans held 7 per cent ; they now hold 8 . Further,while

the total number of Government appointments has thus increased by 1 10 per cent, the figures show that the number

of posts held by Hindus has increased by 1 79 per cent, byMohammedans 1 29 per cent, by Eurasians 106 per cent,and by Europeans only 36 per cent. In the proportion of

total posts Indians have gained 1 3 per cent, Europeans andEurasians together have lost 1 3 per cent, and 1 2 per cent ofthis loss has been European .

Next let me give the results of an examination by grades.More than half of the appointments in India are and alwayshave been posts on less than Rs. 200 a month. The

1 Vida pp. 223, 498.

S IXTH B UDGE T SPEE CH 145

European element in these was always smal l, and is nowless than 10 per cent. Of posts on Rs. 200 to Rs. 300,

thenative proportion has risen from 5 1 per cent to 60 per centfrom Rs. 300 to Rs. 400 from 2 3 per cent to 43 per centfrom Rs. 400 to Rs. 500 from 2 1 per cent to 40 per cent ;from Rs. 500 to Rs . 600 from 9 per cent to 2 5 per centfrom Rs. 600 to R s . 700 from 1 5 per cent to 2 7 per cent ;from Rs. 700 to Rs. 800 from 5 per cent to 1 3 per cent.Thus in no single grade has the proportion of Europeansincreased

,while the native increase has been continuous and

striking,and has been larger in the higher grades than in

the lower. The R s . 800 l ine m ay be said to mark the limitof the Provincia l Service. Between Rs. 800 and Rs. 1 000

there were,in 1 8 67 , 4 natives in Government employ there

are now 9 3 . Posts onRs. 1000 and over may be regardedas superior. In 1 867 , out of a total of 648 such appointments

,1 2 were filled by natives, all Hindus, or a percentage

of 2 . In 1 90 3, out of 1 370 such appointments, 7 1 werefi l led by Hindus and 2 1 by Mohammedans ; the native percentage being, therefore, 7 .

If I take the standard of pay, I find that the aggregatepay of the total number of posts has risen by 9 1 per centsince 1 867 but in the case of the aggregate pay drawn byEuropeans and Eurasians the increase is only 6 per cent,while for natives of India it is 1 9 1 per cent, and for Hindus204 per cent. The average pay of the total number of postshas fallen by Rs. 3 1 , or 9 per cent, since 1 8 67 . But theaverage drawn by natives has risen from Rs. 1 7 3 to R s . 1 8 8 ,

or a rise of 7 per cent, while that drawn by Europeans andEurasians has fal len by Rs. 2 , or 4 per cent.Whatever standard, therefore, we apply, whether it be

number of posts,proportion of posts , or averages of pay, the

results are the same . There has been a progressive increasein native employment and a progressive decline in Europeanemployment

,showing how honestly and faithfully the British

Government has fulfi l led its pledges, and how hollow is thecharge which we so often hear of a banof exclusion againstthe children of the soil .

1 In the figures which wil l be published will be containedthe calculations of each decade from 1 867 to the present

146 S IXTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

day , so that the movement may be traced stage by stage,and of each province and each department. Summarisingthe totals

,I find, as might be expected, and as I have said

,

that of the 1 370 Government servants drawing salarieshigher than R s . 1000 a month , or £800 a year, 1 263 areEuropeans ; of the remainder 1 5 are Eurasians, and 9 2

natives. But if I take the ranks be low Rs. 1000 a monthand between that total and Rs. 7 5 a month, sic. from £60to £800 a year , then I find that, out of a total ofGovernment servants , only 5 20 5 are Europeans, while of theremainder 5420 are Eurasians, and the ba lance, oris native.

It therefore appears that the British Empire employsless than 6 500 of its own countrymen, whether broughtfrom abroad or recruited in this country, to rule over 2 30

millions of people but that for the same purpose it employsof the inhabitants of the country itself. If we went

be low Rs. 7 5 a month, the disproport ion would, of course,be overwhelming. W il l any one tel l me, in the face of thesefigures , that our administration is unduly favourable to theEuropean or grudging to the native element ? I hold

,on

the contrary, that it is characterised by a liberality unexam pled in the world. You may search through history

,and

since the days of the Roman Empire you will find no suchtrust. I have endeavoured to procure from ForeignGovernments the corresponding figures for their foreign possessions

,

the Russians in Central Asia, the Dutch in Java, the Frenchin Algeria

,in Cochin China, and Tongking. I have not

,

unfortunately, been successful. But I have visited themajority of those countries, and have seenwhat there prevails : and if any one thinks that they show proport ions evenremotely comparable with those which I have quoted

,I can

assure him that he is gravely mistaken . For my own part,

I think that the progress ive growth of confidence that isrevealed by the tables which I have quoted is honourable tothe British Government and honourable to the people of thiscountry. It reveals a European system of Governmententrusted largely to non -European hands : what is called asubject country, though I dislike the phrase, administeredfar less by the conquering power than by its ownsons ; and

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148 S E VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

closer budgeting that has been employed in drawing up theestim ates of revenue and expenditure for next year, thenarrower margins that have been left, and the heavy andincreas ing calls that we have accepted for ensuing yea rs incarrying out our great measures of adm in istrative reform andm i l itary reorganisation, render it unl ikely tha t my hon .

friend wil l always be able to count upon similar surpluses ,even if an unlucky change of wind does not drive him sooneror later into the financial doldrums.

Of course the most satisfactory feature of the Budget hasbeen that Mr. Baker has been able at one and the same timeto provide the means for a grea t increase in administrativeoutlay and for a reduction in the burdens of the people .That is the dream of the fortunate financier, which all cherishbut few realise . I remember saying in the Budget debatea year ago that it would perhaps be too much good luckfor one Viceroy to give two considerable reductions of taxation in his time ; but that if I were not so fortunate, I shouldh0pe to bequeath the opportunity to my successor.

‘ Thatsuccessor has turned out to be myself : and I suppose that Imay therefore congratulate myself, if not on my forecast, atleast upon my good fortune. But in these remarks I mustnot be taken to assume the smallest credit for the surplusesthat have been obtained year after year for the past sixyears. The head of the Government may

,by the manner in

which he conducts the affairs of the country at large and itsforeign affairs in particular, exercise a considerable influenceupon the scale of expenditure during his term of office butapart from the general sense of confidence present in or

absent from his adm inistration, he cannot exercise mucheffect upon the revenue. Whether the price of opium per

chest goes Up or down, whether the railway returns are moreor less, whether the customs revenue expands or recedes,whether the land revenue is stationary or shrinks

,depends

in the main upon circumstances outside of his control . I

always think it therefore a very absurd thing to give creditto any individual for what is really the result of outs idecircumstances ; and if any speaker at a public meeting who

wished to denounce the head of the Government were to doVide p. 13 1 .

S E VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH 149

so by denying him al l credit for the receipts of his FinanceMin ister, I should be the first to vote for the motion .

But,after all

,surpluses are surpluses

,and the case is not

the same when it comes to disposing of them. I cannottherefore go so far as to agree with the critic who wrote theother day Unfortunately for our country, its revenues havesomehow or other been leaving surpluses year after yearsince the beginning of His Excel lency’s rule.” I wonderwhether this critic would have preferred a succession of

annual deficits. One can imagine what he would have saidof the Viceroy in such a case. It is in the disposal ofsurpluses that

,in my opinion

,the responsibil ity of the head

of the Government does most definitely come in. It is oneof the first of his functions, in consultation with the FinanceMinister and his colleagues

,to consider the fair and equal

d istribution of the bounty which good fortune m ay haveplaced in their hands. I have found no more pleasing dutythanthis during the past six years : and in acting as wehave done, it is no vain boast to say that we have proceededthroughout upon definite principles and on what seemed tous to be logical l ines. My view has always been that as therevenue of this country comes in the main from the peopleof the country, it is to the people that the disposable surplus,if there be one, should return . And who are the people of

whom I Speak ? They are the patient,humble mil l ions,

toil ing at the well and at the plough, knowing l ittle of

budgets, but very painfully aware of the narrow marginbetween sufficiency and indigence. I t is to them that myheart goes out. They are the real backbone of our economicprosperity. They give us nearly 20 mil l ions sterling perannum in land revenue alone

,or about one-fourth of our

entire receipts .

And alongs ide of them are the artisan , the petty trader,the small shopkeeper

,the minor ofli cial, the professional

m anof humble m eans,—numerically much smaller than the

cult ivating classes,but representing different and very im

portant sections of the population—al l relatively poor, and al lentitled to some return when the State has the wherewithalto give . Hon. members can scarcely real ise how anx iouslyyear by year we have considered the claims of all these

1 50 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

classes and persons, and have endeavoured to apportion therel ief equitably between them . A sufficient il lustration may

perhaps be found in the present Budget. What is the taxthat touches all classes, down to the very humblest I t isthe Salt Tax—and therefore we have brought it down to thelowest figure that it has reached since the Mutiny, certainthat we have long passed the point at which middlemen can

absorb the reduction, and that it must now filter down tothe poorest strata of society. We thereby sacrifice nearly11» millions sterl ing per annum in addition to the mil l ionsterl ing per annum that we surrendered when first we reducedthe tax two years ago. A gift of 2} millions a year is onethat, even with a population of this enormous size

,is not to

be despised . Then if we go on to ask what are the adm inistrative needs that most affect the lower orders of thepeople in India, wil l not the reply at once be forthcominga purer

,better paid, and more effi cient police, superior

opportunities for l ifting themselves in the wor ld by education,

both in the rural and urban districts, the appl ication of

modern science and discovery to the one great staple industryby which the vast majority of them live, namely, agriculture,and provision for all those local needs in the shape of

communications , sanitation, hygiene, etc ., which mean the

difference between comfort and destitution,hea lth and

disease, contentment and suffer ing, to m i l l ions of our fel lowcitizens ? And if for these purposes we have surrenderedon the present occasion more than another m i l l ion sterling

per annum, wil l any one either grudge the existence of thesurplus to start with, or the manner inwhich we have disposed of it l daresay that there are other forms of re l iefwhich others would have preferred . In previous years wehave benefited some of the classes who have now been leftout. Who knows but that Mr. Baker m ay have a good turnto do to others some day later on? Speaking general ly,however, my impression, surveying the entire field of IndianTaxation as I draw near to the end of my time

,is that though

there may be other taxes which we should like to lighten,

and which certain c lasses of the community would perhapslike to see lightened stil l more, there is no tax at presentimposed in India which can fairly be cal led burdensome or

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1 52 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

greater part of it to be continued year by year, tha t hasbeengivenback in m y time to the people of India in the

form of re l ief of taxation and other benefactions, amountsto over 1 95 crores , or 1 3 mill ions ster l ing. I present thesefigures to hon. members as indications of the finance ofwhat we sometimes hear descr ibed—though the remarkdoes not appear to find an echo within this Cham ber—as

a react ionary regim e. I am willing to let the figures speakfor themse lves . But there is a famous pas sage in a speechthat was delivered inthe House of Commons in 1 8 58 , thatm ight be quoted also Where was there a bad Governmentwhose finances were in good order Where was therea really good Government whose finances were in bad

order ? I s there a better tes t in the long run of the cond ition of a people and the merits of a Government than thestate of its finances That speech was delivered withdirect reference to the Government of India, and the speakerwas John Bright.I n my speeches in these Budget debates I have been in

the habit from yea r to year of indulging in what in the

phraseology of trade is called stock- taking, and of takingthe public into the confidence of Government as to the

administrative responsibi lities which we had assumed orhoped to carry out. In my earlier years these remarks hadnecessarily to be couched in the future tense ,

and many werethe criticisms that were then pas sed upon abort ive inquiriesand over-ambitious programmes. We do not hear so muchof these now. Next year, if I am spared ti l l then , will bemy last Budget debate, and it wil l then perhaps fal l to meto review the entire field of work and to show where we haveachieved our purpose , and where we have fai led. I re

member writing to the Prime Minister who appointed methat seven years would be required for the task, unless itproved too much for the labourer’s strength. I have somet imes wondered whether the onlookers ever weigh the latterconsideration . We al l look at the progress of the cart, andobserve with shril l cries whether it is sticking in the ruts orgett ing on . But few spare a thought for the horse unti lperhaps it staggers and drops between the shafts, and then

-why then—another animal is brought to take its place.

S E VENTH B UDGE T S PE E CH 1 53

The first twelve reforms which I foreshadowed in 1 8 9 9

are, I am glad to say, now accomplished ;1 the next twelve

have been carried also ;2 and in the remaining year I hope

we may carry to completion the third dozen also.

“ WhenI speak of accomplishment and completion , I do not of

course mean to suggest that there is, or can be, any final ityinadministrative work . I t goes on like the seasons ; andfrom each oak as it is planted fresh acorns fall . But there

,

after all, is the tree, a living and sprouting stem,a unit in

the forest to be reckoned up, and perhaps also to gain invalue as the time goes on . For instance

,an institution like

the North-West Frontier Province, which has admirablyanswered its purpose and has so far falsified al l the predictions of its enemies, is a realised fact which no one is in theleast degree likely to change, and which might give food forreflection to some who denounce the shifting of provincialboundaries as though it were a crime and an evi l, instead of

be ing, as it is capable of be ing, if wisely and opportunelycarried out, a very considerable blessing.

I have no more to say about the accomplished reforms onthe present occas ion, and even in what I have said I hopethat no trace of false exultation has crept in. Reforms inIndia may sometimes require an external impulse to startthem. But they are the work of hundreds of agencies , someimportant and others obscure : and well do I know thatnothing could be achieved, were it not for the co-operation ofcolleagues, to work with whom has been a six yea rs

’ delight,for the wise counsel and cheerful industry of hundreds offaithful fellow-workers in al l pa rts of the country, as well

1 The lis t has beengivenonp. 76.

3 They were the creationof Comm erce and Industry Departm ent, and other

m easures of comm ercial and industrial development, Land Revenue policy,Reduct ion of Taxation, institution of Permanent Provincia l Settlements,Agricultural Banks , Agr icultura l Departm ent and Ins titutes , Comm emorationofHistoric Buildings and S ites , foundationof Imperial Lib rary , Reform of Ch iefs

’

Colleges and creation of Im perial Cadet Corps, Mining Acts and Rules , newFam ine Codes and Rules , Preventionof Calcutta Smoke Nuisance.

3 They were the Adm inistrative Sub -Divis ion of Bengal, Excise Reform ,

creationof Im perial Cus tom s Service, Reorganisationof Survey Departm ent andnew Topograph ica l Survey of Ind ia, extension of Im peria l Service Movem ent,Gam e Law, Technica l Education Schem e, Reorganisationof Poli tical Depart

m ent, Ca lcutta Im provem ent Schem e, EuropeanNursing Service, policy of Tree

Planting, encouragem ent of Inland Navigation.

1 54 S E VENTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

also —and I gladly make the admission—as for the sometimes embarrassing

,but often stimulating, influence of public

opinion.

To-day I propose to confine my attention to such itemsof our programme as have been pushed several stages furthertowards completion during the past twelve months, andwhich, I hope, will be finally and firmly grounded before theyear is over.Hon . members will recol lect that in the year 1 8 9 9 - 1 900

we had the las t great Indian famine. That visitation musthave left an indelible impression upon every one who wasbrought into close contact with it

,whether in relation to its

effect upon the physical condition and sufl'

erings of thepeople, or to the economic position of the country as a whole .

I have often stated my conviction that it wil l not be the las tIndian famine. We may compete and struggle with Nature ,we may prepare for her worst assaults, and we may reducetheir violence when delivered. Some day perhaps, whenour railway system has overspread the entire Indian continent, when water storage and irrigation are even furtherdeveloped, when we have raised the general level of socialcomfort and prosperity

,and when advancing civilisation has

difl'

used the lessons of thrift in domestic expenditure andgreater self- reliance and self- control , we shall obtain themastery. But that will not be yet. I n the meantime the

duty of Government has been to profit to the full by thelessons of the latest calam ity, and to take such precautionarysteps over the whole field of possible action as to prepareourselves to combat the next. I t was for this purpose thatwe appointed the Famine Commission under that mostexpert of administrators, Sir A . MacDonnell

,in 1 90 1 .

Nearly four years have elapsed since then,and the general

public has perhaps almost forgotten the fact. But the intervening period has not been spent in idleness. There is nobranch of the subject, of famine relief, famine administration ,and stil l more famine prevention, which has not been diligently ransacked and explored

,and there is no portionof

the recommendations submitted to us by the able Chairmanand his lieutenants which has not beendiscussed with localGovernments and been already made, or if not is about to

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1 56 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEECH

which is only the precursor, as we hOpe , of larger sums tofollow. Then we have had for the las t five years a FinanceMinister in Sir E. Law who took the warmest interest inagricultural development, and I believe derived more sincerepleasure from a successful agricultural experiment than hedid from the yield of any impost. And final ly, we have hadin the hon. member for the Revenue and AgriculturalDepartment 1 a perfect master of his subject, who to profoundknowledge of the cultivating classes has added both a warmappreciation of their needs and a statesmanlike grasp of

large ideas. The stone which I am to lay at Pusa in twodays’ time

,wil l

,I hope

,he the foundation-stone not only of

a fabric worthy of its object,but also of a policy of agri

cultural development henceforward to be pursued systematical ly

,ingood years and bad years al ike, by the Government

of India ; so that a t ime may one day arrive when peoplewill say that I ndia is looking after her greatest living industryas well , let us say, as she is now looking after her greatestinherited treasure,viz. her ancient monuments.There are two other objects which were recommended

by the Famine Commission . The first of these was the

institution of Co-operative Credit Societies, sometimes les scorrectly styled Agricultural Banks. Several hon . membersnow at this table will remember our legislation of last year

,

by which we provided for the foundation of such societies.There was no remark more frequently made in the course ofthe discussion or more obvious in its truism than that anysteps in this directionmust be slow and experimental

,and

that quick returns or striking results could not be expected.

In many parts the spirit of co-operation has to be createdbefore a co-operative institution can be built upon it. Thereis also a great deal of elementary preaching, or what anEnglish statesman once called spadework , to be done beforesubstantial results canbe expected. But we have not beenidle during the year. Special ly se lected officers have beenappointed as Registrars of Co-operative Societies in the sixmain provinces, and they are now engaged in Spreading aknowledge of the principles among the cul tivating classes.The various concessions made by the Government of India

1 S ir D. Ibbetson.

SE VENTH BUDGE T SPE E CH 1 57

in order to lend encouragement—concessions in respect of

income-tax, stamp duty, registration fees, and Governmentloans, have al l been notified and are inoperation . Threeprovinces have framed their Rules under the Act

,in four

provinces societies have already begun to be registered,Madras and Punjab having taken the lead . In addition tothese is a much larger number of societies started, but notyet actually on the register. Here the United Provinces

,

which initiated the experiment inSir A . MacDonnell’

s time,

and which now possess 1 50 societies, are to the fore. Evenin such distant provinces as Assam and Burma we hear ofgreat interest be ing displayed and of applications beingreceived . The statistical result is too immature to admit ofquotation. But I have said enough to show that Government, having planted their seed, do not mean to let it perishfrom want of nurture. None of us can say whether it wil ldevelop into a healthy plant. But every chance shall begiven to it .

The next matter to which I referred is one in which Ihave taken the keenest interest during my time in India

,

since it touches the marrowbone of that agricultural classof which I was speak ing a little while back. I meanelasticity in Land Revenue collection, and greater liberalityin suspension and remissionof the fixed demand in times of

distress,whether local or widespread. The Famine Com

mission dealt with this and we also laid it down among theprinciples to be adopted as accepted canons of Governmentin our Land Revenue Resolution of January 1 902 . Butsomething more was required than the mere statement of

an orthodox principle : and we have since been engaged,in consultation with the Secretary of State and the localGovernments

,inelaborating its operation—with results that

wil l short ly be published . Already a fluctuating assessment,i s . a demand that is capable of being varied from year toyear

,is accepted in practice by most local Governments

and is applied to precarious tracts. What I am now referringto is elasticity in collection , zle. an allowance for exceptionally bad seasons by the suspension or remis sionof paymentsdue. This is an act of compassion on the part of the State ,but it is compassion in a form little distinguishable from

1 58 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPE E CH

justice ; for it relates to cases and seasons in which the

cultivator cannot pay his fixed demand, because the cropswhich he has reaped barely suffice for his own sustenance ,

and where,i f he is cal led upon to pay it, he canonly do so

by plunging deeper into debt. In such a case rigidity of

col lection is not only a hardship but an injustice. I t is toavoid such consequences, and at the same time to escape theopposite extreme of laxity incol lection and the subsequentdemoralisationof the people, that we are about to lay downthe principles underlying this method of relief.1

[Here followed a sta tement about I rrigation, which is printedunder that heading ]

There are a few other subjects to which I must allude.The presence of the Hon. Mr. Hewett at this table and thespeech which he has delivered indicate that we have in thepast year obtained that which has for a long time been thecherished aspiration of the mercanti le community

,viz. a

separate Department and Minister of Commerce and Industry .

Six years ago I should have said that this was impossible ;two years ago I did not regard it as likely. But the factsof commercial and industrial expansion cannot be gainsaidand as soon as the case began to be made out, it was convincing in its logic and pert inence. The days are gone bywhen Government can dissociate itself from the encouragement of commercial enterprise. There used to be a sort ofidea that business was an esoteric thing, to be conducted bya narrow clique, who were alone possessed of the oracles ofwisdom

,and with whom Government were hardly supposed

to be on speaking terms. That was an absurd theory at anytime . It is additionally absurd in a country like India

,

where the Government is responsible for so many forms ofcommercial and industrial activity ,where it bui lds and worksrai lroads

,where it controls the sale of Opium and salt

,where

it maintains gigantic factories, where it is engaged in undertaking the manufacture of its own cartridges and rifles andguns

,and where it is the largest employer of labour in the

country. And most absurd of all is it at a time when thewhole air is alive with movement, rivalry, and compet ition,

This was done by a Governm ent ResolutioninApri l 1905 .

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160 S E VENTH BUDGE T S PE E CH

the future. I have sometimes seen the present administration accused of centralising tendencies. I have not time toargue that contention this afternoon . But if it be true, itis at least remarkable that it has been assoc iated with thetwo greatest measures of decentral isation that have beenachieved during the last fifty years

,viz. the Permanent

Financial Settlements with the Provincial Governments , andthe institution of the Railway Board.

There is entered in the Budget the sum of 50 lakhs forPolice Reform . That is only an instalment and a beginning.

We accept with slight modifications the full recom m enda

tions of the Commission , and we intend to carry out theirprogramme. The author of the Report is seated at my righthand,

1and I should like to take this opportunity of publicly

thanking him and his colleagues for their labours. No morefearless or useful report has ever been placed before theGovernment of India. I would gladly have taken actionupon it sooner. But a long time has been required to consult the local Governments and to satisfy the Secretary of

Sta te. And now what is it that we have in view ? I thinkthat my feelings are those of every member of the Government. We want a police force which is free from thetem ptatiop to corruption and iniquity, and which must,therefore, be reasonably well paid, which must be intell igentand orderly and efficient, and which wil l make its mottoprotection instead of oppression . I confess that my heartbreaks withinme when I see long diatribes upon how manynatives are to get employment under the new system

,and

how many Europeans. For my own part I have neverpaused to count them up. The Police Force in India mustbe an overwhelmingly native force ; and I would make itrepresentative of the best elements in native character andnative life. Equally must it have a European supervisingelement, and let this also be of the best. But do not let usproceed to reckon one against the other, and contend as towho loses and who gains. The sole object of all of us oughtto be the good of the country and the protection of thepeople. I t is three years since in one of these debates Iannounced the appointment of the Police Commission

,and

1 S ir A. Fraser, L ieutenant-Governor of Bengal .

S E VENTH B UDGE T SPE E CH 161

since Sir John Woodburn,who sat in that chair, said that it

would be the most important and far- reaching of any that Ihad appointed in my time. I am glad that I appointed it,and am proud of its work and when the reforms come intoful l operation

,I am hopeful that they wil l be felt under every

roof in this country.

At this stage I may perhaps interpolate a few remarksin reply to the concluding portions of the Hon. Mr. Gokhale’sspeech. He seems to think that in my speech of last year

,

1

and in the Resolution that followed it, were laid down newprinciples as regards the admission of natives of India to

the public service. He referred to the Act of 1 8 33 and theQueen’s Proclamation of 1 8 58 . I am familiar with boththose documents, and I also remember—which those whoquote them sometimes forget—that the late Queen’s wordscontained a qualification

,not indeed modifying their gene

ros ity , but limiting their appl ication by the necessary tests ,firstly of practical expediency, and secondly of personalfitness. These were the words : “ I t is our wil l, that so faras may be

,our subjects of whatever race or creed be freely

and impartially admitted to offi ces in our service, the dutiesof which they may be qualified by their education, abil ity,and integri ty duly to discharge.

” There is not one sentencein that memorable paragraph from which any Governmentof India or any Governor-General has ever either desired orattempted to recede. But the Hon . Mr. Gokhale’s historicalreferences stopped short at 1 8 5 8 . He altogether forgot tomention the findings of the Public Service Commission of

1 8 8 7 , which deliberately laid down that the service in Indiashould in future be divided into two branches, firstly, anImperial Service called the Civil Service, to be recruited byopen competition in England only ; and, secondly, a ProvincialService recruited in I ndia

,and consisting almost entirely of

natives of this country. Our pronouncement of last yearwas a mere reaffirmation of the findings of that Commission.

Even the phrase corps which the hon. member seemsto think originated with me, is taken from paragraph 7 3 of

their Report. Let me further ask him more particularly toperuse paragraphs 74 and 9 1 of that document. H e wil l

Vida p. 143.

162 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

find that nothing was said last year, either by the Government of I ndia or by myself, which has not been laid dowith even greater authority by our predecessors ; and forthe inference as to a change of policy which Mr. Gokhalehas drawn in his speech to-day , there is, I can assure him,

no foundation .

I am myself particularly immune from the suspicions towhich the hon. member refers. I frequently see attributedto me personal ly the appointment of this or that Europeanor Eurasian to some post or other in some part of India.The respons ibil ity of the head of the Government of Indiais great, and I have never minimised it. But it is beyondhuman power that he should know every detail of theadministration of of people, and beyond reasonthat every subordinate act of the administration should beattributed to him alone. And real ly when I read of all thethings that are explained by my personal intervention, whileI appreciate the compliment

,I am compelled to say that in

quite nineteen cases out of twenty I have never evenheardof them at all. If the hon. member were to go into theDepartments of the Government of I ndia he would find thatI am there known as a strong partisan not of European, butof native appointments

,wherever these can be made with

sufficient regard to the test of personal fitness for the post.But, after all, is it not rather a vain exercise to dispute asto the exact number of places that are or are not given tothis or to that class inan administration The hon . memberwil l never find any reluctance on the part of Government torecognise and to forward the legitimate aspirations of hiscountrymen . But he must not be surprised if these generoustendencies are sometimes chil led

,when almost every step

that we take and every appointment that is made is l iableto criticism that presumes the existence of a racial biaswhere none exists. He has cited the Despatch of the Courtof D irectors with which the Act of 1 8 33 was sent out toIndia. Let me quote to him another paragraph from tha tDespatch . If I were to utter it as my own, I am afraid thatI should be accused of i lliberal sentiments . But with the

distinguished imprimatur of the authors of the A ct of 1 8 33,

it may carry some weight with the hon . member

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164 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEECH

a few of them are engaged in coal -mines . The numberproceeding yearly on five-year contracts is from 5000 to6000,

and there are now some indentured Indiansin the Colony. The ir wages are good , and those of themwho returned to India in 1 903 brought back savings to theamount of over five lakhs of rupees, while Indians of al lclasses settled in Natal remit to their friends in India someth irteen lakhs of rupees annual ly. The indentured Indian iswell treated, and so far as this class is concerned, the systemof emigration to Natal is advantageous to India as well asto the Colony. But there is now in Natal a considerablepopulation of British Indians, estimated at aboutwho are not working under indenture

,and are therefore

known as “ free Indians.” Some of them are men who haveworked out their time but have decided to settle in thecountry, or the descendants of such men others are personswho have voluntarily proceeded to the Colony with the objectof making a living there. Unfortunately the colonists entertain a rooted objection to this class of settlers

,and have

taken strong measures to discourage any increase in theirnumbers. Some of these measures have seemed to the

Government of India to be unduly severe and inconsistentwith the reasonable claims of the people of I ndia as subjectsof the British Empire and we have lost no Opportunity of

urging that the restrictions imposed on free I ndians shouldbe relaxed . More especial ly two years ago ,

when the

Government of Natal sent delegates to us to discuss an

arrangement under which Indian labourers should be com

pelled to return to India on the expiry of the term for whichthey were engaged, we required as an essential conditionthat they should make certain concess ions in favour Of thefree Indians who were then settled , or who might desire tosettle, in the Colony. We stipulated for the eventualabol ition of a tax of £3 a head which had been imposed onsuch persons for leave to reside ; for the amendment of anAct placing traders, of however Old a standing

,under the

power of local Corporations who had absolute authority to

refuse l icenses to trade ; for the removal of Indians fromanother Act, under which they were classed with barbarousraces ; and for the provision of a summary remedy for free

SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH 165

Indians who might be wrongfully arrested on the groundthat they were coolies under indenture or prohibited immigrants. In reply we were given to understand that therewas no prospect of obtaining the consent of the local legislature to these conditions

,and the negotiations were therefore

dropped. The only concession that has been obtained as

regards free Indians in Natal is the exemptionof those whohave been res ident in the Colony for three consecutive yearsfrom the restrictions imposed on prohibited immigrants

”

under the Immigration Restriction Act. That Act sti l lrequires immigrants (except those under indenture) to beable to write in some European language, and our endeavoursto get ability to write in an Indian language accepted as asufficient test of l iteracy have been unsuccessful. We haveinformed the Natal Government that we reserve to ourselvesthe fullest liberty to take at any time such measures inregard to emigration to that Colony as we may thinknecessary in order to secure proper treatment for ourI ndian settlers, and we have recently again declined totake any step towards facil itating the emigration of labourersunder indenture unti l the Nata l authorities subs tantial lymodify their attitude.

In no other South African Colony is there in force anysystem of immigration Of I ndian labour under indenture, andthe number Of British Indians at present resident in the

Colonies other than Natal is comparatively small . ThoseColonies have

,however

,evinced a simi lar spirit of opposition

to the immigrationof free Indians, and we have had a cons iderable amount Of correspondence on the subject, especiallyas regards the Transvaal . Soon after that country cameunder British adm inistration we addressed the Secretary of

S tate for India, and urged that the opportunity should betaken to remove the restrictions and disabilities imposed bythe Boer Government on British Indian subjects. In thecourse of the correspondence that ensued we were asked toagree to a scheme for the employment of Indianlabourers on the construction of Government railways in theTransvaal and Orange River Colonies ; and recognising thatthe need for Indian labour thus displayed might prove apowerful lever inour hands in securing better treatment for

166 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

Indians generally in South Africa, we expressed our readinessto consider the prOposal if it was l ikely to lead to substantialconcessions in favour of Indians not under indenture. Wesaid that the least that we could accept would be ( 1 ) thatIndian languages should be included in the literary testapplied to new immigrants ; (2 ) that residence in locationsshould be compulsory only upon those Indians in whose casethe restriction is desirable for sanitary reasons ; 3) thatIndian traders who had establ ished themselves under theformer Government should be granted licenses permittingthem to retain their present places of business ; (4) that allIndians of superior class , including al l respectable tradersand shopkeepers

,should be exempted from the Pass Law

and the Curfew system and from the other restrictionsimposed on the non-white population.

The Transvaal authorities declined to concede thesedemands in ful l

,and we have therefore refused to establish

a system of emigration of indentured labourers to thatColony. The outcome of the negotiations so far wil l befound in the Despatch sent on 2 5th July 1 904 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Governor of the

Transvaal , which was presented to Parl iament in Augustlast. In it the British Government supported al l our maindemands except the claim that future immigrants shouldnot be required to be able to write in a European language.We have not yet heard what actionhas been taken on theseinstructions by the Transvaal Government.I do not say that this is a pleasurable record . The

problem is one for which it is exceedingly difficult to finda solution . Colonies possessing

,or likely before long to

possess, rights of self-government cannot be dictated to insuch matters

,and the feeling that exists among them is

undoubtedly very strong. It has seemed to us to be ourduty to do nothing to inflame that feeling

,but to lose no

Opportunity of pleading the cause of those whose natura lprotectors we are

,and to make no concession whatever

until we obtain a ful l quid pro quo in return. I am confidentthat in this attitude we shal l have the support of the entireIndian community.

I may name one more respect inwhich the Government

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168 SE VENTH BUDGE T SPEE CH

for the religions and monuments and l iterature of the East,and who has , while in India, given such abundant proofsof his reverence for fai ths and fee lings that are not hi sown—turn round and assail what he had hitherto reveredThese questions I must leave others to answer. As forreaction, I console myself with the wise saying of Macaulay,Ever since chi ldhood I have been seeing nothing butprogress, and hearing of nothing but reaction and decay.

For my ownpart, as the last year of my work in Indiaopens, I look back upon the past not with any self-com

placency—because while much has been done, much a lsoremains undone—but with gratitude that the Opportunityhas been vouchsafed to my colleagues and myse lf of givingso definite an impulse to all that makes up the growth andprosperity of a people and the safety of an Empire, andwith the sanguine conviction that none can sow as diligentlyand whole heartedly as we have endeavoured to sow,

withouta harvest springing up - indeed the green shoots are alreadyh igh above the ground—that wil l ten thousand times repaythe exertion, and obliterate every scar.

AGRAR I AN LEG I SLAT ION

PUNJAB LAND ALIENATION BILL (LEGIS

LATIVE COUNC IL,SIMLA)

AT a m eeting of the le gislative Council at Sim la onOctober 1 9,1 900, a debate took place onthe Punjab Land Alienation Bill (forthe restriction of the right of land alienation to m embers of the

sam e agricultural tribes). Onthe m otion that the Bill be passed,the V iceroy spoke as follows

When the Government of India util ises its legislativepower to pass what is certainly a drastic, and has beendescribed in the course of these debates as a revolutionary,measure

,affecting any subject, but more particularly

affecting the land , there are two questions as to which itshould

,in my opinion, satisfy itself. The first is—has the

existence of anevil, cal ling for legislative interference, beenestablished ? The second is—is the particular legislationproposed the right remedy ?The first Of these questions we had answered to our own

satisfaction a year ago. A careful study of the reports andreturns, extending over a period of more than thirty years,had convinced the Government of India that the alienationof land in the Punjab, practically initiated by the BritishPower after annexation

,is progressing with increased and

alarming rapidity that,in consequence of this progress, land

is passing away from the hands of the agricultural classes,whom it is our policy to maintain upon it, and into the handsof classes or persons who, whatever the part that they mayplay in the economy of agrarian life, are not, in our judgment, either necessary or desirable as landholders ; and thatconsequently a grave political as wel l as economic danger

169

170 PUNJ AB LAND AL IENATION BILL

threatens the Province,which it is the bounden duty of

Government to avert. Nothing that has occurred in the

interim has tended to shake our confidence in the substantialjustice of this conviction . Onthe contrary, I think that ithas been strengthened by the evidence that has since pouredin . We have been told, it is true, that there can be nopolitica l danger in leaving things as they are, because the

discontent of the Punjab peasantry is never likely to takethe form of active rebellion . I should be sorry to thinkthat our political objections to a continuance of the s tatus

quo were supposed to be based upon such fears as these.

I t is not a disloyal peasantry that we apprehend. I t is adespondent, debt - ridden , expropriated, and impoverishedland-owning class

,particularly a class recruited from the

stable and conservative elements so forcibly described bythe Hon . Mr. Tupper, which would be both a source of

weakness to the Province and of alarm to the State.

Again , it has been said to-day that the sowka r‘ is a very

useful and even indispensable factor in rural life, who isquite content if he secures his reasonable profits, and has noa pr ion

'

appetite for land . So far as I can see, the mode lmoney- lender whom I have described

,and whose util ity I

do not dispute, wil l not be at al l injured by this Bil l. Thezemindar wil l sti l l require money, and the bum

'

y a will continue to provide it. But it is the Shylock

,who insists upon

his pound of flesh,and who

,under the existing system , is in

the habit of taking it in land,because it is the one security

which his debtor can furnish,at whom we aim . A money

Iending class I fully believe to be essential to the existingorganisation of agrarian life in India ; but we do not desireto see them converted into land-grabbers

,either voluntary

or involuntary , at the expense of the hereditary occupantsof the soil .I do not, therefore, feel any doubt as to the seriousness

of the malady which we have been cal led upon to diagnose,

and for which, if we value our responsibi lity, it is our dutyto prescribe . But there arises the second question, whetherwe have, or have not, adopted the right prescription .

There is one objection that has been raised to our Bil l,1 This sowkar or bam

'

y a is the money -lender.

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172 PUNJ AB LAND AL IENATION BILL

by Sir Harnam Singh. The objections in principle tolegislation of this description may, therefore, I think , bedisregarded.

There remains the question whether this particular Bil land the methods to which it proposes to give the sanctityof law are the best remedy that could have been devised .

I have been a good deal struck in the discussion , both inCouncil and in print, by the absence of any alternativeprescr iption. Inaction , I may point out, is not an alternative . It is only an evasion of responsibi l ity. I t doesnot, of course

,follow

,because no other suitable or likely

remedy has been pointed out,that ours is the sole or the

right one. Such a contention would be both illogicaland foolish . But

,given an evil which al l admit, if the

method of cure, or rather of prevention , which is suggestedby the responsible physician is questioned

, either by the

patient or by the public, the onus, I think, l ies uponthe latter of indicating a better plan . The fact that

,

in the present case, no such rival panacea has beenforthcoming

,leads m e to claim that the Government pro

posal, whether it be sound or unsound, at any rate holdsthe field .

I now turn for a few moments to the Bill itself. I t wil lnot be denied that we have proceeded with the variousstages of its growth and enactment with singular care anddel iberation . The Bil l in its original shape was the outcome of years of patient study. In the form which it hasnow finally assumed

,it also bears the impress of repeated

reference, of dil igent reconsideration , and of an anxious

desire to meet, in no dogmatic frame of mind, the criticismswhether of expert authority or of public Opinion . We

should, I think, have been very obstinate and unwise hadwe adhered to every clause

,or even to every leading feature,

of the Bil l as introduced last year. I t was emphatically acase in which a reasonable Spirit was called for, and inwhich some concession was required to the arguments of

Opponents, not for the mere sake of compromise, but inorder to bring the measure into closer harmony both withthe feel ings of the community and with the needs of the

case. It is in such a Spirit that the Bil l has been conducted

PUNJ AB LAND ALI ENA TIoN BI LL 173

through Committee by the Hon. Mr. R ivaz, on whosebehalf it will , I am sure, be admitted by all of his colleaguesthat

,if he has been clear as to where to stand firm

,he has

also known exactly how to conciliate and where to yield .

As a result of the labours of the Select Committee, for

which I must, onbehalf of the Government of India, thankal l its members, the Bill now emerges a more efficient,a more elastic, and, therefore, a more workable measure. Inthe old B il l , for instance, the Revenue Officer

’s authorityfor every permanent alienationof land was made obligatory

,

even in cases of merely formal sanction to al ienationbetween non -agriculturists . Now this sanction has beenwisely dispensed with. Next, we have extended the maximum period of mortgage, when made by a member of an agricultural tribe outside his tribe or group of tribes, from fifteento twenty years we have added another form of mortgagewhich is l ikely to prove both serviceable and popular ; andwe have given power to the local Government to prescribe, in case of necessity, yet other variations. Theseare only a few among the many changes, and , as I think,im provements

,which have been introduced into the Bil l.

I do not say that they have converted it into a perfectmeasure . I have seen enough of agrarian legislation in the

British Parliament to know that it never attains perfection,

that it often fails in what are thought in advance to beits most certain efl

'ects , and that strange and unforeseen

consequences ensue. No doubt our Bill wil l not differfrom English

’

or I rish Land Bills in this respect. Someof its provisions wil l not do what is expected of them .

Others wil l meet with a surprising and unexpectedvogue . That is the fate of all experimental legislation ;and that we are making a great experiment I for onehave never denied . Given the desirabil ity of making it

,

which I have already argued, the utmost that we cando is

,as far as possible, to anticipate every like ly conse

quence, and to graft upon it the wisdom of the most expertintelligence.

There are some features in the Bil l upon which I admitthat the arguments are very evenly balanced . I t has beensaid

,for instance, that we have drawn the restrictions too

174 PUNjAB LAND ALIENA TION BILL

tight,that the phrase agriculturist is too narrow and

inelastic a term ,and that there should be no restriction

upon dealings between members of that class. I am not

insensible of the danger of unduly narrowing the marketfor the compulsory vendor, or again of excluding as apurchaser the bond fide cultivator who may not happento fal l within the agriculturist definition . But, on thewhole

,I think that

,in these respects , we have gone as far

as prudence and the main principles of our legislation allow.

The embarrassed land-owner should find a sufficiently widemarket within the limits of his triba l group ; while thecategory of agriculturists is, as has been shown , neither sorigid nor so exclusive as has sometimes been assumed.

Money- lenders are inside as wel l as outside it ; nor need thecredit of the debtor be permanently impaired for lack of apartner to the desired transaction .

As regards the future of this legislation , I will not beso rash as to prophesy. I Should be treading upon toouncertain ground. One thing only I wil l predict, namely,that the gloomy forebodings Of its opponents will not bereal ised. The case for the Opposition, as I may cal l it, hasbeen stated upon a previous occasion in this Counci l , andagain to-day, as well as in a printed Minute of D issent, bythe Hon . Sir Harnam Singh. If we are to believe theOpinions which he has expressed or recorded at d ifl

'

erent

stages,and I quote his actual words, the majority of the

peasant proprietors of the Punjab are to be reduced by thisBill to a state of serfdom worse than that of the MiddleAges ; it is to be fol lowed by the impoverishment of

mill ions of men living upon the soil ; it is to doom thepeople to perpetual misery

,and to destroy their happiness

and contentment ; British prestige wil l be rudely shaken ;agricultural credit will be destroyed ; and the progressof the province wil l be retarded for at least fifty years.Every age and every epoch has had its Cassandra, and Ido not complain of m y hon . friend for donning thefamiliar garb. I venture

,however

,to think that

,if his

superlatives had been fewer, his invective would have beenmore convincing, and that his vaticinations wil l be foundto have been a good deal exaggerated . If this be so, I am

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176 PUNJ AB LAND ALIENA TION BILL

and sinew of our strength—from an incubus which is slowlybut steadily wearing them down .

1

AGRICULTURAL BANKS (LEGISLATIVE

COUNC IL, CALCUTTA)

Inthe Legislative Council at Calcutta onMarch 23, 1 9O4, on

the motionthat the Bill to provide for the constitutionand controlof Co—operative Credit Societies be passed into law

, the V iceroyspoke as follows

I t is a pleasure to find to-day that we are all so unanimous,

and that in the contemplation of this measure the lion hasIain down with the lamb. The Hon . Dr. Mukerj i re

marked that this Bill is our first serious efl'

ort to deal withthe problem of agricultural indebtedness in India. That isnot quite the case. In October 1 900 in a speech Upon the

introduction of the Punjab Land Alienation Bill at Simla,I

made the remark that that Bil l was the commencement of aseries of ventures upon which I hoped that the Governmentwould embark to deal with this very problem . I describedit as a canker eating into the V itals of the national l ife, andas one of the questions which I hoped to do a l ittle to pressforward to solution during my time. A year later

,we

passed that Bil l into law amid the most dismal propheciesfrom the Punjab native representative on the LegislativeCouncil

,as to the irreparable ruin that it was going to bring

upon the peasantry of the Punjab. I am glad to say thatthose predictions have been entirely falsified by events andonly the other day

,I was called upon to sanction the exten

sion to the greater part of the North West FrontierProvince of the provisions of the Act, which have, on the

whole,proved so acceptable in the Punjab that anagitation

for their application across the border had been growingever since. Last year we took similar action in Bunde l

I The operationof the Act has, so far, confirm ed the most favourab le hopes .

Inthe Punjab itself it has beena success . I t has s ince been extended , at therequest of the people, to the settled districts of the N.W. Frontier Province, andhas beencopied inBundelkhand , where a sim ilar prob lem presented itself. The

questionhas evenbeenraised of applying it to other and larger areas .

AGR ICULTURAL BANKS 177

khund, where not only has the power to alienate land been

restricted in future, but an efl'

ort is being made to clear offthe exist ing debt of the agricultural population . Simi larmeasures were recommended for Bombay by the FamineCommission. These undertakings relate to one aspect of

the problem of indebtedness. To - day we are giving the

authority of the law to an attempt to deal with another.From one point of view, it is the inverse aspect ; for whilesuch measures as the Punjab Land Alienation Act mustnecessarily

,however successful they may be, involve some

curtailment of credit— a drawback compensated twentytimes over by the accompanying gains—the object of thisBill is not to curtail credit but to increase it, while avoidingthe evils which have Sprung from the great expansion of

credit caused by the conferment of the full right of transferof land upon classes untrained to its exercise.

The promotion of agricultural enterp rise by an increasein the available capital m ay be described as a prime duty of

any Government administering a large rural population .

All producers,even the poorest, require capital, and the

I ndian raiyat by no means least. But the conditions underwhich alone he can procure it in this country are so onerous

,

he is so apt to dissipate it when acquired by a sort of

traditional improvidence,and the consequences of his in

deb tedness are so disastrous and even appall ing,that there

seems to be a special obligation upon the Government of

India to come to his assistance in such ways as we legitim ately can.

One of the methods that we adopt for this end in Indiais by takam

'

loans under the Land Improvement or Agriculturists’ Relief Acts. I doubt if the public is fully awareof the extent of the assistance that is thereby given ,particularly in times of distress. In 1 902

-03, for instance,the total advances to cultivators amounted to three-quartersof a crore or half a mill ion sterling, of which more than halfwas in Bombay. But it is difficult for this form of assistanceto reach all who are in need , and there are practical drawbacks in the operation of the system which are now underthe independent consideration of Government.Here we are initiating an independent but allied experi

N

178 AGRICUL TURAL BANKS

ment which is to make the cultivating classes themselvesthe borrowers, improving their credit, developing theirthrift, and training them to util ise for their own benefit thegreat advantage which the experience of other countrieshas shown to lie in the principle of mutual co-Operation . Iused the word experiment. But I am not sure that this isnot rather too strong ; for undoubtedly the reports of ableofl‘icers , such as Sir F. Nicholson and Mr. Dupernex , andthe practical working of a limited number of institutionsin different parts of the country, some of them started byenthusiastic officers on their own account, have already provided us with some measure of guidance as to what we oughtto aim at

,and what to avoid.

A year ago in my Budget speech I stated some of thefundamental differences of opinion that had emerged fromthe reference to local Governments which we had justundertaken.

l There was really nothing surprising in this .Many of those whom we consulted had had no practicalexperience and were only able to give a pr ior i replies.Moreover, the co-operative system is itself not at al l widelyunderstood and the degree to which Government assistanceshould be given was as much in dispute as were the natureand limitation of the objects for which loans should be

al lowed . During the year that has passed each of thesedisputed points has had to be examined by Government

,

and has since been further elucidated by the labours of thevery competent Select Committee whom we were fortunateenough to assemble for the consideration of the Bill . Theprinciples that have characterised the great majority, if notthe whole

,of the changes that have been introduced by

them,have everywhere been the same—greater simplification

and more freedom. Let the measure be hampered by as fewrestrictive provisions as possible ; and let it be adaptableto the varying conditions of different parts of the countryand sections of the people.There is one point on which there seems to have been

some misconception, and which it is desirable to make clear.I have seen it complained that Government might have beena good deal more l iberal in initiating so great an experiment

,

I Vida p . 126.

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180 AGRI CULTURAL BANK S

mea sure with equal insight, ability, and sympa thy, I refrainfrom any confident predictions. I think it quite l ikely thatin some parts of the country the experiment wil l fail, andthat societies wil l either not be started or after a shortexistence will disappear. Even where they succeed, I donot imagine for a moment that borrowing at high rates ofinterest wil l be done away with altogether, or that we shal lreplace destitution by relative affluence. But let us assumethe most modes t degree of success . Let us contemplate indistricts or towns orvi l lages, here and there, a few of theseinstitutions coming into existence and gradual ly strikingtheir roots into the soil . Each tree so rooted wil l ultimatelycast its own shade, and will be the parent of others ; and ifin a few years’ time I were to hear that the experiment hadnever germinated at al l in one province, while it was bearinghumble but healthy fruit in another, I should yet think itjustified .

What I desire to point out, however, is this. Here is asincere and patient effort to ameliorate the condition of thepeasantry of what we are constantly being told is thepoorest country in the world. Not a day passes in whichhundreds of articles are not written in the native press toprove that the material interests of those poor people areneglected or ignored by an alien Government, and are onlycorrectly understood by the leaders of the native community. I am far from accepting this statement of thecase. When I find a European member of this Council

,

the Hon . Mr. Hamilton , spontaneously ofl'

er ing a loan of

Rs . to finance a number of smal l banks at the start,

and when I hear of a distinguished civil servant,such as

Sir F. Nicholson, coming back after his retirement from theservice to reside in this country and to help a number of

these societies on their way, it seems to me that Europeansympathy is capable of taking a very practical shape. Asto native sympathy, I cannot believe that for an object sobeneficent, and in interests so unselfish, it wil l not equallybe forthcoming. If these societies could be firmly establishedeven in a hundred places in India, greater good, I ventureto think

,would be done to the people in those areas than

by a decade of political agitation. More places on this or

A GRICULTURAL BANKS 18 1

that Council for a few active or eloquent men wil l notbenefit the raiyat. What he wants is the loosening of thebondage of debt which bows him down . Anything thatwil l give him greater self-reliance, and teach him to looknot only to Government or to its ofli cers but to himse lf,will be to the good. If the feel ing that he should be helpedis as strong and as sincere as I be l ieve it to be among thenative community, they have in this Bil l an unrivalledopportunity of giving a practical and unostentatious demonstration of their sympathy with the most deserving and themost helpless class of their own countrymen . W il l theytake it ? Government has played its part. I invite them toplay theirs.

ARCH/EOLOGY AND ANC IENT

MONUMENTS

AS IATIC SOC IETY OF BENGAL

ON February 7, 1 goo, Lord Curzon attended the annualmeeting of the As iatic Society of Bengal, of which he was the

Patron, and addressed the Society inthe following term s

I hOpe that there is nothing inappropriate in my addressing to this Society a few observations upon the duty of

Government in respect of Ancient Buildings in I ndia. The

Asiatic Society of Bengal sti ll, I trust, even in these days whenmen are said to find no time for scholarship, and when independent study or research seems to have faded out of Indianfashion, retains that interest in arche ology which is so oftentestified to in its earl ier publications, and was promoted byso many of its most i l lustrious names. Surely here

, if anywhere, in this house which enshrines the memorials, and hasfrequently listened to the wisdom, of great scholars andrenowned students, it is permissible to recall the recollectionof the present generation to a subject that so deeply engagedthe attention of your early pioneers, and that must sti ll , evenina breathless age, appeal to the interest of every thoughtfulman .

In the course of my recent tour, during which I visitedsome of the most famous sites and beautiful or historicbuildings in India, I more than once remarked, in reply toMunicipal addresses, that I regarded the conservation of

ancient monuments as one of the primary obligations of

Government. We have a duty to our forerunners,as wel l

as to our contemporaries and to our descendants,—nay, ourduty to

'

the two latter classes in itself demands the recogni182

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184 A S IATIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

of the Brahmans stands on precise ly the same footing as

the Buddhist Vihara, and the Mohammedan Musj id as theChristian Cathedral . There is no principle of artisticdiscrimination between the mausoleum of the despot andthe sepulchre of the saint. What is beautiful, what ishistoric, what tears the mask off the face of the past and

helps us to read its riddles and to look it in the eyesthese, and not the dogmas of a combative theology, are theprincipal criteria to which we must look. Much of ancienthistory, even in an age of great discoveries

,sti ll remains

mere guess-work. I t is only slowly being pieced togetherby the efl

'

orts of scholars and by the outcome of research .

But the clues are lying everywhere at our hand—in buriedcities, in undeciphered inscriptions

,in casual coins

,in

crumbling pillars and pencil led slabs of stone. They supplythe data by which we may reconstruct the annals of the

past and recall to life the morality,the literature

, the

politics, the art of a perished age.

Compared with the antiquity of Assyrian or Egyptian ,or even of early European monuments, the age of the

majority of I ndian monuments is not great. I speaksubject to correction , but my impression is that the oldestsculptured monument in India is the Sanchi Tope, the greatrai l ing of which cannot possibly be placed before the middleof the third century ,

before Christ, although the tope itselfmay be earlier. At that time the palaces of Chaldaea andNineveh, the Pyramids and the rock tombs of Egypt, werealready thousands of years old. We have no building inIndia as old as the Parthenon at Athens ; the large majorityare young compared with the Coliseum at Rome. All theNorman and the majority of the Gothic Cathedrals of

England and of Western Europe were already erected beforethe great era of Moslem architecture in India had begun .

The Kutub Minar at Delhi,which is the finest early

Mohammedan structure in this country,was bui lt within a

century of Westminster Hall in London , which we are far

from regarding as an ancient monument. As for the laterglories of Arabian architecture at Delhi

,at Agra

,and at

Lahore, the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge,which we

regard in England as the last product of a dying archi

AS IA TIC SOCIE TY OF BENGAL 185

tectural epoch, were already grey when they sprang, whiteand spotless, from the hands of the masons of Akbar andShah Jehan while the Taj Mahal was only one generationolder than Wren ’s Renaissance fabric of modern St. Paul ’s.There is another remarkable feature of the majority of

I ndian antiquities—o f those at any rate that be long tothe Musulman epoch that they do not represent anindigenous genius or an Indian style. They are exotics

,

imported into this country in the trainof conquerors,who

had learnt their architectural lessons in Persia,in Central

Asia,in Arabia

,in Afghanistan . More than a thousand

years earlier a foreign influence had exercised a scarcelyless marked

,though more transient, influence upon certain

forms of Indian architecture. I al lude to the Greek typeswhich were derived from the Cra co - Bactrian kingdomsthat were founded upon the rema ins of Alexander’s conquests, and which in the centuries immediately preced ingthe Christian era profoundly afl

'

ected the art and sculptureof North-West India and the Punjab. Indian sculpturesor I ndian buildings

,however

,because they reflect a foreign

influence or betray a foreign origin, are not the less, butperhaps the more, interesting to ourselves, who were borneto India upon the crest of a later but similar wave, andwho may find in their non - I ndian characteristics a rem inisc

ence of forms which we already know in Europe, and of

a process of assimilation with which our own archaeologicalhistory has rendered us familiar. Indeed a race l ike ourown

,who are themselves foreigners, are in a sense better

fitted to guard,with a dispassionate and impartial zeal , the

relics of different ages and of sometimes antagonistic beliefs,than might be the descendants of the warring races or thevotaries of the rival creeds. To us the relics of Hinduand Mohammedan

, of Buddhist, Brahmin , and Jain, are, fromthe antiquarian, the historical, and the artistic point of

view, equally interesting and equally sacred. One does notexcite a more vivid and the other a weaker emotion . Eachrepresents the glories or the faith of a branch of the humanfamily. Each fi lls a chapter in Indian history . Each isa part of the heritage which Providence has committed to

the custody of the ruling power.

186 A S IA TIC SOCIE TY OF BENGAL

If, however, the majority of the structural monumentsof India, the topes and temples, the palaces and fortressesand tombs, be of no exceeding antiquity in the chronologyof architecture, and even if the greater number of those atany rate which are wel l known and visited are not indigenous in origin, it remains true, on the other hand, that it isin the exploration and study of purely Indian remains, inthe probing of archaic mounds, in the excavation of oldIndian cities, and in the copying and reading of ancientinscriptions

,that a good deal of the exploratory work of

the archaeologist in India wil l in future lie. The laterpages of Indian history are known to us, and can be readby all. But a curtain of dark and romantic mystery hangsover the earlier chapters, of which we are only slowlybeginning to lift the corners. This also is not less anobligation of Government. Epigraphy should not be setbehind research any more than research should be set

behind conservation. All are ordered parts of any scientificscheme of antiquarian work . I am not one of those whothink that Government can afl

'

ord to patron ise the one andignore the other. I t is , in my judgment, equal ly our dutyto dig and discover, to classify, reproduce, and describe,to copy and decipher

,and to cherish and conserve. Of

restoration I cannot, on the present occasion, undertake tospeak, since the principles of legitimate and artistic restora

tion require a more detailed analysis than I have time tobestow upon them this evening. But it will be seen fromwhat I have said that my view of the obligations of Government is not grudging, and that my estimate of the work tobe done is ample.

If then the question he asked,how has the British

Government hitherto discharged , and how is it now discharging its task, what is the answer that must be returnedI may say in preface that were the answer unfavourableand I will presently examine that point—we should mere lybe forging a fresh link in an unbroken historic chain .

Every, or nearly every, successive religion that has permeatedor overswept this country has vindicated its own fervourat the expense of the rival whom it had dethroned . Whenthe Brahmans went to El lora, they hacked away the

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188 A S IA TIC SOCIE TY OF BENGAL

ings,either of religious fanaticism, of restless vanity, or of

dynastic and personal pride. But in proportion as theyhave been unas sailed by such temptations, so is theirresponsibility the greater for inaugurating a new era and fordisplaying that tolerant and enlightened respect to thetreasures of all which is one of the main lessons that thereturning West has been able to teach to the East.

In the domain of arche ology,as elsewhere

,the or iginal

example of duty has been set to the Government of India byind ividual effort and by private enthusiasm ; and only byslow degrees has Government, which is at all times andseasons a tardy learner, warmed to its task . The earlyarchaeological researches conducted by the founders andpioneers of this Society, by Jones, Colebrooke, Wilson , andPrinsep , and by many another d rawn at venerabile uom eu

,

were in the main literary in character. They consisted in thereconstruction of alphabets the translation ofmanuscripts

,and

the decipherment of inscr1ptions . Sanscrit scholarship wasthe academic cult of the hour. How these men laboured isil lustrated by the fact that Prinsep and K ittoe both died of

overwork at the age of forty. Then followed an era of

research in buildings and monuments ; the pen was supplem ented by the spade

,and, in succession , descriptions, draw

ings, paintings, engravings, and in later days photographsand casts, gradually revealed to European eyes the preciouscontents of the unrifled quarries of Hindustan. I n this

generation of explorers and writers, special honour must bepaid to two names to James Fergusson

,whose earliest work

was published in 1 84 5, and who was the first to place theexamination of Indian architecture upon a scholarly basis,and to General Sir A. Cunningham ,

who only a few yearslater was engaged in the first scientific excavation of theBhilsa topes. These and other toilers in the same fieldlaboured with a dil igence beyond praise ; but the work wastoo great for individual exertion , and much of it remaineddesultory, fragmentary, and incomplete.

Meanwhile the Government of India was concerned withlaying the foundations and extending the borders of a newEmpire, and thought l ittle of the relics of old ones. Fromtime to time a Governor-General, in an excess of exceptional

A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL 189

enlightenment or generosity, spared a l ittle money for thefitful repa ir of ancient monuments. Lord Minto appointeda Committee to conduct repairs at the Taj . Lord Hastingsordered works at Fatehpur Sikri and Sikandra . LordAmherst attempted some restoration of the Kutub Minar.Lord Hardinge persuaded the Court of D irectors to sanctionarrangements for the examination , del ineation, and record of

some of the chief Indian antiquities. But these spasmodicefl

'

orts resulted in l ittle more than the collection of a fewdrawings and the execution of a few local and perfunctoryrepairs. How l ittle the leaven had permeated the lump

,

and how strongly the barbarian stil l dominated the aestheticin the officia l mind, may be shown by inc idents that fromtime to tim e occurred.

In the days of Lord William Bentinck the Taj was on thepoint of being destroyed for the value of its marbles.1 Thesame Governor-General sold by auction the marble bath inShah Jehan’s Palace at Agra, which had been torn up byLord Hastings for a gift to George IV. , but had somehownever been despatched . In the same regim e a proposa l wasmade to lease the gardens at Sikandra to the executiveengineer at Agra for the purposes of speculative cultivation .

In 1 8 57 , after the Mutiny, it was solemnly proposed to razeto the ground the Jumma Musjid at Delhi, the noblest ceremonial mosque in the world, and it was only spared at theinstance of S ir JohnLawrence. As late as 1 868 the removalof the great gateways of the Sanchi Tope was successful ly prevented by the same statesman . I have read of agreat Mohammedan pillar

,over 600 years old, which was

demolished at Al igarh to make room for certa in municipalimprovements and for the erection of some bum

'

as’ shops ,

which,when built, were never let. Some of the sculptured

columns of the exquisite H indu - Musulman mosque atAjmer were pulled down by a zea lous Officer to constructa trium phal arch under which the Viceroy of the day 2 was topass . James Fergusson

’

s books sound one unending note ofpassionate protest aga inst the barrack -bu ilder and the mili

This statem ent was made onofficial authority. But there is reasonto thinkthat it is anexaggeration, based ona careless remark by S ir W. S leeman.

2 The Earl of Mayo.

190 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

tary engineer. I must confess that I think these individualshave been , and, within the more restricted scope now leftto them, stil l are inveterate S inners. Climb the hi ll - top atGwalior and see the barracks of the British soldier and therelics, not yet entirely obliterated, of his occupation of thePalace in the Fort. Read in the Delhi Guide-books of thehorrors that have been perpetrated in the interests of regimental barracks and messes and canteens in the fairy- l ike

pavil ions and courts and gardens of Shah Jehan . I t is notyet thirty years since the Government of India were invitedby a number of army doctors to cut off the battlements of

the Fort at De lhi in order to improve the health of the

troops,and only desisted from doing so when a rival band

of medical doctrinaires appeared upon the scene to urgethe retention of the very same battlements in order to prevent malarial fever from creeping in. At an earl ier date

,

when picnic parties were held in the garden of the Taj,it was

not an uncommon thing for the revellers to arm themselveswith hammer and chisel , with which they wiled

’

away theafternoon by chipping out fragments of agate and carnelianfrom the cenotaphs of the Emperor and his lamented Queen .

Indeed, when I was at Agra the other day,I found that

the marble tomb of Shah Jehan in the lower vault, beneathwhich his body actually lies, was stil l destitute of much of

its original inlay, of which I ordered the restoration.

’

That the era of vandalism is not yet completely at anend is evident from recent experiences, among which I mayinclude my own . When Fergusson wrote his book

, the

Diwan - i -Am , or Public Hall of Audience, in the Palace atAgra was a military arsenal, the outer colonnades of whichhad been built up with brick arches lighted by Englishwindows. All this was afterwards removed . But when thePrince ofWales came to India in 1 8 76, and held a Durbarin this building, the Opportunity was too good to be lost ;and a fresh coat of whitewash was plentifully bespatteredover the sandstone pillars and plinths of the Durbar Hall ofAurungzeb. This too I hope to get removed ? When H is

1 This has beencompleted , and the entire fabric of the Taj, as well as thesurrounding buildings , are now ina state of perfect repair. Vida p . 198 .

3 I t was generally believed that the pi llars retained the ir origina l red sandstone appearance throughout theMoghul epoch. But careful exam inationhas shown

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192 AS IATI C SOCIE TY OF BENGAL

vanished never to return , but of an art that, subject to thevicissitudes of fire, earthquake, and decay, is capable of

being a joy for ever. There are other sites and fabrics inIndia upon which I also have my eye, which I shall visit, ifposs ible, during my time, and which I shall hope to rescuefrom a kindred or a worse fate.These are the gloomy or regrettable features of the

picture. Onthe other hand, there has been, during the lastforty years, some sort of sustained effort on the part of

Government to recognise its responsibilities and to purgeitse lf of a wel l-merited reproach . This attempt has beenaccompanied, and sometimes delayed, by disputes as to therival claims of research and of conservation, and by discussionover the legitimate spheres of action of the central and theloca l Governments . There have been periods of supinenessas wel l as of activity. There have been moments when ithas been argued that the State had exhausted its duty orthat it possessed no duty at all . There have been personswho thought that when all the chief monuments wereindexed and classified, we might sit down with folded handsand allow them slowly and gracefully to crumble into ruin.

There have been others who argued that railways and irri

gationdid not leave even a modest half lakh of rupees perannum for the requisite establ ishment to supervise the mostglorious galaxy of monuments in the world. Nevertheless

,

with these interruptions and exceptions, which I hope maynever again recur, the progress has been positive, and, onthe whole, continuous. I t was Lord Canning who first invested arche ological work in this country with permanentGovernment patronage by constituting, in 1 860,

theArchaeological Survey of Northern India

,and by appointing

General Cunningham in 1 862 to be Archa ological Surveyorto Government. From that period date the publicationsof the Arche ological Survey of I ndia

,which have at

times assumed different forms, and which represent varyingdegrees of scholarship and merit, but which constitute, onthe whole, a noble mine of information, in which the studenthas but to delve in order to discover an abundant spoil.For over twenty years General Cunningham continuedhis labours, of which these publications are the memorial .

AS IA TIC SOCIE TY OF BENGAL 193

Meanwhile orders were issued for the registration and preservation of historical monuments throughout India

,local

surveys were started in some of the subordinate Governments, the Bombay Survey being placed in the capablehands of Mr. Burgess, who was a worthy follower in thefootsteps of Cunningham, and who ultimately succeeded himas D irector-General of the Archaeological Survey. Some ofthe native States followed the example thus set to them

,

and either applied for the services of the Governmentarchaeologists, or established smal l departments of theirown.

I n the provinces much depended upon the individualtastes or procl ivities of the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor

,

just as at headquarters the strength of the impetus variedwith the attitude of successive Viceroys . Lord Northb rook,

who was always a generous patron of the arts, issued ordersin 1 8 7 3 as to the duties of local Governments ; and in hisViceroyalty Sir John Strachey was the first LieutenantGovernor to undertake a really noble work of renovationand repair at Agra—a service which is fitly commemoratedby a marble slab in the Palace of Shah Jehan . The poeticand imaginative temperament of Lord Lytton could not bedeaf to a similar appeal . Holding that no claim upon theinitiative and resources of the Supreme Government wasmore essentially Imperial than the preservation of nationalantiquities

,he contributed in 1 8 79 a sum of 32lakhs to the

restoration of buildings in the North-West Provinces,and

proposed the appointment of a special ofli cer, to be entitledthe Curator of Ancient Monuments, which, while it did notreceive sanction in his tim e,

‘

was left to be carried out by hissuccessor

,Lord Ripon. During the three years that Major

Cole held this post,from 1 8 80 to 1 8 8 3, much excel lent

work in respect both of reports and classification wasdone and large sums of money were given by the Government of India, z

'

utar alz'

a, for repairs in the Gwalior Fort and

at Sanchi Tope. But at the end of this time succeeded aperiod of some reaction, in which it appeared to be thoughtthat the task of the Central Government, in the preparationof surveys and l ists, was drawing to a close, and that localGovernments might

,in future, be safely entrusted with the

O

194 AS IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

more modest,but, I may add, not less critical, duty of

conservation. More recently, under Lord Elgin's auspices,

the archaeological work of Government has been placedupon a more definite basis. The entire country has beendivided into a number of circles, each with a surveyor of i tsown, and while the establishment is regarded as an Imperialcharge

,the work is placed under local control and receives

such financial backing as the resources of the local Governments or the sympathies of individual Governors may be

able to give it. In the North-West Provinces,where I was

recently touring, I found Sir A. MacDonnellworthily sustaining

,in point of generous and discriminating sympathy

,the

traditions that were created by Sir John Strachey.

For my part, I feel far from clear that Governmentmight not do a good deal more than it is now doing

,or than

it has hitherto consented to do. I certain ly cannot lookforward to a time at which either the obligations of theState wil l have become exhausted

,or at which archaeological

research and conservation in this country can dispense withGovernment direction and control. I see fruitful fieldsof labour stil l unexplored

,bad blunders sti l l to be corrected,

gaping omissions to be supplied, plentiful opportunities forpatient renovation and scholarly research. I n my opinion

,

the tax-payers of this country are in the last degree unl ikelyto resent a somewhat higher expenditure —and, after all, afew thousand rupees go a long way in archaeological work

,

and the tota l outlay is exceedingly small—upon objects inwhich I bel ieve them to be as keenly interested as we areourselves. I hOpe to assert more definitely during my timethe Imperial responsibility of Government in respect of Indianantiquities, to inaugurate or to persuade a more liberalattitude on the part of those with whom it rests to providethe means, and to be a faithful guardian of the pricelesstreasure-house of art and learning that has

,for a few years

at any rate, been committed to my charge.

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196 ANCIENTMONUMENTS BILL

The Bil l is,however

,even more than its stipulations

imply. I t is in reality the coping-stone of a policy in respectof arche ology and the remains of the past which the

Government of India have pursued , with fits and starts ,throughout the past half century, but with sustained andunremitting ardour during the past few years. I had beenin I ndia more than once as an ordinary travel ler beforeI came out as Viceroy, and had observed the state of itsantiquities with pain and regret. Fresh as I then was frommy University days, I remember thinking how pertinent toIndia, and to my countrymen in I ndia, were the words of

reproach in which the Roman poet, Horace, had addres sed hiscountrymen in what he thought the decadent and indifferentdays of the early Empire ; and at the risk of being so

unfashionable as to quote a language which is said to benow taboo inpublic life, I must cite the passage

Delicta m ajorum imm eritus lues,Romane, donec tem pla refecer is ,IEdesque labentes deorum , et

Fe da nigro s imulacra fum o.

In India it was not so much a case of recovering thefavour of the Gods—for our theo logy is not quite the sameas that of the Romans—as it was of expiating the carelessness of the past, and escaping the reproaches of posteri ty.

But the obligation was just as strong and urgent and thisCouncil, while giving the authority of law by its vote of

to-day to the culminating phase, may like to hear somethingof the manner in which we have interpreted its remaininginjunctions.I t seemed to me, when I began to inquire exhaustively

into the matter five years ago, that the Government of Indiahad made three mistakes. In the first place

,they had not

recognised that any obligation lay upon them. They haddevolved it entirely upon local Governments

,leaving to

the latter to spend much or little, or nothing at all , andcontenting themselves with paying for an inadequatesupervisory staff. Secondly, they had set no standard towhich local Governments ought to conform. There wasne ither co - ordination, nor system,

nor control. In one

province an enthusiastic administrator might do his duty by

ANCI ENTMONUMENTS BILL 197

the arche ological treasures temporari ly committed to his care.I n another there was no idea that arche ology existed as ascience, or, if it did, that Government had anything to dowith the matter. The third mistake was that conservation,or the task of preserving the memorable relics that we sti l lpossess , had been forgotten in the task of research for thosethat no longer exist, or of writing about objects that werefast fall ing into decay. Our first step, accordingly, was to

revive the post of D irector - General , which had been inabeyance since 1 8 8 9 ,

and to procure a competent person tofi l l it. The next was to set an example to local Governments, which we undertook to do by the grant of sumsaggregating one lakh a year, to supplement the localexpenditure of which their own funds might permit. The

third step was to stimulate them and the Native States alsoto renewed efforts by a definite programme of conservationand repair. By the end of 1 900 our prOposals had gonehome to the Secretary of State. A year later his answer wasreceived

,and a D irector-General , Mr. Marshall, who has

since thrown himself with scholarly energy and enthusiasminto his task

,was on his way out to India ; and in February

1 902 we were in a position to publ ish a Resolution inthe Gazette, defining our policy, and foreshadowing the

p rogramme of work that lay before us , as well as the legislation which we are carrying to completion to-day. Two

years have pas sed since that date, and the new system isnow firmly established

,and has already justified itse lf by

its fruits. I can,perhaps, best bring home to this Council

the extent to which we have advanced by giving the

concrete figures of then and now. In the year 1 8 9 8 -

9 9 the

total expenditure of the Government of India upon arche ology was less than £3000, and this was almost exclusivelydevoted to salaries ; the total expenditure of all the localGovernments added together was only about £4000 inthe same year. A sum

,therefore, of £7000 per annum

represented the total contribution of the Government of 300mil lions of people towards the study or preservation of the

most beautiful and valuable collection of ancient monuments in the Eastern world. The Government of India is

now spending upon this object 25 lakhs per annum, and

198 ANCI ENTMONUMENTS BILL

the loca l Governments 3 lakhs per annum,or a total of

some a year.l Thus, not litt le by little, but byleaps and bounds, are we catching up the errors of thepast

,and purging our national reputation of this great

sta in .

I t is given to but few to real ise, except from books and

i l lustrations,what the arche o logical treasures of India are.

I know of civil ians who have spent a lifetime in the countrywithout ever seeing Agra , and who make a pilgrimage tovisit it when their thirty -five years are done. A GovernorGeneral’s tours give him a unique chance, and I should havebeen unworthy of the task which I undertook at the firstmeeting of the Asiatic Society that I attended in Calcutta fiveyears ago, had I not util ised these Opportunities to visit al l thegreat remains or groups of remains with which this countryis studded from one end to the other. As a pilgrim at theshrine of beauty I have visited them , but as a priest in thetemple of duty have I charged myse lf with their reverentcustody and their studious repair.

Our labour may be said to have fallen into four maincategories. First

,there are the buildings wh ich demanded

a Sustained policy of restoration or conservation , with mostdiligent attention to the designs of their original arch itects,so as to restore nothing that had not already existed , and toput up nothing absolutely new. For it is a cardinal principlethat new work in restoration must be not only a reproduc

tionof old work , but a part of it, only reintroduced in orderto repair or to restore symmetry to the old . Of such acharacter has beenour work at al l the great centres of whatis commonly known as the Indo Saracenic style. We

have, wherever this was possible, recovered and renovatedthe dwell ings in life and the resting-places indeath of thosemaster builders the Musulman emperors and kings.The Taj itself and all its surroundings are now al l but

free from the workmen’s hands. It is no longer approachedthrough dusty wastes and a squalid bazaar. A beautifulpark takes their place ; and the group of mosques andtombs, the arcaded streets and grassy courts, that precedethe main building, are once more as nearly as possible what

This was increased before Lord Curzonleft Ind ia .

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zoo ANCIENT MONUMENTS BILL

Sagar Lake at Ajmer. There a deserted stone embankmentsurvived

,but the marble pavilions on it had tumbled down,

or been converted into modern residences. Now they standup again in their peerless simplicity, and are reflected in thewaters below. I might bring you much nearer home toGaur and Pandua in this Province of Bengal, in the restoration of which I received the enthusiastic co-operation of thelate Sir John Woodburn. A hundred and twenty y ears agothe tombs of the Afghan kings at Gaur were within an ace

of being despoiled to provide paving-stones for St. John’sChurch in Calcutta. Only a few years back these wonderfulremains were smothered in jungle from which they literallyhad to be cut free. If the public were fully aware of whathas been done, Malda, near to which they are situated ,would be an object of constant excursion from this place.We have similarly restored the Hindu temples of Bhuba

neshwar near Cuttack,and the palace and temples on the

rock-fortress of Rhotasgarh . At the other end of I ndia Imight conduct you to the stupendous ruins of the greatHindu capital of V 1jayanagar, one of the most astonishingmonuments to perished greatness, or to Bijapur, where an

equally vanished Mohammedan dynasty left memorialsscarcely less enduring. If I had more time to-day, I mightask you to accept my guidance to the delicate marbletraceries of the Jain temples on Mount Abu

,or the more

stately proportions of the mosques at Jaunpur—both of

which we are saving from the neglect that was alreadybringing portions of them to the ground ; or I might takeyou across the Bay of Bengal to Burma

,and show you King

Mindon’s Fort and Palace at Mandalay with the ir timberedhalls and pavil ions

,which we are careful ly preserving as a

sample of the ceremonial and domestic architecture of theBurmese kings.A second aspect of our work has been the recovery of

buildings from profane or sacrilegious uses,and their restitu

tion either to the faith of their founders or at least to safecustody as protected monuments. Here we have a goodrecord . The exquisite little mosque of Sidi Sayid atAhmedabad with the famous windows of pierced sandstone,which I found used as a tehs ildar

’

s cutcherry when first I

ANCIENTMONUMENTS BILL 20 1

went there, is once more cleared and intact. The MotiMusjid in the Palace at Lahore, into which I gainedentrance with difficulty because the treasury was kept therein chests beneath the floor, and which was surrounded witha brick wall and iron gates, and guarded by sentries, is oncemore free. The Choti Khwabgah in the Fort is no longer achurch the Dewan - i -Am is no longer a barrack the lovelytiled Da i Anga Mosque near the Lahore Railway Stationhas ceased to be the oflice of a traffic superintendent of

the North-Western Railway,and has been restored to the

Mohammedan community. At Bijapur I succeeded in expelling a Dak Bungalow from one mosque, the rel ics Of aBritish Post Office from another. The mosque in the celeb rated fort at Vel lore in Madras is no longer tenanted by apolice instructor. The superb m autapam or Hindu tem plein the same fort is now scrupulously cared for. A hundredyears ago the East India Company presented it toGeorge IV. when Prince Regent, for erection in the groundsof the Pavil ion at Brighton

,and only failed to carry out

their design because the ship, which had been chartered forthe purpose , very happily went to the bottom . Next itwas used as an arsenal, and finally commissariat bul lockswere tethered to its pil lars. At Lucknow I recovered amosque which had been used for years as a dispensary.

At Ajmer I have already mentioned that the marblebaradarz

'

on the bund is no longer the d ining-room of the

Commissioner’s house. At Mandalay the Church and the

Club are under notice of removal from the gilded thronerooms of the Burmese sovereigns.

In this policy,which I have so far described in relation

to monuments in British territory, I have received the m ostcordial support from the Indian Princes in their own States.The Nizam of Hyderabad was wil l ing to do al l that I askedhim—I only wish that it had been a quarter of a centuryearlier—for the unique caves of Ajunta and Ellora. Heundertook the cataloguing and conservation of a mostinteresting collection of old china, copper ware, and carpetsthat had been lying neglected for centuries at Aurungabadin the tomb of the wife of the Emperor Aurungzeb. TheMaharana of Udaipur has wil l ingly undertaken the restoration

202 ANCIENTMON UMENTS BILL

of the exquisite Towers Of Fame and Victory on the hil lfort of Chitor, one of which could hardly have survived formany more years. The Maharaja Scindia threw h imselfwith characteristic zea l into similar works in his magnificentfortress at Gwalior. The Begum of Bhopal did all thatwas required at the Sanchi Tope. Finally, there stands inthe remote State of Dhar the huge rock -fortress of Mandu,certainly one of the most amazing natural spectacles inthe world. Rising to a height of 1 500 feet above theNerbudda plain, it carries upon its summit, which is 30miles round, a splendid group of deserted Mohammedanfortifications, pa laces, and tombs. These we are assistingthe State, which is not rich enough to assume the entireresponsibi l ity itself, to place in order. They were fast

perishing, victims to the ravages of the jungle, and tounchallenged decay.

l

There is yet another aspect of the work of conservationto which I hope that the Bil l that we are about to pass wil llend a helping hand. This is the custody in col lections ormuseums of rare or interesting objects that have either beentorn from their surroundings or whose surroundings haved isappeared. Hon . members will be familiar with thelarger museums in the capital cities of India, where arecol lections not without value

,but

,as a rule, sorely mutilated,

often unidentified and uncatalogued,and sometimes abom in

ably arranged . The plan has hitherto been to snatch upany sculptured fragment in a province or presidency, andsend it off to the provincial museum . This seemed to me,when I looked into it, to be all wrong. Objects of arche ological interest can best be studied in relation and in closeproximity to the group and style of bui ldings to which theybe long, presuming that these are of a character and in alocality that wil l attract visitors. Otherwise if transferredelsewhere, they lose focus, and are apt to become meaningless. Accordingly we have started the plan of a number oflocal museums in places of the nature that I have described .

I may instance Malda in Bengal,Pagan inBurma

,the Taj

at Agra, Bijapur in Bombay, and Peshawar as localities

1 The Manda restorations wi l l shortly be completed . They render it one of

the most magnificent groups of archaeologica l rem ains inthe East.

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ART

IND IAN ART EXH IBITION AT DELH I

ONE of the principal features of the Delhi Durbar was the Art

Exh ibition in the Kudsia Gardens, where a special building hadbeen erected for the accommodation of a large collection of the

finest art products of modern India. The Exhibitionwas openedby the V iceroy on December 30, 1 90 2 , with the followingspeech .

It is now my pleasant duty to proceed to the first of thefunctions of the present fortnight, and to declare open the

De lhi Art Exhibition. A good many of our visitors wouldscarcely be l ieve that almost everything that we see beforeus except the trees is the creation of the last eight months.When I came here in Apri l last to select the site there wasnot a trace of this great building, of these terraces, and of al lthe amenities that we now see around. They have allsprung into existence for the sake of this Exhibition , andthough the effects Of the Exhibition will , I hope , not be soquickly wiped out, the w ise anscéua is, I am sorry to say,des tined to disappear.Perhaps you wil l expect me to say a few words about

the circumstances in which this Exhibition started intobeing. Ever since I have been in India I have made acareful study of the art industries and handicrafts of th iscountry, once so famous and beautiful, and I have lamented,as many others have done, their progressive deteriorationand decline. When it was settled that we were to hold thisgreat gathering at Delhi, at which there would be assembledrepresentatives of every Province and State in India, IndianPrinces and Chiefs and nobles

,high Ofli cials , native gentle

men,and visitors from all parts of the globe, it struck m e

204

INDIAN ART EXH I BI TION A T DE LH I 205

that here at last was the long- sought opportunity of doingsomething to resuscitate these threatened handicrafts

,to

show to the world of what India is sti l l capable,and

,if pos

sible,to arrest the process of decay. I accordingly sent for

Dr. Watt,1 and I appointed him my right hand for the pur

pose. Far and wide throughout India have he and hisassistant, Mr. Percy Brown , proceeded, travel ling thousandsof miles, everywhere interviewing the artisans, selectingspecimens, giving orders, where necessary supplying models,and advancing money to those who needed it. Three conditions I laid down to be observed like the laws of the Medesand Persians.First

,I stipulated that this must be an Art Exhibition

,

and nothing e lse. We could easily have given you awonderful show il lustrating the industrial and economicdevelopment of India. Dr. Watt has such an exhibition

,

and a very good one too, at Calcutta? We could have

shown you timbers, and minerals, and raw stuffs,and hides

,

and manufactured articles to any extent that you pleased .

It would al l have been very satisfying, but also very ugly.

But I did not want that. I did not mean this to be anindustrial or economic Exhibition . I meant it to be an ArtExhibition

,and that only.

My second condition was that I would not have anything European or quasi - European in it. I declined toadmit any of those horrible objects, such as lamps ongorgeous pedestals, coloured glass lustres, or fantasticstatuettes

,that find such a surprising vogue among certain

classes in this country, but that are bad anywhere in the

world,and worst of all in India, which has an art of its own.

I laid down that I wanted only the work that representedthe ideas

,the traditions, the instincts, and the bel iefs of the

people. It is possible that a few articles that do not answerto my definition may have crept in, because the process of

Europeanisation is going on apace in this country,and the

number of teapots, cream jugs, napkin rings, salt cel lars, andcigarette cases that the Indian artisan is called upon to turn

1 Reporter on Econom ic Products to the Government of India ; now S ir

G. Watt.

9 This is the collectioninthe Imperia l Museum .

206 INDIAN ART EXH I BI TION A T DELH I

out is appall ing. But, generally speaking, my condition hasbeen observed.

Then my third condition was that I would only have thebes t. I did not want cheap cottons and waxcloths, vulgarlacquer, trinkets and tinsel, brass gods and bowls made toorder in Birmingham , or perhaps made in Birmingham itse lf.What I desired was an exhibition of all that is rare, charac

teristic, or beautiful in Indian art, our gold and silver ware,our metal work and enamels and jewellery, our carving inwood and ivory and stone, our best pottery and tiles , ourcarpets of old Oriental patterns, our muslins and silks andembroideries

,and the incomparable Indian brocades. All

of these you wil l see inside this building. But pleaseremember it is not a bazaar, but an Exhibition . Our objecthas been to encourage and revive good work, not to satisfythe requirements of the thinly lined purse.

Such is the general character of the Exhibition . Butwe have added to it something much more important.Conscious that taste is declin ing, and that many of ourmodern models are debased and bad, we have endeavouredto set up alongside the products of the present the standardsand samples of the past. This is the meaning of the LoanCollection, which has a hal l to itself, in which you will seemany beautiful specimens of old Indian art ware

,lent to us

by the generosity of Indian Chiefs and connoisseurs,some of

it coming from our own Indian Museums,and some from

the unrival led collection in the South Kensington Museumin London . Many of these objects are beautiful in themselves but we hope that the Indian workm enwho are here

,

and also the patrons who employ them , will study them notmerely as objects of antiquarian or even artistic interest

,but

as supplying them with fresh or rather resuscitated ideaswhich may be useful to them in inspiring their ownwork inthe future. For this may be laid down as a truism

,that

I ndian art wil l never be revived by borrowing foreign ideals,

but only by fidel ity to its own .

And now I may be asked, What is the object of thisExhibition, and what good do I expect to result from it ?I wil l answer in a very few words. In so far as the declineof the I ndian arts represents the ascendancy of commer

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208 INDIAN ART EXH IBI TION A T DELH I

that takes our fancy in foreign lands. But I do say that ifIndian arts and handicrafts are to be kept alive, it canneverbe by outside patronage alone. It can only be because theyfind a market within the country and express the ideas andculture of its people. I should l ike to see a movementspring up among the Indian Chiefs and nobil ity for theexpurgation, or at any rate the purification, of moderntastes, and for a reversion to the old-fashioned but exquisitestyles and patterns of their own country. Some day I havenot a doubt that it wi ll come. But it may then be too late.

If these are the omens, what then is the aim of thisExhibition, and what purpose do I think that it wi ll serveI cananswer in a word. The Exhibition is intended as anobject lesson . I t is meant to show what India can stillimagine, and create, and do. It is meant to Show that theartistic sense is not dead among its workmen, but that al lthey want is a l ittle stimulus and encouragement. I t ismeant to Show that for the beautification of an Indian houseor the furniture of an Indian home there is no need to rushto the European shops at Calcutta or Bombay

,but that in

almost every Indian State and Province, in most Indiantowns , and in many Indian vi l lages, there stil l survives the

“

art and there sti l l exist the artificers who can satisfy theartistic as well as the util itarian tastes of their countrymen

,

and who are competent to keep al ive this precious inheritance that we have received from the past. I t is with thisobject that Dr. Watt and I have laboured in creating thisExhibition ; and in now declaring it open, it on ly remainsfor me to express the earnest hope that it may in somemeasure fulfi l the strictly patriotic purpose for which it hasbeen designed.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc/z 2 5, 1 903

Hon. members may like to hear something of the resultsof the Art Exhibition which we held at Delhi, and whichwas designed exclusively in the interests of the indigenousarts and industries of this country. What effect the

EXTRACTFROM BUDGE T SPEE CH 1 9 9

Exhibition wil l have upon the future of I ndian art it is of

course impossible as yet to determine. But that it hada wonderful success in cal ling the attention of the outside public

,foreign as wel l as native, to the still vital

capacities of I ndian art, is, I think , certa in. Though the

Exhibition was open but a short time, no fewer thanpersons paid for admission, the cash sales amounted to over

3 lakhs of rupees, and the total rece ipts to more than

4 lakhs. The building cost something more than IQ lakhsand

,apart from that

, the net cost of the Exhibition was onlylakh . I think , therefore, that we may fairly claim , for a

very moderate outlay, to have given an impetus to I ndianart, which ought not to fade away, while the presence in so

many museums and private collections of the beautifulObjects that were purchased from the Exhibition ought toact as a timely advertisement to the stil l unexhausted skil lof our craftsmen and artisans.

BU RMA

DURBAR AT MANDALAY

ON November 28 , 1 90 1 , the V iceroy held a Durbar in the WestThrone-room of the Palace Of Mandalay for the receptionof the

thirty ch iefs of the Southern Shan S tates, who had com e intoMandalay for the purpose, and of the chiefnotables and other native

gentlem enof Burma. He addressed the Durbar as follows

My first and most pleasing duty at this Durbar hasalready been discharged. It has consisted in the presentation of titles and awards of merit to certain of the chiefs ofthe Southern Shan States, and to a number of Burmangentlemen and officers of police, for services rendered intheir several call ings. The distribution of honours is one

of the most delicate of the duties that devo lve upon thehead of the Government of India. But laborious and ofteninvidious as is the task of selecting the few who are mostdeserving among the many who are deserving

,I cansay for

myself that the reward of merit, more particularly if it beunselfish and unostentatious merit, is one of the most agreeable prerogatives that attach to high administrative ofl‘ice.

It gives me the most genuine satisfaction to pick out someworthy recipient for the recognit ion of Government or thefavour of the Crown, especia l ly if he has laboured in com

parat ive remoteness or obscurity ; and m y pleasure iscertainly enhanced when, in these Or other cases

,I am

permitted, as l have been to - day, to be the veh icle of

presentationmyself.The whole of the chiefs of the Southern Shan States

,

from as far east as Keng Tung, and as far south as Karenni,have passed before me this afternoon

,in addition to those

2 10

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2 12 DURBAR A TMANDALA Y

of the oldes t and most cultured of religions ; on the otherhand , one has only to proceed to the north-eastern borderto encounter tribes who stil l derive pleasure from cuttingoff each other’s heads. I doubt if the north-wes tern frontierof I ndia, which I know well, presents features more diversifiedthan yours on the north-east. The frontiers of Upper Burmatouch those of China and Assam they bring the territoriesof Great Britain into contiguity with the Asiatic dominionsof France ; they extend to the boundaries of Manipur andAssam ; and they shade away on the north into unvisitedtracts peopled by unknown and semi-savage tribes . Hereis a s ituation and a task that wi ll occupy the genius of theBritish race for many a long day to come. A hundred yearshence Upper Burma, with its immense resources developed ,

its waterways util ised, its communications improved , itspopulation many times multiplied

,and peace reigning from

the Hukong Valley to the Gulf Of Martaban , and from theLushai Hills to Yunnan , wil l be as much unlike its presentcondition as the Bengal of to-day is unlike the Bengal ofWarren Hastings. Your population in the Upper Province ,excluding the Shan States, is less than four millions. Witha temperate climate, a fertile soi l, cheap and abundant food,and practical immunity from famine, I see no reason why itshould not one day be fourteen mil lions. I wish that I couldlive to see it. But as that is impossible

,I rejoice to think of

what remains for those who come after me to do,and that

not for many generations wil l India fail within its borders toprovide my countrymen with the work for which their instinctsseem especially to fit them among the nations of the earth.

In Upper Burma the stages of your evolution havebeen relatively rapid . In the sixteen years that haveelapsed since annexation I detect four distinct landmarksof advance. First came the era of conquest

,which was

shortly and swiftly achieved. Next came the period of

disorder and guerilla warfare, following upon conquest, inwhich, upon a larger scale and on a much wider stage, ourtroops are now engaged in South Africa

,and which here

also was not without its vicissitudes and its trials. Nextcame the task of internal reconstruction in the newlyacquired territories, of instituting a proper system of land

DURBAR A TMANDALA y 2 13

records and land assessments , of providing for the dueadministration of civi l and criminal justice

, of organisingan efli cient police, of encouraging the marked aptitudesof the people for education, of making roads, bridges , andrailways, of extending the post and the telegraph, of building hospitals and dispensaries, of diffusing the benefits of

vaccination and sanitation , of developing agriculture andspreading irrigation

, of pacifying the hill tracts and tran

quillis ing the tribes. Finally, and simultaneously with theth ird

,comes the fourth stage of development, in which the

lack of wealth in the country requires to be supplementedfrom the outside, enabling your wonderful resources intimber

,in oil

,and in gems to be exploited by organised

enterprise and capital. Practically the whole of thesestages in your recent history have been supervised by yourpresent Lieutenant-Governor. I cannot conceive a prouderreflection with which an Indian administrator can leave theseshores

,as in the course of next year Sir F. Fryer wi ll be

called upon to do,than that he has nursed so sturdy a

child of Empire from chi ldhood to adolescence. He hasbeen in the position of a sculptor who is given the choicestblock of marble, and is hiddento shape it to hatwever inthe art of statuary his own imagination or the capacity of

the material may suggest.Statistics are always considered to be rather a repel lent

study ; but they sometimes il lustrate, in a concrete form andwith tell - tale directness, an argument or a proposition andthey are

,after all

,the quarry from which the historian of

the future must hew. If any one, therefore, here presentdesires to be convinced that I have not been dealing inunsupported generalisations

,I may inform him that since

annexation the revenue of Upper Burma has increased from

56 lakhs to 14 15 lakhs, and that the population during thelast decade has increased by nearly or between 14

and 1 5 per cent. If he is disposed to identify the progressof a country with the opening of communications, he wil llike to know that

,whereas Upper Burma had not a single

mile of railway in 1 8 8 6, it now possesses 8 50 miles ; andthat over 3000 miles of road are now Open in the province,of which 700 are the work of the past five years. If he

2 14 DURBAR A TMANDALA Y

is an apostle of irrigation, he will be gratified at the

impending opening of the Mandalay Canal, executed a t

a cost of nearly 50 lakhs , and destined to irrigateacres. If he is not satisfied with this, he may be pleasedto learn that the Shwebo Canal, which will cost about thesame amount

,has already been begun, and that the Mon

Canals on a similar scale wil l follow—these three workswhen completed costing l ittle short of one mil lion sterling.

If my friend to whom I am referring is a champion of

law and order, he may take pride in the fact that so wel lbehaved is the Upper Province that in 1 900 there wereonly 14 5 cases of violent crime, as compared with morethan three times the number in Lower Burma. Final ly,if he is a Burman patriot, I would invite him to facilitatethe efforts which are being made by the British Government to employ the Burmans in the administration of thei rcountry

,by inducing them to take every advantage of the

educational facilities which are every day be ing offered tothem in a greater degree.I have only one further reflection to add and I address

it to those persons in this audience, and through them tothe wider outside public

,who belong to the Burman race.

Because the British have come to this country and haveintroduced the reforms of which I have been speaking, wedo not

, therefore, wish that the people should lose thecharacteristics and traditions

,in so far as they are good,

of their own race. I t is a difficult thing,as I have often

said elsewhere,to fuse the East and West ; but no fusion

can be efl'

ected by suppressionof national habits and traits.The Burmans were celebrated in former times for theirsense of respect—respect for parents, respect for elders,respect for teachers, respect for those in authority. No

society can exist in a healthy state without reverence. Itis the becoming tribute paid by the inferior to the superior,whether his superiority be in position, in rank, or in age ,

and it is the foundation - stone of civic duty. I shouldthink the advantages of the education which we give youdearly paid for if they were accompanied by any weakeningin these essential ties. Again, if civil isation were foundto encourage a taste for such pursuits as betting and

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CH I EFS AND PR I NCES OF I ND I A

STATE BANQUET AT GWALIOR

ON November 29, 1 8 99, Lord Curzon delivered the followingspeech at the S tate Banquet onthe occasionof his firs tvis it to theMaharaja Scindia at Gwalior. I t was the firs t of the speeches inwhich the V iceroy outlined his policy towards the Native Sta tes,and it has frequently beenquoted inconsequence.

I n rising to thank His Highnes s for the agreeablemanner in which he has proposed the health of LadyCurzon and myse lf, I feel that I am enjoying one of thehappiest experiences of an Indian Viceroy in coming for

the first time as a guest to the Ruler and the State of

Gwalior. There is in this place such a pleasing and uncommon blend of old-world interest with the liveliest spiritof modern progress, that one hardly knows whether theimaginative or the practical side of nature is more}thril ledby all that one sees and bears . The official visits of

Viceroys to Native States are sometimes deprecated onthescore of the ceremonial , and perhaps costly formalities, whichthey involve

,and of their time-honoured attributes of pomp

and display. I am not inclined to share these views. Tome personally there is no more interesting part of myIndian work than the opportunities which are presentedto me, on tour or elsewhere, of an introduction to theacquaintance, and, as I fondly hope ,

to the confidence, ofthe native Princes and Chiefs of India ; and if these Princesprefer, as I bel ieve they do prefer, to receive the representative of the sovereign whom they all acknowledge

,and for

whom they entertain a profound and chivalrous devotion,

with a dignity becoming both to his position and to their2 16

S TA TE BANQUE T A T GWALIOR 2 17

own rank, I think that he would be a captious and sourminded critic who were to deny them an opportunity whichI bel ieve to be as highly appreciated by the ir subjects as itis valued by themselves.The spectacle and the problem of the Native States of

India are indeed a subject that never loses its fascination formy mind . Side by side with our own system, and sometimesalmost surrounded by British territory, there are found inthis wonderful country the possessions, the administration,the proud authority

,and the unchal lenged traditions of the

native dynasties 1—a combination which, both in thepicturesque variety of its contrast, and sti l l more in the

smooth harmony of its Operation , is, I be lieve, withoutparal lel in the history of the world. The British Govemment, alone of Governments

,has succeeded in the wise

policy of building up the security and safeguarding therights of its feudatory principalities ; and to this are duethe stability of their organisation , and the loyalty of theirrulers. I rejoice wherever I go to scrutinise the practicaloutcome of this policy, to observe the States consolidated ,

the chiefs powerful,and their privileges unimpaired.

But I also do not hesitate to say, wherever I go, that

a return is owing for these advantages, and that securitycannot be repaid by l icence

,or the guarantee of rights by

the unchartered exercise of wrong. The native Chief hasbecome

,by our policy

,an integral factor in the Imperial

organisation of India. He is concerned not less than theViceroy or the Lieutenant-Governor in the administrationof the country. I claim him as my col league and partner.He cannot remain Dis 1? wk of the Empire a loyal subjectof Her Majesty the Queen -Empress

,and 01

'

s GDir of his ownpeople a frivolous or irresponsible despot. He must justifyand not abuse the authority committed to him ; he mustbe the servant as well as the master of his people. Hemust learn that his revenues are not secured to him for

his own selfish gratification,but for the good of his sub

jects ; that his internal administration is only exempt fromcorrection inproportion as it is honest ; and that his gadz

'

1 There are inall some 600 Native S tates inInd ia, but thevast m ajority of

these are insignificant insize and status, and only about 100 are of importance.

2 1s S TA TE BANQUE T A T GWALIOR

is not intended to be a divan of indulgence, but the sternseat of duty . His figure should not merely be known on

the polo-ground, or on the racecourse , or in the Europeanhotel. These may be his relaxations, and I do not saythat they are not legitimate relaxations ; but his real work ,his princely duty

,l ies among his own people. By th is

standard shal l I , at any rate, judge him. By this test wi l lhe in the long run, as a political institution, perish orsurvive.I t is with the greater freedom that I venture upon these

remarks on the present occasion because I do not knowanywhere of a Prince who better exemplifies their application, or who shows a more consistent tendency to act upto the ideal which I have sketched ,

than the youngMaharaja whose splendid hospitality we are enjoying thisevening. Before I arrived in I ndia I had heard of his

public spirit, his high sense of duty, his devotion to the

interests of his country. During my first few days inCa lcutta I had , as he has mentioned, the pleasure of makinghis acquaintance and now in his own State the opportunityis presented to me of improving it, which I very highlyprize, and of seeing at first hand the excellent work whichhe is doing in almost every branch of administration .

The Maharaja appears to me,from all I have heard, to

have realised that the secret of successful government ispersonality. If he expects his ofl‘icials to follow an

example, he himself must set it. If he desires to conquertorpor or apathy, he must exhibit enthusiasm . Everywherehe must be to his people the embodiment of sympatheticinterest

, of personal authority, of dispassionate zeal. Thereis no position to which a Prince who fulfi ls this conceptionmay not aspire in the affections of his countrymen , andthere is scarcely any l imit to his capacity of useful serviceto the State.

[The remainder of the speech which was of personal and localinterest, is om itted ]

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220 S TA TE BANQUE T A TJ A IPUR

few words from Your Excellency’

s speech at Rajkot to the assembledchiefs and pupils of the Rajkumar College in Novem ber 1 900.

Your Excellency said, While youare proud to acquire the aecom

plishments of English gentlem en, do not forget that youare Ind ian

nob les or Indian princes . Let the land of your b irth have a

superior claim uponyouto the language of your adoption.

’I am

thoroughly inaccord wi th these wise rem arks, and I think it wouldbe well if they were taken to heart by all the nob les and princesof India. Though I do not know English, I have had all Your

Excellency’s speeches translated to me, and have derived from them

both encouragem ent and strength .

I cannot om it m entioning that I have recently received furtherencouragem ent by m yvis it to England, where I went as a H induand Rajput Ch ief determ ined to observe all m y owncustom s andways, even ina foreigncountry. I t was a keenpleasure to m e to

ob serve that the good and kind peop le of England l iked me none

the worse for clinging closely to the ways of m y fathers.

“ Your Excellency’s words, and still more Your Excellency

’

s

deeds, infounding the Cadet Corps and inim proving the educationgivenat the Mayo College and other sim ilar institutions in India,and your many acts of kindness and cons ideration towards us,

prove that Your Excellency is one of the best friends of the RulingChiefs of India, and I canonly say, and say it from m y heart, thatI would do anything to deserve such a friendsh ip .

“ I cannot close m y speech without referring to the great ceremony that is going to take place at Delhi a few weeks hence. I

had the honour of witnessing the Coronationof H is Majesty K ingEdward V I I . , Em peror of India, and of H er Majesty QueenAlexandra. The solemnand im pos ing cerem ony m ade the deepestim pressiononm y m ind, and, I cansafely say, onthe m inds of all

my brother chiefs who were present there. The great gathering at

Delh i will celebrate the sam e occasion, and I feel it would be a

great m istake were so im portant an event to be ignored or onlysuperficially honoured in m y own dear country . Moreover, the

cerem onies now contem plated at Delhi are entirely in accordancewith H indu ideas both from the S tate and religious standpoints .

Our own ancient books contain m any graph ic and interestingaccounts of the pom p and pageantry attending uponthe coronationof the kings of those days.

“ S ince the British rule becam e param ount in India no suchopportunity as the present has ever occurred, and it is our duty as

well as our pleasure to participate in the cerem onies proposed,which should be devised ona scale befitting so great an occas ion.

In th is way alone canour King-Em peror understand the deep andreal feel ing of loyalty wh ich insp ires the chiefs of Ind ia and their

peoples . Few study ceremonials more carefully thanmyself, and I

S TATE BANQUE T A TjAIPUR 22 1

say, after a close considerationof the programme wh ich has beenordained for the Coronation Durbar at Delhi, that inview of the

unique nature of the occas ion—the crowning of a K ing-Em peror,of thevastness of the gathering, and of the m any changes wroughtby railways and other agencies, no more sens ib le and considerateprogramm e could have beendevised . I t is for a special occas ion,and it inno wise detracts from our privi leges and honours . We

are al] looking forward to meeting Your Excellency there as the

representative of the Sovereign to whom we unite in loyalty anddevotion. Inm yview, the princes of India will derive great benefitfrom taking part insuch a ceremonyThe V iceroy replied as follows

It seems to me a not unbecoming thing that the last visitthat I should pay upon this tour in Rajputana should be tothis celebrated State, that the last of the Rajput Chiefs bywhom I should have the honour of being entertained shouldbe one so imbued with the highest traditions and aspirationsof his race as the Maharaja of Jaipur, and that the concluding speech of my tour should be delivered in reply toremarks of so striking a character and so notable an importance as those to which we have just l istened. At theend of my fourth year of ofl‘i ce I now have the pleasure ofknowing the large majority of the Princes and Chiefs of

I ndia ; and I rejoice to learn from the lips of one so wellqualified to speak on their behalf that they recognise in mea devoted well -wisher and friend. I do not merely say thisas the representative of the Sovereign to whom their loyaltyis so warm , and whom they vie with each other in honouringin the person of his deputy. I speak as the head of theIndian Administration

,and as the champion of the interests

of India itself—in which the welfare and security of itschiefs are wrapped up and involved.

Your Highness has reminded m e that three years ago Iclaimed the Indian Chiefs as my colleagues and partners inthe task of Indian administration? I t is as such, as fel lowworkers in their several exalted stations, that I have eversince continued to treat and to regard them. On manyoccas ions I have discussed with them the conditions andcircumstances of their own government, and on others, asYour Highness knows full well, I have sought and obtained

1 Vida p. 2 17.

222 S TATE BANQUE T A TjA lPUR

their co-operation and advice. I have often recapitulatedthe benefits which in my view the continued exis tence of

the Native States confers upon Indian society. Amid thelevelling tendencies of the age and the inevitable monotonyof government conducted upon scientific lines, they keepal ive the traditions and customs, they sustain the viri l ity,and they save from extinction the pict

'

uresquenes s of ancientand noble races. They have that indefinable quality,endearing them to the people, that arises from their beingborn of the soil. They provide scope for the activities of

the hereditary aristocracy of the country,and employment

for native intel lect and ambition. Above al l , I realise, moreperhaps in Rajputana than anywhere else, that they constitute a school of manners, valuable to the Indian , and notless valuable to the European , showing in the person of

their chiefs that i l lustrious l ineage has not ceased to implantnoble and chivalrous ideas

,and maintaining those old

fashioned and puncti l ious standards of publ ic spirit andprivate courtesy which have always been instinctive in theIndian aristocracy, and with the loss of which, if ever theybe allowed to disappear, I ndian society wil l go to pieces l ikea dismasted vessel in a storm .

It sometimes seems to be thought, because the BritishGovernment exercises polit ical control over these Stateswhich is the reverse side of the security that we guaranteeto them ,

- that we desire of a delibe rate purpose to Anglicisethe Feudatory States in India. That is no part of my idea

,

and it has most certainly been no feature of my practice .

We want their administrat ion to be conducted upon businessprinciples and with economy. We want public works to bedeveloped and the education and welfare of the poorerclasses considered . We want to dimin ish the Openings formoney -grabbing, corruption , or oppression. We want a

Native State, when fam ine comes, to treat i t both withmethod and with generosity. In so far as these standardshave been developed by British rule in th is country

,m ay

they be cal led English. But if any one th inks that we wantto overrun Native States with Engl ishm en

,or to stamp out

the id iosyncrasies of nat ive thought and custom,thenhe is

strangely mistaken . Englishmenare Often requi red to start

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224 S TA TE BANQUE T A TJ A IPUR

been wiped out of existence. For that service the RajputChiefs have always been profoundly grateful, and they haverepaid it by unswerving loyalty to the British Crown . Butit would be a thousand pities if, having thus saved Rajputanafrom the break up of war and rapine, we were now to see

this aristocratic structure and these ancient institutions goto pieces under the scarcely less disintegrating influences of

prosperity and peace. I would fain hope that this ancientsociety

,which was never absorbed by the Moghul , and which

has stood the strain of centuries of conflict and siege, maylearn so to adapt itse lf to the conditions of the age as to findin the British sovereignty the sure guarantee of its l ibertiesand traditions, as wel l as a trustworthy guide on the pathwayof administrative progress and reform .

Your Highnes s knows also that I have made no concealm ent of what are my views as to the character and dutyof native Chiefs. Those views have not always been popular,and I have often seen them misrepresented or misunderstood.

My ideal has never been the butterfly that flits aimles s lyfrom flower to flower, but the working be that bui lds itsownhive and makes its own honey. To such a man al l myheart goes out in sympathy and admiration . He is dear tohis own people, and dear to the Government whom I represent. Sometimes I cast my eyes into the future ; and Ipicture a state of society in which the Indian Princes

,trained

to al l the advantages of Western culture,but yet not divorced

in instinct or in mode of l ife from their own people, wil l fi l lan even ampler part than at present in the administration of

this Empire. I would dearly like to see that day. But itwil l not come if an Indian Chief is at liberty to be a spendthrift or an idler or an absentee. It can only come if, asYour Highness has said, he remains true to his religion , histraditions, and his people.Your Highness, if I may say so, has set a noble example

of what such a ruler may be and do. We know your princelymunificence in respect of the Famine Trust and many othergood works ; and we are aware of your S ingle - hearteddevotion to the interests of your State. When I persuadedYour Highness to go to England as the chosen representativeof Rajputana at the Coronation of the King, you felt some

S TA TE BANQUE T ATJ A IPUR 225

hes itat ion as to the sharp separation from your home andfrom the duties and practices of your previous life. But youhave returned fortified with the conviction that dignity andsimplicity of character, and uprightness and magnanimity of

conduct, are esteemed by the nobil ity and people in Englandnot less than they are here. I hope that Your Highness’sexample may be followed by those who come after you, andthat it may leave an enduring mark in Indian history.

In the concluding observations of your speech, YourHighness alluded to the forthcoming Durbar at Delhi tocelebrate the Coronation of H is Majesty the King ; and Iwas beyond measure gratified when I heard you say

,on

behalf of the princely class whom you represent, that after aclose consideration of the prOposals that have been made forthe participation of the Indian Chiefs, you entirely approveof their nature. I can scarcely describe to Your Highnessthe anxious labour that I have devoted to these arrangements . My one desire

,as Your Highness knows, since I

have explained it by circular letter to al l the Chiefs, has beenthat the Indian Princes

,instead of being mere spectators of

the ceremony, as they were in 1 8 77 , should be actors in it.It is their King-Emperor, as well as mine and ours, whoseCoronation is be ing celebrated and it seemed to me entirelywrong that the Chiefs should sit or stand outs ide, as though itwere a function that only affected the V iceroy or the Britishofl‘icials in this country, but had no concern for them. TheDurbar is not the Viceroy’s Durbar. It is held for the

Sovereign, and the Sovereign alone ; and it is to mark thefeelings that are entertained towards him by al l the Princesof India without exception that I have invited their personalparticipation in these great and imposing events. So farshould I be from seeking to detract from the honour of theChiefs that my one preoccupation has been to add to it. Iam glad that Your Highness has so thoroughly understoodand so generously appreciated my desires and I haveevery reason to hOpe that a successful realisation wil l liebefore them .

226 INS TALLA TION OF NA WA B OE BAHA WALPUR

INSTALLATION OF NAWAB OF

BAHAWALPUR

On Novem ber 1 2 , 1 903, the V iceroy visited Bahawalpur inorder to invest H is H ighness Nawab Muhamm ad Bahawal KhanBahadur with full powers of adm inistrationas Ruling Chief of the

State. The ceremony took p lace inthe Durbar Hall of the Palace,and the V iceroy spoke as follows

I have come to Bahawalpur in order to instal the youngNawab upon the musnud of his State. This is the leadingMohammedan principality in the north of India

,and I felt

that I should like to offer to the State and to its ruler thesame marks of official and personal interest as I have doneto Hindu States and to Hindu Princes in other parts of the

country. The occasion is official , for it is as representativeof the Sovereign that I am about to invest the young chiefwith full powers of administration ; but it is personal also,for I desire to testify to the Nawab and to his people mykeen interest in his welfare and my hopes for his future.

When the British Crown, through the Viceroy, and theIndian Princes, in the person of one of their number

,are

brought together on an occasionof so much importance as

an instal lation ceremony, it is not unnatural that we shouldreflect for a moment on the nature of the ties that areresponsible for this association. They are peculiar andsignificant ; and, so far as I know, they have no paral lel inany other country in the world. The po litical system of

I ndia is neither Feudalism nor Federation; it is embodiedin no Constitution ; it does not always rest upon Treaty ;and it bears no resemblance to a League. It represents aseries of relationships that have grown up betweenthe Crownand the Indian Princes under widely differing historica lconditions

,but which in process of time have gradual ly

conformed to a single type. The sovereignty of the Crownis everywhere unchallenged . I t has itself laid down thelimitations of its own prerogative. Conversely the dutiesand the service of the States are implicitly recognised

,and

as a rule faithfully discharged. I t is th is happy blend of

authority with free-wil l, of sentiment with self- interest, of

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228 INS TALLATION OF NAWAB OF BAHAWALPUR

more thantwo years’ total revenue ; he himself has profitedby education at one of the Chiefs’ Col leges, where he

distinguished himse lf, and he has since shown that hepossesses unusual aptitudes for administration . He seem s

to m e to be beginning his public career under anauspiciousstar.I do not say that no difficulties attend the path of the

young Chief. Onthe contrary, I think that they are manyand perplexing. There is the difl

'iculty of reconcil ing fidelity

to the traditions of an Oriental people with the principlesthat are imbibed from Western civil isation . There is thedifficulty of placing restraint upon his impulses or passionsas a man where these conflict with his duties as a ruler.There is the difficulty, but the necessity, of maintaining aclear line between public and private expenditure, and of

remembering that the resources of the State be long to the

people, and not to the Chief, and if contributed by them in

one form , ought for the most part to be given back inanother. There is the d ifl

'iculty of hitting the mean between

attempting too much and doing too little. But al l of theseare difficulties which only exist to be surmounted , and bywhich a man of level judgment and self- control need neverbe appal led .

Your Highness, I am now about to invest you with ful lpowers of administration in your State. This is a turningpoint in your life, from which will date the reputation forgood or the reverse that wil l one day attach to your name.I believe and hope myself that it wil l be the former and notthe latter, and that you mean to be, as you have a capacityfor being, one of the rulers whose names are uttered with

gratitude and remembered with respect. There are fiveduties that I enjoin upon you as you take up the task .

Be loyal to your Sovereign, who is the ultimate source andguarantee of your powers. Regard the Government of

India and the local Government under which you areimmediately placed as your protectors and sponsors. Treatthe political officer with whom you are brought into contact,not as your tutor or mentor, but as a counsellor and friend .

Be just and considerate to the nobles of your State ; youowe a duty to them just as much as they to you . And

INS TA LLATION OF NA WAB OF BAHAWALPUR 229

lastly,never let a day pass without thinking of your people,

and praying to Almighty God that you, who have so much,may do something for them who have so little. If theseare the principles by which you regulate your conduct, yoursubjects and your friends wil l look back upon this day notas a tamaS /Ia that is forgotten as soon as it is over, but asthe dawn of a bright and prosperous era for the State of

Bahawalpur.

INSTALLATION OF MAHARAJA OF ULWAR

The V iceroy visited Ulwar on Decem ber 1 0, 1 903, for the

purpose of installing onthe gadi the young Maharaja Jai S ingh,who had just attained the age of z 1 . The ceremony took p lacein the Durbar H all of the Palace, where the V iceroy m ade thefollowing speech

His Highness the Maharaja, whom I have come here toinstal to- day, is the third Indian Prince whom it has beenmy privilege to invest with ful l powers during my time ?

I regard this, and I hope and am sure that the Maharajaregards it

,as no idle pageant or occasion for the mere

exchange of complimentary words. On the contrary, thereseems to me to be great solemnity in the moment whena young Chief takes over the rule of his country and hispeople ; and I consider it a most right and befitting thingthat the representative of the monarch whom he acknowledges, and who is the final sanction of his powers, shouldattend to perform the ceremony in person, and thus demonstrate the personal interest of the Sovereign in the Princeswho surround and support his throne. I am told that itis many a long year since any Rajput Prince was investedby a Governor General of India, and that there is noRuling Chief now living in this part of India who wasthus instal led. What may have been the reason for thisI do not know. But whether I am creating a new precedent,or merely reviving an old one, I at least feel sure of onething

,namely

,that the reciprocal re lations of the British

Crown and the I ndian Princes canlose nothing, and may gain1 The others were the Maharaja ofMysore and the Nawab of Bahawalpur.

239 INS TALLA TION OF MAHARAJ A OF ULWAR

a good dea l, by their association at a moment of such importance in the life of the young ruler. For each of the twoparties is naturally brought to consider his own positionand his relations to the other ; and the result is not onlya clear understanding, but an incentive to high resolve anda trumpet -call to duty. The Crown, through its represemtative, recognises its double duty of protection and se lfrestraint of protection, because it has assumed the task of

defending the State and Chief against all foes and of

promoting their joint interests by every means in its power ;of self-restraint

,because the Paramount Power must be

careful to abstain from any course calculated to promote itsown interests at the expense of those of the State. For itspart, the State, thus protected and secured, accepts thecorresponding obligation to act in all things with loyaltyto the Sovereign Power, to abstain from all acts injuriousto the Government, and to conduct its own affairs withintegrity and credit. These are the reciprocal rights and

duties that are cal led to mind by the presence of the

Viceroy on such an occasion as this ; and for my own partI should like to think that the ceremony of instal lation wil lbe will ingly undertakenby him in al l cases where the highrank and the good reputationof the Chief may be held todeserve the compliment.I sometimes think that there is no grander opportunity

than that which opens out before a young Indian Princeinvested with powers of rule at the dawn of manhood . Heis among his own people. He is very likely drawn , as isthe Maharaja whom we are honouring to-day

, from an

ancient and il lustrious race. Respect and reverence are hisnatural heritage

,unless he is base enough or foolish enough

to throw them away. He has, as a rule, ample means athis disposal

,enough both to gratify any reasonable desire

,

and to Show char ity and munificence to others. Subject tothe control of the Sovereign Power, he enjoys very substantial authority

,and can be a ruler in reality as well as in

name. These are his private advantages. Then look at hispubl ic position. He is secure against rebel lion inside theState or invasion from without. He need maintainno costlyarmy

,for his territories are defended for him he need fight

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232 INS TALLATION OF MAHARAJ A OF ULWAR

and I bel ieve you to be inspired by a true and sinceredesire to deserve wel l of your State and your people.

I need not repeat to you the truisms to which I have so

often given utterance elsewhere. For you know as, wel l asI do what is the difference between a good Chief and aninferior Chief ; and you know that to those who belong tothe former class opens out a vista of usefulness and honourand renown

,while the latter are speedily wiped out and

perish from the thoughts of men . But though I need notrepeat any of these things, there is one consideration of

which I may remind you, and which in itself will supply astimulus to good deeds. Upon you it rests both to sustainthe reputation of your family, so wel l known for loyalty andpatriotism

,and to support the honour and prestige of the

Rajput name. There is a saying in the Latin language,namely

, Corruptz'

o optz'

m z'

paSS I'

m a , which means that thefailure of the best becomes the worst ; I think that it holdstrue of blood and race as wel l as of moral virtues. A RajputPrince who fal ls away from the ideals of his house and clanis committing a worse ofl

’

ence than a smaller man, becausehe is casting a stain upon that which we are fond of

regarding as the mirror of chivalry and high breeding. Buta Rajput Prince who is noble in character and blameless indeeds is adding something on his own account to the

ancestral and famous reputation of his race.

Above all, remember, Maharaja—and these shal l be myfinal words,—that the l ife Of a successful ruler cannot bea succession of fits and starts

,now a Spurt of activity and

wel l-doing, and then a relapse into apathy or indifference.

Every time that you slip backwards you miss someground which it is difficult to recover. On the other hand ,if each move is a step forward, however sl ight, your footholdis always secure and no one can upset you . Remember,therefore, that you are like a runner in a long-distancerace, in which there is no need to go very quickly at thestart, because you wil l want your breath and your strengthlater on , but in which you must husband your resourcesand regulate your speed. I call it a long-distance race,because in the case of a Ruling Chief the race only endswith his l ife. He cannot leave the course while he has

INS TALLA TION OF MAHARAJ A OF ULWAR 233

breath in him . Though he may have started on the firstround when he was only a youth

,he may stil l be engaged

upon the last when his limbs are failing and his strengthhas grown dim . l earnestly hope that your course will belong and honourable ; that you will neither stumble nor loseheart ; and that many future Viceroys, as they visit thisState in the years to come

,may find the good omens of

this day fulfi l led,and may envy me for having inaugurated

a rule that has turned out to be creditable to yourself andbeneficial to your people.

DALY COLLEGE,INDORE

OnNovem ber 4, 1 905, s ixty-five Chiefs and Thakors of CentralInd ia, with followers, were assem b led at Indore to b id farewell to the V iceroy and to be present at the ceremony of laying thefoundation-stone of the new Daly Ch iefs

’

College. Lord Curzonwas prevented by illness from going to Indore to perform the cerem ony, but deputed Mr. S . M. Fraser, lately Foreign Secretary, toread the speech wh ich he was to have delivered, and wh ich containedhis parting m essage to the Ch iefs of India. I t was as follows

This is the last occasion,I imagine

,on which I shal l ever

address an assemblage of Indian Chiefs. But it is perhapsnot the least important, since we are founding or refoundinghere tod ay one of those institutions in whose welfare I havealways taken the deepest interest

,because in their success

is bound up the success of the princely class whose sonswill be educated within its walls

,and who will stand or fall

in the future according to the character that is in them fromtheir birth, and the shape that is given to that character byeducation .

The Old Daly College was founded here as long ago as1 8 8 1 , in the time of that excellent and beloved PoliticalOfficer

,Sir Henry Daly. It was a College for the scions of

the princely and aristocratic classes of Central India. I tdid its work within certain l imits fairly well. But its scopewas too narrow it was not sufficiently supported by thosefor whom it was intended it gradual ly dwindled in numbersand util ity ; it became overshadowed by the Mayo College

234 DAL Y COLLE GE ,INDORE

at Ajmer ; and nearly four years ago, when I presided overthe Conference on Chiefs’ Colleges at Calcutta, we all fel tthat the best thing to do would be

,not exactly to merge the

Daly College in the larger institution,but to maintain it as

a feeder to the latter,and to encourage the Central I ndia

chiefs to give their support and to send their sons for thefinishing stages of their education to Ajmer.Then two unforeseen things happened. In proportion

as our interest and expenditure on the Mayo College beganto strengthen and popularise that institution, turning it intoa Chiefs’ College worthy of the name, and drawing its

recruits not from Rajputana only,but from the whole of

Northern and even sometimes from Southern India—so dida spirit of emulation and pride begin to stir in the bosomsof the Central India Chiefs

,and they said to themselves

Are we merely to be the handmaid of Ajmer ? Shall wenot have a pacca Chiefs

’ College of our own ? May we notrevive the glories of the Daly College and prove to the worldthat in the modern pursuit of enlightenment and progressCentral India is not going to lag behind ?

The second occurrence was this. I sent Major Daly asAgent to the Governor-General to Indore, and he speedilymade the discovery that the Central I ndia Chiefs wereanxious, not indeed to withdraw their support from Ajmer,but to give it in independent and larger measure to a Collegeof their own , and to find the money and provide theguarantees that would raise the Daly College to a level ofequal dignity and influence. Imbued with natural ardourand with the additional desire to resuscitate and vindicatehis father’s origina l a im , he pushed the matter forward, asdid Mr. Bayley in the interval before he left Central Indiafor Hyderabad, and pressed the claims of the new schemeupon the Government of India .

Thus in the energy of these two officers, and stil l morein the enthusiasm and l ibera l ity of the Central India Chiefs,notably those Of the wealthier States of Gwal ior, Indore ,and Rewa, we have the origin of the movement which weare carrying forward to day to a further stage

,and the secret

of the rejuvenated Daly College,which

,Phoenix - l ike

,is about

to spring from the unexhausted ashes of its predecessor, and

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236 DAL Y COLLEGE , INDORE

not far distant when each State, instead of having to com eto the Government of India for any form of expert ass is tance that it may require

,whether it be a Dewan , or a Coun

cillor, or an Educational Officer, or an Estate Manager, oran Officer of Imperial Service Troops, or an Engineer, wi llhave in its midst a body of young men, sprung from itse lf,l iving on its soil

,and devoted to its interest, who will help

the Chief or the Durbar in the work of development oradministration . The old-fashioned sirdar or thakor who hasfollowed the ways of his ancestors, and is often unacquaintedwith English

,wil l tend to disappear, and will be replaced

by a younger generation with new ideals and a modern education . The change iwill sometimes have its drawbacks ;but it is inevitable ,

'

and on the whole it wil l be for the good.

You cannot have a number of these Colleges scattered aboutIndia—there wil l now be four principal ones, namely, thoseat Ajmer, Lahore, Rajkot, and Indore, as wel l as many subs id iary institutions,—you cannot turn out annual ly somescores of highly educated young Indian gentlemen , broughtup with the sort of training that is given in these institutions,without producing a far-reaching effect upon the aristocracyof India. People do not see it yet, because they hardlyknow what we are doing at these places

,or the immense

strides that are being made. But in India I am alwayslooking ahead . I am thinking of what will happen fiftyyears hence, and I confidently assert that from these yearsof active labour and fermentation there must spring resultsthat wil l alter the face of Native States and wil l convert theI ndian nobility and land -owning classes into a much morepowerful and progressive factor in India of the future.And now

,Your Highnesses

,in this my message of fare

wel l to the Indian Princes what shall I say ? They knowthat throughout my term of ofl‘ice one of my main objectshas been to promote their welfare

,to protect their interests

,

to stimulate their energies,and to earn their esteem . No

thing in this wonderful land, which has fired the impulsesand drained the strength of the best years of my life, hasappealed to me more than the privilege of cO-operation withthe Chiefs of India—men sprung from ancient lineage

,

endowed with no ordinary powers and responsibilities, and

DAL Y COLLE GE ,INDORE 237

possessing nobil ity of character as wel l as of birth. Itseemed to me from the start that one Of the proudest objectswhich the representative of the Sovereign in India could setbefore himself would be to draw these rulers to his side

,to

win their friendship, to learn their opinions and needs, andto share with them the burden of rule. That is why l cal ledthem my colleagues and partners in the speech that I madeat Gwalior six years ago ; why I bade them to Delhi andhave frequently been honoured by their company at Calcuttawhy I have personally insta l led this Chief, and enhancedthe powers of that have gone in and out among them

, so

that there is scarcely an access ible Native State in Indiathat I have not visited ; have corresponded with them andthey with me ; unti l at the end of it all I can truthfullyspeak of them not merely as colleagues and partners

,but as

personal friends. For the same reason I am here tod ay,so

that almost my last official act in I ndia may be one thatbrings me into contact with the princely class to whom I amso deeply attached, and who have shown me such repeatedmarks of their regard , never more so than during the pastfew weeks inconnection with my approaching departure.

Your Highnesses, what is it that we have been doingtogether during the past seven years ? What marks orsymptoms can we point to of positive advance ? To methe answer seems very clear. The Chiefs have been doinga great dea l , and the Government have been trying to doa great deal also. When their States have been attackedby famine, the Chiefs have readily accepted the higher andmore costly standards of modern administration

,and the

Durbars have courageously thrown themselves into the

struggle. There has been a noticeable rising of the toneand qual ity Of internal administration al l round ; many of

the Chiefs have reformed their currency, and have devotedmore funds to public works and to education . They havelearned to husband instead of squandering their resources

,

and have set before themselves a high conception of duty.

When we have had external wars the Princes have free lyoffered assistance in troops, horses, and supplies. I cannot readily forget the hospital- ship which that enlightenedPrince

,Maharaja Scindia, who is here to-day, equipped at

238 DAL Y COLLEGE ,INDORE

his own expense and took out to China. Several of theChiefs have volunteered their own services also. When Iaddressed them last year about Imperial Service Troopsthey replied to me in language of the utmost cordiality andencouragement. There have been other services that cannot be omitted . When we have internal calamity or distress

,as in the case of the recent earthquake, the purses of

the Chiefs are always Open to help their suffering fe l lowcreatures in British India. Do we not all remember theprincely benefaction of the Maharaja of Jaipur

,who started

the Indian People’s Famine Trust with a gift of 2 1 lakhs,

which was subsequently increased by the contributions Of

some of his brother Chiefs. There never was a more nobleor magnanimous use of great riches. Finally

,there were

the splendid donations made by the Ind ian Princes to the

QueenVictoria Memorial , from which is in course of beingraised

,at the capital of the Indian Empire

,a building worthy

to hear her il lustrious name. When we began that greatenterprise, there were plenty Of critics to scoff and jeer

,and

not too many to help. Now the tide has turned . Thefoundation- stone of the main building wil l be laid inCalcuttain a few weeks’ time by the Prince ofWales, and he wil l seein the collection already assembled in the IndianMuseum andafterwards to be transferred to the Hall , such an exhibitionof interesting and valuable objects as will make the VictoriaHall not only a fitting memorial to a venerated Sovereign

,

but a Nationa l Gallery of which all India may wel l be proud.

During the past summer I have, as you know,addressed

the majority of the Indian Princes as regards the objects tobe gathered for this exhibition , and from their treasuriesand armouries and toslzaklzana s they have wi l lingly produced

,

on gift or on loan , such a number of historical and valuablearticles as wil l convert the Princes’ Ga l lery of the futureinto a microcosm of the romance and pageantry of the East.When the Victoria Ha l l has been raised and equipped thePrinces will be proud of their handiwork

,and there wil l

perhaps be one other individual far away who will have nocause to feel ashamed .

I have described to you the work of the Princes in recentyears. Let m e say a word about the work of the Govern

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240 DAL Y COLLE GE , INDORE

and gratifying response to it. When this matter has beensettled, I hope that the Imperial Service Troops wil l havebeen placed on a firmer and broader basis than the present

,

without departing one iota from the sound principles thatwere formulated in the first place by Lord Dufl

'

erinand LordLansdowne more than fifteen years ago. Those principlesare essential to its vitality. The Imperial Service Troopsmust remain the forces of the Chiefs, controlled and managedby them under the supervisionof the Viceroy. They mustnot be swept into the Indian Army, or treated as thoughthey were the mercenaries of the Crown. They are nothingof the sort. They are the free and voluntary contributionsof the Princes, and the Princes

’

troops they must remain .

During my term of office there are also a few stumblingblocks that it has been a source of pride to me to assistto remove. Foremost among these was the time-honoureddifficulty about Berar, which the sagacious intell igence andthe sound sense of the Nizam enabled both of us to disposeof in a manner that neither has any reason to regret. Ihope also to have facil itated the solution of the difficult andcomplex questions that have arisen out of the sea- customsin Kathiawar. There is only one other big measure that Ihad hoped to carry in the interest of the Chiefs in my time

,

but which, if it is permitted to bear fruit, I must now be

queath to my successor. I hope that he wil l love the Chiefsas I have done ; and that they will extend to him,

as I amsure that they will do, the confidence and the support whichthey have been good enough to give in such generousmeasure to me.

As regards the particular audience whom I am now

addressing, I had intended, as Major Daly knows to makea somewhat extended tour in Central I ndia th i s winter.The majority of the Central I ndia Chiefs I have alreadyvisited

,and the Maharajas of Gwalior, Orchha, and Datia,

the Begum of Bhopal , and the Raja of Dhar have receivedme in their homes. The remainder I had met at Delhi ore lsewhere, and had hoped to see some of them again in thecourse of my tour. Now that this has had to be abandonedin consequence of my approaching departure, it has beena great compensation to me to receive your pressing invita

DAL Y COLLE GE ,INDORE 241

t ion to come here to-day and to meet you , on such animportant occasion , for the last time. I may congratulateyou also that in a few days’ time you wil l all be able towelcome Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess ofWales in this place. I t must be gratifying to you that theyare paying a special visit to Central India, and that you wil lal l have the honour of meeting and conversing with the Heirto the Throne.

Your Highnesses, in a fortnight from now I shal l beleaving this country, and the ofl

‘icial tie that has united mefor so long to the Princes and Chiefs of India will besnapped. No longer shal l I have the ofl‘icial right to interestmyself in their States, their administration, their people, theirinstitutions, their families, themselves. But nothing cantake away from me the recollection of the work that hasbeen done with them . Nothing can efl

'

ace the impressionleft upon me by their chivalry and regard. Long maythey continue to hold their great positions, secure in theafl

'

ectionof their own subjects and assured of the supportof the Paramount Power. May they present to the worldthe unique spectacle of a congeries of principalities, raisedon ancient foundations

,and cherishing the traditions of a

famous past, but imbued with the spirit of al l that is bestand most progressive in the modern world

,recognising that

duty is not the invention of the schoolmaster but the lawof life, and united in defence of a Throne which hasguaranteed their stability and is strong in their al legiance.

CH IEFS’ COLLEGES AND EDUCATION

RAJKUMAR COLLEGE, RAJKOT

ON Novem ber 5, 1 900, the V iceroy d istributed the prizes to the

students of the Rajkum ar College at Rajkot, whom he addressed as

follows

Between two and three years ago, before I came out toIndia as Viceroy, there was placed in my hands a bookconta ining the addresses that had been delivered by anEnglish Principal to his pupi ls in an Indian College. TheCollege was the Rajkum ar College at Rajkot

,in which I am

now speaking ; the author of the addresses was the late Mr.Chester Macnaghten? I had not ti l l that time been awareeither of the existence of the College or of the name of the

Principal but, from what I read, I formed the opinion thathere was an institution which

,in spite of some discourage

ment at the start, and amid many drawbacks and obstacles ,was doing a noble work for the rising generation of theprincely and aristocratic families of Kathiawar and Guzerat

,

and that it had in its first Principal a man of high character,

of lofty ideals, and with a pecul iar gift for exciting enthusiasm .

Mr. Macnaghten has since died, after a service of twentysix years as the head of this College, with which his namewill always be associated

,where now before the entrance

his statue stands, and which his ideals may I hope for longcontinue to inspire. But he has found a worthy successorin Mr. Waddington , to whose interesting address we havejust listened, and who carries on the work of the Collegeupon the same liberal and progressive lines. In such hands itsfuture should be as secure as its past has already been fruitful?

1 CommonTbought: onS er ious Subjects . London, 1896.

1 Mr. Waddingtonwas afterwards appointed by Lord Curzonto be Principa lof the Mayo College at Ajm er, which post he sti ll holds .

242

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244 RA1KUMAR COLLEGE , RAjK0T

distribute to d ay. No assistance was rendered by Govemment either in the construction or in the maintenance of

these buildings . The Political Agent in Kath iawar is,I

believe, the Chairman of the Governing Council ; andundoubtedly the advice which an experienced ofl‘icer l ikeColonel Hunter is in a position to give you must be invaluable .

Indeed, but for the exertions of one of his predeces sors ,Colonel Keatinge, in al l probabi lity the College wouldnever have sprung into be ing ; while later incumbents of thepost

,such as that capable and sympathetic administrator,

Sir James Peile,have sedulously watched and encouraged

its growth . On the other hand, while you cannot dispensewith this form of aid and guidance, it is upon the continuousinterest and liberality of the Chiefs themselves that the

future of the College must, in the main, depend . If theycontinue to give their support it wi ll flourish . If they are

apathetic, or indifferent, or hosti le, it will dwindle and pine .

From this point of view I was very pleased to hear of thewise step by which a number of the Ruling Chiefs

,most

of whom have themselves been educated in the College,

have lately been assoc iated with its government, by be ingplaced upon the Council . They are bound to its interes tsby the double tie of old fellowship and of responsibi l ityas members of the ruling order ; and in their hands, if theydo their duty, its future should be safe.

At the present moment I believe that no fewer than twelveout of the thirty- two Ruling Chiefs of Kathiawar have beeneducated at the R ajkum ar College ; and I am not:payingeither them or the College any undue compliment when I

add that they are among the most enlightened and capableof their class . Of course we cannot compel every Chiefor Thakor to send his sons or the cadets of his family here .

There were a large number who resented the apparent wrenchto social habits and native traditions at the beginning.

Some have never yet quite relinquished this suspicion.

There will also always be a certain number of parentswho will prefer private tuition for their sons

,or education

at the hand of native teachers, or a course of study abroad.

I would not interfere with their discretion : each parent hashis ownideas about the bringing up of his boys and I can

RAJ K UMAR COLLE GE , RAJ KOT 245

conceive nothing worse than to force al l fathers or al l sonsinto the same mould—you would get a very dismal andflattened -out type of character as the result. Nevertheles s,b roadly speaking, I would appeal to the ruling families ofGuzerat and Kathiawar, and indeed of the Bombay Presidencyas a whole, to continue their support to this institution

,

and to send their sons and grandsons here,both because

I think that the system itself is sufl‘iciently e lastic to escapethe dangers of stereotyping a particular form or cast of

character of which I have spoken,and because I do not

entertain a doubt that the general influence of the Col legehas been and is of inestimable value in its influence uponthe well-being and good government of the province.And now, a few words to the young men and boys whom

I see before me. Mr. Waddington used what seemed tom e to be wise words when he spoke of the d ifli culty of

transplanting the best in Western thought and traditionwithout impairing the Indian’s love for his home and hiscountry . That is

,and has been

,and wil l continue to be

the difl‘iculty al l along. There can be no greater mistakethan to suppose that because in this, and the other Chiefs

’

Colleges in Northern and Central I ndia, the boys are giventhe nearest equivalent of which India admits to an Englishpublic school education

,the aim is, therefore, to turn them

outright into English boys. If this College were to emancipateits students from old - fashioned prejudices or superstitionsat the cost of denationalisation

,I for one should think

the price too heavy. The Anglicised Indian is not a moreattractive spectacle in my eyes than the Indianised Englishm an. Both are hybrids of an unnatural type. No, we wantthe young Chiefs who are educated here to learn the Englishlanguage

,and to become sufli ciently familiar with English

customs,l iterature

,science

,modes of thought, standards of

truth and honour,and I may add with manly English sports

and games, to be able to hold their own in the world inwhich their lot wil l be cast, without appearing to bedul lards or clowns

,and to give to their people, if they

subsequently become rulers, the benefit of enlightened andpure administration . Beyond that we do not press them to

go. After all , those Kumars who become Chiefs are called

246 RAJ KUMAR COLLEGE , RAJ KOT

Upon to rule, not an English, but an Indian people ; andas a prince who is to have any influence and to justify hisown existence must be one with his own subjects, it is clearthat it is not by English models alone, but by an adaptat ionof Eastern prescriptions to the Wes tern standard that hecan hope to succeed. Chiefs are not

,as is sometimes

imagined,a privileged body of persons. God Almighty

has not presented them with a samurai to do nothing in

perpetuity. The State is not their private property ; itsrevenues are not their privy purse. They are intended byProvidence to be the working bees and not the drones of

the hive. They exist for the benefit of their people ; the irpeople do not exist for them. They are intended to be

types, and leaders, and examples. A Chief at whom any oneof his subjects can point the finger of scorn is not fit to bea Chief. If these views are correct

,it is clear that th is

Col lege has a great and responsible work devolved uponit, since it ought to be not merely a school of men , but anursery of statesmen and that the worst way of dischargingits trust would be to rob its pupils of their surest claimto the confidence of their countrymen—which is this

,that

,

though educated in a Western curriculum ,they should

stil l remain I ndians, true to their own be liefs, their own

traditions, and their own people.

Therefore, Chiefs and pupils of the R ajkum ar College,I

say this to you—and it is my parting word— Be loyal to thisCollege spread its name abroad

,and see to it that, in your

own persons, it is justified before men . While you areproud to acquire the accomplishments of English gentlemen ,do not forget that you are Indian nobles or Indian Princes.Let the land of your birth have a superior claim upon youto the language of your adoption , and recollect that youwill be rem em bered in history

,if you earn remembrance,

not because you copied the habits of an alien country, butbecause you benefited the inhabitants of your own. If Icould feel that my poor words were likely to waken in anyof the young men whom I am addressing, and who may bedestined to high responsibi lity in the future, a keener andfresher sense of duty than has perhaps hitherto occurred to

-ind, the pleasure which I have experienced in coming

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248 CONFE RENCE A T CALCUTTA

of Colleges, directly designed to provide a superior ty peof education for the sons of the princely and aristocraticfamil ies of India.The first of these Colleges to be started was the Raj

kumar College at Rajkot in 1 8 70. This was original lyintended for the Chiefs and noble families of Kathiawar,but has

,in recent times, acquired a wider scope, and is now

recognised as the Chiefs’ College for the entire BombayPres idency. Next came the Mayo College at Ajmer, theidea of which originated with Colonel Walter as far backas I 869 , but which only took concrete shape after the

lamented death of Lord Mayo in 1 8 7 2 , and in memory of

him. Planted in the heart of Rajputana, and intended toprovide more especial ly for the youth of the Rajput titledhouses

,this College has perhaps excited the most wide

spread attention . A R ajkum ar College was also foundedin memory of the same i l lustrious Viceroy at Nowgong forthe Chiefs of Bundelkhund . At Indore there was a Resideney College which had been instituted at about the sametime by Sir H . Daly for the families of the Chiefs of CentralI ndia, and which afterwards developed into a more ambitious concern

,and received the designation of the Daly

College, in honour of its original parent. There not beingscope for two such institutions within so short a distance ofeach other, the Nowgong College was in 1 8 9 8 amalgamatedwith the Daly College at Indore. Next in date fol lowedthe Aitchison College at Lahore

,which was founded in 1 8 8 6

by the distinguished Lieutenant-Governor of that name as aschool for the nobility and gentry of the Punjab. Smal lerand less influential schools have been started in differentparts of India for the education of the sons of Chiefs andgentry of lower rank or more humble means. Such are theColvin School at Lucknow for the sons of the Oudh talukdars, and the Raipur College for the sons of the Chattisgarh Chiefs. I might also mention the Girasia Col leges atGondal and Wadhwan in Kathiawar. I am not called uponto deal with this latter class of institutions on the presentoccasion. Similarly, the Mohammedan College at Aligarhstands outside of my present inquiry

,since

,although it is

patronised by families of very good position, it is not a

CONFE RENCE A T CALCUTTA 249

Chiefs’ Col lege, and is founded upon the basis of creedrather than of rank. I t is with the four Chiefs’ Colleges atAjmer, Lahore, Rajkot, and I ndore that I am principallyconcerned to-day

,and it is their condition and prospects

that I am about to submit to examination.

Of the apparent success of these Colleges there are manyexternal symptoms. They have attracted the abilities andhave inspired the life- service of more than one remarkableman, foremost among whom I would name Mr. ChesterMacnaghten, who devoted twenty-six years of a short butnoble life to the R ajkum ar College at Rajkot. They havesent out into the world a number of distinguished pupils, someof whom are now Ruling Chiefs, while others have carried thename of their College on to even wider fie lds. They haveattracted the quinquennial visits of Viceroys, and the morefrequent patronage of the heads of local administrations.They have even given birth to a school literature, speciallydes igned to commemorate the exploits and fam e of the part icular alm a m ater . Three of the Colleges I have had thegood fortune to visit myself since I have been in India, andI have devoted a good deal of attention to the subject oftheir management and curriculum . More recently myinterest in them has been guided into a fresh channe l by thegracious permission of His Majesty the King-Emperor toinstitute an Imperial Cadet Corps, which wil l be recruitedin the main from the Chiefs’ Colleges

,and wil l provide for

the pick of their pupils that opening in the field of militaryservice which has hitherto been denied to the aristocraticranks of I ndia. In connection with the first formation of

this corps, it became my duty to institute a somewhat closeexamination into the circumstances of each Col lege. Ibecame familiar with many virtues

,but I also learned many

defects , which, I believe, have long been recognised andbewailed by those who have far more right to speak than I .I t is in order to strengthen and extend the good features ofthe system, and, if possible, to purge away the blemishes,that I have invited you to this Conference.The original object with which these Col leges were

founded has often been defined. It was in order to fit theyoung Chiefs and nobles of India physically, moral ly, and

250 CONFERENCE A T CALCUTTA

intel lectual ly for the responsibi lities that lay before them, to

render them manly,honourable, and cultured members of

society, worthy of the high station that as Ruling Ch iefs , asthakors or S irdars, as landlords or jagirdars , or in otherwalks of l ife, awaited them in the future. With this objectinview the founders of these institutions, deliberately selecting the English public school system as that which hadbest succeeded in doing a similar work among the higherranks of English society

,sought to reproduce its most sal ient

features here. Indian boys of the upper classes were takenaway from the narrow and often demoralising existence of

their homes, and were thrown together in the boardinghouse , the class - room,

and the play - ground. Instead of

being the solitary suns of petty firm am ents , they becam e

co-ordinate atoms in a larger whole. I n the Colleges theywere taught exercises and dril l and games. They receivedthe elements of a liberal education . They learned that therewas a wider life than that of a Court, and larger duties thanthose of self- indulgence. I n al l these respects the Chiefs’

Col leges in India have followed, at a distance it may be,but with anxious fidelity

,their English prototypes.

But there I am afraid that the resemblance stops. I n oureagerness to think that al l is going well

,and in the prone

ness of mankind to mistake the appearance for the reality,we run the risk of shutting our eyes to considerations whicha more careful scrutiny wil l not fai l to reveal . In the

world of nature a plant cannot suddenly be shifted fromsome foreign clime, and expected straightway to flourish ina novel temperature and a strange soil . So it is with thepublic school system in India. Never let us forget that itis not a plant of indigenous origin or of easy growth in thiscountry. In its essence the system is contrary to the traditional sentiments of Indian parents of the aristocraticclasses, and to the hereditary instincts of Indian sons. Thosesentiments and those instincts are gradual ly changing,but they cannot be twisted round and revolutionised evenin a generation . I t is a work that may occupy the bestpart of a century. Moreover

,some of the best and most

cardinal features of English public school education wecannot, at any rate for many a long day , reproduce here.

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252 CONFERENCE A T CALCUTTA

I wi ll notice two other points of difference. A good dea lof the success of the English public school system, for

which it gains a credit that it does not exclusively deserve,lies in the fact that it is not an education by itself. I t isonly a five or six years’ interlude in an education that isgoing on for at least double that time. I t is preceded bythe private school, which very Often lays the foundations,and it is

,in a large number of cases, followed by the

University,which puts on the coping-stone. If a boy went

straight to Eton or Harrow at the age of eight or nine, havingnever learned anything before, and left at the age of eighteen,never intending to learn anything afterwards, we might heara good deal more about the failures of the English publicschoo l system than we do. Now the situation that I havedepicted is exactly that which prevails here. Most of theboys whom you train in the Chiefs’ Colleges are hope lesslyraw when they come ; a good many are stil l immature whenthey go. That is the result of the conditions under whichyou work. One of my objects is to see whether we cannotin some respect modify them . But let it not be forgottenthat this is a handicap by which your efforts are material lyand unavoidably retarded.

The concluding respect in which the Indian Chiefs’

Colleges fal l far behind their English prototypes lies in thedearth of those influences which are associated with the

boarding-house. In England a boy is continuously exposedto these influences from morning til l night. He is not onlytaught in the class - room

,or the lecture - room, for brief

periods at stated hours. His house -master, who is reallyresponsible for his bringing up

,is always teaching him too,

teaching him not merely by tasks and lessons, but by watching and training his combined moral and intel lectual growth.

I t is the house-master, far more than the class-master, that

is, as a rule, responsible for the final shape in which thepublic school boy is turned out. But in your Indian Chiefs’

Colleges the reverse plan is adopted. You bring the boyinto contact with his teacher during the few hours in whichhe is being taught ; and then you take and shut him up in aboarding house, where he is surrounded by motam ids

,or

mum /ribs , or native tutors, or guardians, who may be the

CONFERENCE AT CALCUTTA 53

best men in the world, but who are separated off from the

staff, the curriculum, and the educative influence of the

College. I n fact, you divide his College career into twowater- tight compartments. The boy is transferred from the

one to the other at stated intervals of the day or night ; andyou sacrifice the many advantages that accrue from a singleexistence with an undivided aim.

These, then, appear to m e to be the chief respects in whichthe Indian public school system differs, and to a certainextent must necessarily differ, from its European models. Ipass on to consider certa in other points in which its weaknesses are deserving of closer examination

,and in which

reform may be possible .

The first point that strikes me is the relative paucity of

the numbers that are being educated in the Chiefs’ Collegesin I ndia. The Mayo College, I be l ieve, contains accom m o

dation for 1 50 pupils ; but there are at the present timeonly about 50 on the rolls, and the maximum number everentertained there has not been more than 80 ? Yet thereare 1 8 rul ing chiefs in Rajputana, while I have seen thenumber of aristocratic families reckoned at 300 . TheAitchison Col lege contains less than 70 boys , but the Punjabshould be capable of furnishing double that number. TheRajkot College has 45 pupils ; but if its area of recruitmentbe the entire Bombay Presidency, or even if it be thenorthern half of it alone, the total ought, I Should think, tobe very much greater. The highest number contained inthe Indore College has, I believe, been 2 8 . There are now2 3 and in what relation such a figure stands to the capacityof the Central I ndian States it is unnecessary for me topoint out. The closing of the Nowgong Col lege has notdiverted the current of Bundela recruits to Indore

, for Ilearn that no pupils from those States are being educatedin the Daly College. The reflections suggested by thesefigures are not altogether encouraging ; and their effect isnot diminished, but enhanced, when we remember how manyof the existing students have been sent to the Colleges asminors or wards of Court—in other words, not owing to the

1 Before Lord Curzonleft India, the num ber of pupi ls , inconsequence of the

reform s which were foreshadowed inthis speech, had risento over 90.

254 CONFERENCE A T CALCUTTA

spontaneous choice of their parents or families. A numberof Chiefs, more enlightened or less conservative than theirfel lows, have given to the Colleges their continuous support.They have sent their sons there, or been educated therethemselves, and in the next generation the sons of theseOld boys are, in some cases, already following their fathers.But we al l know that there is a large number who havestood and who continue to stand aloof, and it is theirattitude that we must make a serious attempt to understand, and their sympathies that we must endeavour toenlist .From such information as I possess, I am led to think

that their hosti lity or indifference springs in the main fromthree causes. There are, first of all

,the deeply embedded

conservatism of the States, the tradition that the youngChief or noble should be brought up and trained amonghis own people, the zenana influence which is frightenedat the idea of an emancipated individuality, and the Courtsurroundings, every unit in which is conscious of a possibleloss of prerogative or authority to itself in the future

,

should a young recruit from the West appear upon thescene and begin to stir up the sluggish Eastern pools.These are influences which can only be overcome by thespread of enlightenment and by the breaking down of

obsolete barriers.Next I place the belief that the education given in the

Chiefs’ Colleges is too costly. In comparison with ourEnglish public schools it is extremely cheap. But thatis not an altogether fair test to apply. Many of the Chiefshave been very hard hit in recent years by famine and otheradversities. I t is al l that they can do to make both endsm eet ; and if they find that the boys of the family can bemuch more cheaply educated either by a private tutor athome, or, in the less exalted ranks, by being sent to aneighbouring high school, it is not an unnatural thing thatthey should attach some value to these financial considerations. I think we ought to discuss whether there is anyvalidity in this criticism , and, if so, whether it is possible inany way to meet it.Thirdly, I am doubtful whether the Chiefs are entirely

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256 CONFE RENCE A T CALCUTTA

insufl‘icient seriousness may be spread abroad which mus tindirectly affect the reputation of the Colleges.There is a further respect in which I desire information.

I t occurs to m e that in some cases the Colleges,instead of

recognising that they have been founded for a definite andspecial object, have dropped somewhat too easi ly into the

current of the provincial educational system. Examinations by members of the Provincial Education Department,classes that are assimilated to those of the middle andsecondary schools, standards that are borrowed from thoseof their neighbours—al l of these may be to some extentinevitable ; but I am not prepared offhand to accept themas irreproachable

,or even as right. I know that in some

cases very useful and practical courses have been subs titutedfor them . This is a question that we must examine. HereI wil l only say that the idea that the Chiefs’ Colleges existas preparatory schools for the Indian Universities appearsto me to be a fundamental misconception . In my opinionthey are constituted, not to prepare for examinations, but toprepare for life.

These remarks wil l have afforded some idea of the l inesupon which I think that our labours should proceed. Inthe first place, I would keep firmly to the original objectfor which the Chiefs’ Colleges were founded

,namely

,as

seminaries for the aristocratic classes. I would not undulydemocratise them . In this respect I would not aspire tothe ideal of the English public school . The time is notyet. I would frankly admit that a R ajkum ar College rests

,

as its name implies, uponclass distinction and if any oneis found to deprecate such a basis, I would reply that it isneither an ignoble nor a strange distinction

,that it is

familiar in al l countries, that it is founded upon sentimentinherent in human nature, that it is congenial to the East,and that it is compatible with the finest fruits of enlightenment and civilisation. Neither do I want to see theseColleges reduced to the dul l drab uniformity of the boardschool, with an English principal and a cricket - groundthrown in to give a dash of colour. Let us keep them aswhat they were intended to be and not turn them into acomposite construction that is ne1ther one thing nor the other.

CONFERENCE A T CALCUTTA 257

Next let us try to make the education businessl ike andpractica l

,and , where we have not got them ,

let us secure theteachers, and let us adopt the courses that wi l l tend to thatresult. If I am to come to you for my Imperial Cadets

,I

must have reasonable security that you will give me not acal low and backward fledgling, but a young man with thecapabil ities of anofficer, and the instincts, the manners, andthe educationof a gentleman . Similarly, let us make clearthat the thakors and jagirdars and zemindars of the future,to which class the majority of your boys be long, are sentaway to their future careers with a training in the elementsof agricultural science

,in civil engineering

,in land records

and measurement,and in knowledge of stock and plants

,

that wil l be useful to them . If it is a future ruler that isbe ing shaped for the responsibil ities of his l ife

,then let him

be given that al l - round education in history,geography

,

mathematics,pol itical economy , and political science which

wil l save him from degenerating into either a dilettante or asluggard. I am S tire that if even the most old-fashioned of

Chiefs were to see his boy come back to him, turned froman idler into a m an of business, his heart would warmtowards the institutionwhich had effected such a change.

Among the subjects that we must examine is the questionwhether

,inrelationto the figures that I have previously given ,

any greater concentration of Chiefs’ Col leges is desirable.

We shall probably all agree that an expansion in thenumber of pupi ls in each College is desirable ; but what isthe case as regards the expansion or contraction of thenumber of Colleges themselves Have we sufli cient, or toomany

,or too few ?

Final ly,I would like to ask you whether we cannot do

anything, apart from a rise in the number of students , topromote an interchange of relations between the variousCol leges. Each lives its own little l ife by itself. Attemptsat intercourse have been made in respect of sports andgames . But I suspect that we could do a good deal more.An exchange of teachers, or lecturers, or examiners, even asystem of common examinations, are suggestions that may,at least

,be worthy of discussion.

Reconstruction,reform , or expansion of any kind, I know

8

258 CONFE RENCE A T CALCUTTA

well,means money, and I have not proceeded as far as this

without realising that my hearers will ask me whether all

these suggestions, presuming them to be acceptable, are tobe backed by any more solid support. My answer is Yes .

”

I regard the reputation and duty of Governm ent as direct lyinteres ted in the future of these Colleges. I do not say

, i f

they fail, that we shal l be responsible for their failure but I

do say that we are bound to do what we can to ensure theirsuccess. If this can only be accomplished by giving more

m oney, I will do my best to provide it ; though I do notintend for one moment to make extravagance a cloak forfuture disappointment or further failure. But I realise tha tthe resources of the Colleges are in some cases inadequate ,and that if additional machinery, or a readjustment of the

ex isting mechanism, is required, we may reasonably be askedto contribute towards it.

If, however, I am wil ling to make this admission, then Ihave a corresponding claim to make upon the Chiefs. Ihave a right to ask them for their support, not merely infunds—for many have given, and continue to give, handsomely inthat respect,—but in personal sympathy and directpatronage. If the Chiefs’ Colleges are to be kept going andto be reformed in their interests, they must deserve theboon : they must abandon the attitude of suspicion andhanging back . I am ready to do anything within reason toattract their confidence to these Col leges ; and it wil l not befair upon me, if they accept all these endeavours, and thencontinue to sit apart and to look askance. Le t them contrastthe healthy life of the school with the hothouse atmosphereof indulgence and adulation in which in bygone times toomany of the native aristocracy have been brought up, andfrom which it has required real strength of character for aman to shake himself free. Le t them remember that thiseducation is offered to them to render their sons and relativesbetter and more useful men not to stunt their liberties

,but

to invigorate their freedom . Let them recol lect that it isprobably the only education that these young men wil l getin the ir l ives, and that the days are gone for ever when theignorant and backward can sit in the seat of authority. The

passionate cry of the twentieth century,which is re-echoing

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260 MA YO COLLE GE , AjMER

which threw upon the authors of it either the cred it fo rsuccess or the blame for failure ; and they were institutedfor the sake of the I ndian Chiefs and their sons

, who are

the special interest of the Viceroy, because he manages all

re lations with them,and is, so far as the need for it arises ,

their patron and protector and friend . I felt all the greaterresponsibility when I recognised that these Colleges

,in spite

of the good results which they have produced and the

admirable pupils whom they have turned out, had not wonthe entire confidence of the Chiefs to the extent that theGovernment of India have always desired

,and had not

therefore completely fulfi l led the conception of the irfounders. It was to discuss these matters that I held the

Conference at Calcutta in January last, at which we

threshed out pretty well every question,great and smal l

,

connected with the future of the Mayo and other Rajkumar Colleges. Our views have now been circulated fo rreference to the various local authorities and to the Chiefs

,

and it is about them that I desire to say a few words thisafternoon .

First let me state the principles uponwhich I proceed .

In my view it is essential to the welfare of a nation that itsaristocracy should not be d ivorced from its public l ife .

Those countries inwhich the nobil ity have detached themselves or have been separated by circumstances from the

current of the nationa l existence, where they have ceasedto be actors and become merely spectators, are either in astate of suspended progress, or are l ike a m an with his

right arm bandaged and in a sling. He is badly handicapped when he finds himself in a tight place . Whetherthe aristocracy of birth and descent be inprinciple a soundor an unsound thing, there can be no questionof its pOpu

larity ,its wide range of influence , and its efficacy as an

instrument of rule. In India the aristocracy has a strongerposition than inalmost any European country that I know .

For it has behind it the records of ancient lineage and bravedeeds

,it is respected and even beloved by the people, and

under the system of adoption that has been sanctioned by,

the British Government , it is practical ly incapable of extinction . With all these advantages in its favour there

.MA YO COLLEGE ,AjME R 26 1

ought to be no country where the artistocratic principleshould so easily and thoroughly justify itself. But theChiefs and nobles in India have to fight against a doubledanger. On the one S ide is the survival of the archaic andobsolete idea that rank is a dispensation from work insteadof a call to it, and that a Chief need do nothing in theworld beyond spend the money drawn from his people andenjoy himself. This old - fashioned idea is dying fast. Butthere are always a certain number of persons, either fossilsor parasites, who are concerned in trying to keep it alive ;and so long as it continues to exist, the Indian aristocracycannot put forth the ful l measure of its great influence andstrength . Then there is the second danger, which is in myjudgment much more alarming. This is the danger that inour desire to trainup the rising generation to a wider conceptionof their duties, we may allow their training to run

ahead of their opportunities, and may produce in theminclinations or capacities which are unsuited to theirsurroundings, or for wh ich there is afterwards an insufficientfield .

This is the chief preoccupation that has been present inm y mind in cons idering the future of the Chiefs’ Collegesever since I have been in India . I t is of no use to bring theboys here

,and then to teach them things which will not be

of service to them inafter life. Neither is it of any use toturn out a perfect type of polo- player or a gentleman and

then find nothing for him to do. We cannot go on playingpolo al l our l ives : while even a gentleman is better when heis doing something than when he is idle. These Collegesmust not be forcing houses which stimulate an artificialgrowth or produce a precocious bloom

,but Open -air gardens

where the plant can fol low a healthy and organic development . Hence it is that at the Calcutta Conference and eversince, we have beenworking out our plans, firstly to makethe training that we give here more practical, and secondlyto connect it more directly with the duties and demands ofthe l ife tha t we want to provide for the young man when hehas left the Col lege.

With the first of these objects in view we propose tom ake considerable changes both in the teaching staff and in

262 MA YO COLLE GE , AjMER

the curriculum of the Chiefs’ Colleges. We mean to havemore masters and the highest type of them and we proposefor all of the Colleges what you have here already, viz. aseparate course of studies for the pupils distinct from the

prescribed courses of the Education Department—whichwere instituted for other purposes and are not alwayssuitable . We also hope to arrange for separate systems of

examination and inspection . Our idea is that we do notwant to turn out from the Chiefs

’ Colleges precisely thesame type of educational product that is manufactured bythe thousand elsewhere but that, if a boy is to be a rulingchief or a minister or a magistrate, we want to give himthe education that wil l make him a good ruler or adm inis

trator or judge ; if he is to be a thakor or zemindar, theeducation that wil l make him a good landowner ; if an

Im perial Cadet or an ofli cer of the Imperial Service Troops,the education that wil l make him a good ofl‘icer and leaderof m en. Then , as regards Opportunities, we Shal l, I hope ,

as time proceeds, find no lack of Opening for the activitiesof those whom we shall have thus trained . I have deliberatelyorganised the Imperial Cadet Corps upon the basis of theRajkum ar Colleges ; and the bulk of the Cadetships wil l begiven to their pupils . Thus there is a direct object inviewto which the best boys wil l always aspire, and which wil l bethe goal of their col legiate ambitions. I hOpe ,

as time goes

on, that even further openings may be found for the abilitiesof boys who pass through these Colleges ; and that theKumar, instead of beginning his education when he entersthese walls, and finishing it when he leaves them

,may

regard his Col lege career here as only one stage—thoughnot the least important—in a life of public industry andusefulness.In carrying out the programme of reform which I have

sketched, Government are not going to stint their ownliberality. We are prepared to spend an additional sum of

nearly a lakh a year in improving the system . I t is notmoney which we shall be Spending upon ourselves

,or from

which Government will reap a direct return . But it wil l bemoney devoted to the cause of the Indian aristocracy, whichin my view is bound up with the British Government in this

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264 MA YO COLLE GE , AJ MER

Colleges, and from other opportunities that I have enjoyedduring the past four years of showing a warm and sincereconcern. If I could leave India fee l ing that I had really donesomething to place these institutions upon a more assuredbasis, to win the confidence of the fathers, and to spur thesense of duty of the sons

,I should feel that I had not

laboured entirely in vain.

COMM E RCE AND I NDU STRY

BANQUET 01? BENGAL CHAMBER OF

COMMERCE, CALCUTTA

ON Feb ruary 1 2,

1 903, the m em bers of the Bengal Cham berof Comm erce gave a banquet at the Town H all, Calcutta, to com

m em orate the fiftieth Anniversary of the form ationof the Chamber.

The V iceroy was the guest of the evening, and S i r MontaguTurner

,Pres ident of the Cham ber, proposed h is health . In rep ly

he spoke as follows

It is the greates t pleasure to me to be with you thisevening on the fift ie th Anniversary of the foundation of

this Cham ber ; and i f the vitality of the Chamber m ay befairly estim ated from that of its President

,who broke a

col lar -bone on Monday,and is here making an admirable

speech on Thursday,then I th ink that there need be no

a larm as to your phys ical vigour for the future.Cham bers of Com m erce are very much to the fore

nowadays . The second body that addressed m e, after Ihad landed in Bom bay more than four years ago

,was a

Cham ber of Comm erce. Among the first to address me inCalcutta was the Cham ber by which I have now the honourof being enterta ined . Onsevera l occasions too, in the caseof m y predecessors , you have sped the parting as well aswelcomed the incoming guest . I regard this form of contact, wh ich is ma rked by absolute equa l ity

,and in which I

have never known the smallest sacr ifice of independence oneither side

,as a relationof mutual advantage. It is wel l for

the entire m ercanti le community that its views should beexpressed by a body of its most prominent mem bers, andthat a competent Comm ittee should act as the m outhpiece

265

266 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBE R OF COMMERCE

of the whole ; and it is also well for Government that a

machinery should exist by which it can ascertain the viewsof the business world upon the many matters connected withbus iness and trade with which it is called upon to deal . Ihave therefore never regarded Chambers of Commerce as afortuitous concourse of individuals banded together for the

exclusive object of protecting their own interests . Theyhave always seemed to me to be an important factor in thebody politic, constituted for the formation and representationof expert Opinion upon m ercantile subjects. I do not knowwhether it is these views that may have accounted for a

saying that I saw repeated in some newspaper the other day,that I was supposed to be under the thumb of the BengalChamber of Commerce. This was news to me, and I expectthat it was equally

.

news to you. I cannot rememberthe occas ions on which you have behaved as the despoticm aster or I as the pliant victim ; nor am I quite sure thatit tallies with the picture of myself as ordinari ly drawn .

However that may be, sir, the charge of be ing under yourthumb has, I am glad to say, not prevented me from be ingpresent at your table ; and I hOpe it does not disable me fromthanking you for the courteous and complimentary terms inwhich you have proposed my health

,or this large and

representative company for the manner inwhich they havereceived it.There are many subjects upon which I should like ,

before an audience such as this,to say something this

evening. You, sir, have told us something in your speechabout the trade of Calcutta and the port of Calcutta . MayI,in my fifth season of residence in Calcutta ,

dare to saysomething about the city itself ? Of course I know that myview canonly be a partial one

,for I am never here to see

Calcutta when I fancy that she is at her best, namely, whenshe is enjoying the cool luxury of the monsoon , and whenthe members of the Chamber of Commerce only suppres stheir superfluous vitality by riding races on the Maidan.

But, subject to that disqualification, I may claim that I ama true and devoted citizen of Calcutta. The interest and

fascination of this great city have grownupon me with eachadvancing year. To me Calcutta is the capital , not merely

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268 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Calcutta enjoys, or to admire the intrepidity and enterprisewhich has turned them to such advantage. It is more thanfifteen years S ince first I visited this place, and even withinthat time the change is amazing. I t is going on every day

before our eyes. Great buildings are springing up, newshops are being opened, the suburbs stretch out further andfurther into the country, the river is no longer a physicalboundary to Calcutta, but is a l ink connecting its twosections ; and I see no limit to the destinies which, but forsome sudden and not to be expected convulsion of nature,w i l l await you in the future. In my own sma l l way I havetried to contribute to the historic interest and to theexternal beauties of this city. My view is well known thatno place and no country can afford to be so absorbed inthe pursuit of its future as to forget its past. But inremembering the past I have also had one eye fixed on thepresent, and another on the future. The restored HolwellMonument and the commemoration by tablets and brasslines of Old Fort W il l iam will keep alive certain recordsand memories that should never d ie. The Imperial Librarywil l

,I hope, prove a genuine and permanent boon . I have

bought, as you know, and renovated the old country-houseof Warren Hastings at Alipore as a State Guest - House

,

where the Viceroy may return the abundant hospital ity of

the I ndian Chiefs ; and I wish you would drive out theresome afternoon, when the house is not occupied , and see

what anaddition it is to the sights of Calcutta. Next yearI hope to have completed the handsome building of the newForeign and Military Departments facing the Maidan inEsplanade Row. In a few years’ time there w i ll rise thesnow-white fabric of the Victoria Memorial Hall

,surrounded

by a spacious garden, between the Lawrence Statue and theFort,

1 and I have other ideas about the beautification of this

1 This allus ion, though it only repeated anannouncem ent that had appearedin the Calcutta Press without exciting any unfavourab le comm ent nearly a year

before, led to anagi tation in favour of transferring the hall from the si te here

nam ed , wh ich had beenunanim ously approved of by the Building Comm ittee, toanother s ite at the southernend of the Ma idan. 80 great were the apprehensionsentertained of any encroachment upon the open space of the Maidan that thetrustees of the V ictoria Mem orial decided to defer to this express ionof opinion,and selected the site, uponwh ich the ha ll is now be ing built, in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral.

BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBE R OF COMME RCE 269

part of Calcutta which are gradually taking shape,and

which, I hope, will be real ised before I go? Some of you

m ay have noticed the great improvement that has takenplace in the heart of the business quarter of Calcutta whichis bounded by Wr iters’ Buildings on the north

, Old CourtHouse Street on the east, and the river on the west.Ever since I have been here I have thought that theappearance of this quarter of the town was a disgrace tothe city. The roads were shocking, the footpaths uneven

,

the l ighting defective,the conservancy bad. The Govern

ment of India therefore said that, if the Corporation wouldundertake to bring up this part of the town to a satisfactorystandard in all these respects , we would assume one half of

the initia l charge,and would contribute R s . 5000 a year

towards the upkeep. These terms were accepted, and youmay see the results. I do not know whether the changethat has been made is approved or disapproved by publicopinion , but I do know that it has made quite a differentplace of the heart of the city ; and it has set a standardwhich cannot fail to Spread and gradual ly to affect the

whole of the surrounding area . But there is one superficial feature of Calcutta that has greatly distressed me . I tis a tribute to your enterprise and I doubt not that it alsoministers to your wealth. But it is neither necessary, norbeaut iful

,nor even sanitary. I allude to the Calcutta

smoke,which som etimes almost makes one forget that this

is an Asiatic capital,which besmirches the midday sky with

its vulgar tar brush and turns our sunsets into a murkygloom . I am reluctant to see Calcutta

,which has risen like

a flame,perish in soot and smoke ; and I may inform you

thanwe have an expert from England , even now on theseas

,com ing out here to advise us as to how we may com

bat this insidious and growing danger. I hope, when hecomes

,that al l those who are concerned in the enterprises

that result in such excel lent financial dividends at theexpense of so much ful iginous deposit w il l join hands with

1 The al lusionwas to the lay ing out and em belli shment of the corner of the

Maidan between Esplanade Row East and the Ochterlony Monument, and to

the entire renovationand replanting of Dalhousie Square. Both of these plans ,which were very dear to Lord Curson’s heart, were carried out dur ing his las tyear inInd ia .

270 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

us in the attempt to curta i l a mischief which, if unarres ted,I do not hes itate to say , wil l before long destroy one half ofthe amenities of Calcutta, and will permanently injure its

incomparable beauty and charm ?But you wi l l te l l m e that there are other and larger

problems attending the future of Calcutta than are indicatedby monuments and chimneys and gardens. I agree with

you. There is the vast and unsett led problem of theinterior of this city , the congested areas that skulk behind

a fringe of palaces, the huge and palpitating slums. Whatare we going to do for them ? How are we going to

provide the Calcutta of the future with the streets that sheneeds , the air and openspaces that she needs, the improved

and sanitary dwel l ings ? This is the greatest problem of

all. Do not imagine for a moment that we have overlookedit. For three years the correspondence with the localGovernment and the Government at home has been goingon. I t has not been an easy matter to settle ; for great

p lans and large sums of money have been involved . Wehave had to discuss the resources of the city, the credit ofthe Corporation , the interest of the local Government, and theresponsibility of the supreme administration . We have hadto produce a scheme that would be beneficial and adequatefrom the public point of view, financially sound

,and equit

able in its distribution of the necessary burdens. I t was asfar back as June last that we sent our project home to theSecretary of State. I may say at once that the Government of I ndia did not fail to realise their interest inso greatan undertaking, for we offered to make a grant of 50 lakhsfrom the Imperial revenues and to guarantee the loan thatwill require to be raised by the Corporation . I am not surethat the Secretary of State does not think that the Government is ready to give too much, and that the loca l tax-payeris cal led upon to contribute too little. Anyhow he has sentthe scheme back to us, and has instructed us to revise it inconsultation with the local bodies, such as the Corporation,the Chamber of Commerce, and the Trades Association , who

1 As a result of thevis it of Mr. F. Grover, the expert referred to, and of his

Report, a Bi ll conferring extensive powers on the loca l Government was introduced and passed inthe Bengal Legis lative Counci l in1905.

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272 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMME RCE

the reformed Corporation is setting itself,under the able

Chai rmanship of Mr. Greer, to justify those who called itinto being. I rejoice

,sir

,that gentlemen like yourself are

wil l ing to devote their gratuitous energies and abilities to thetask . I regard such service as the highest form of civicduty

,and I commend the example to all those who are

interes ted, as I am ,and can never fail to be , in the fortunes

of Calcutta. Long after I have gone I shall study the

records of your proceedings, and shall never cease to regardit as a pride that for a number of the hardest working yearsof my life I was as a citizenand a son of this great andimperial city.

And now,wil l you bear with me while I turn to an

examination for a few minutes of those subjects with whichyou are most concerned and with which I have endeavouredto acquire such fam iliartty as is possible in the midst of al ife of many duties I al lude to the economic position andfuture of India, and to the part in it that is played or oughtto be played by Government. Perhaps I may state m y own

credentials, modest as they are. My view of every questionis that the way to deal with it is to understand it, and the

way to understand is to dig down to the bed - rock of concretefact and experience, or, as it may otherwise be put, to hearwith one’s own cars and to see with one’s own eyes. Peoplesometimes talk and write of a Viceroy’s tours as thoughthey were a ceremonial procession attended by l ittle butpomp and show . I should like to take some of these armchair critics with me and to make the condition that theyshould never leave my side during a tour of s ix weeks or twomonths. I expect that after a week or two of be ing out fromeight in the morning till sundown

,inspecting, questioning,

noting, address ing others, being addressed by them,every

where probing, probing, probing for the truth , the critic wou ldbe ready enough to slink back to his arm -chair and to

resume the irresponsible cultivation of the pen . I cannotrecal l much fuss or pomp when I visited the oil -wells of

Assam and Burma,the coal -m ines of Umaria , Jherria , and

Makum ,the gold -mines of Kolar

,the tea plantations and

rubber plantations, the cotton mills and factories and workshops that I have now seen in so many parts of India . All

BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMME RCE 273

I know is that, when I have visited these scenes of industrial enterprise, I have met with nothing but kindness fromthe proprietors or managers of these undertakings, and withan earnest desire to acquaint me with the facts ; and I speaknothing but the truth when I say that any right that I mayhave acquired to deal with such matters has been in the mainderived from these experiences, and that they have enorm ously stimulated my interest in the indust rial and economicside of the national existence. I need not repeat here whatI have said on previous occasions as to my be l ief in the

economic future of this country. We have a continent ofimmense and as yet almost unexplored natural resources,existing under a settled Government, and inhabited by anindustrious and orderly population . Though the vastmajority of them have been trained to agriculture

,are only

physical ly fitted for agriculture, and wil l never practise anything but agriculture, yet inmany parts of the country thereis a substantial residuum

,well qualified by intel l igence and

bodily aptitude for a life of mechanical or industrial toil .And yet it cannot be denied that in many respects we aresti l l backward, and that we are only at the beginning of the

race. I have often set myself to ponder over the causes thathave hitherto retarded our development, and that make it tosome eyes appear so slow ; and I should like to say whatI think they are.It is a truism that there canbe no economic or industrial

development without capital, and it is round the attractionof capital to India that the whole question turns. Now

there are two kinds of capital in this country, foreignandnative, and I have a word or two to say about each. In thefirst place, let us realise what is borne in uponme every day—that there is a good deal of ignorance in England aboutIndia. If this ignorance affects Parl iament, and sometimescauses extraordinary questions to be put by well -meaningpersons, equal ly does it afl

'ect the business world. Our

securities, our fields for investment, our Openings for enterprise, are in many cases both unsuspected and unknown .

Capital has not learned to flow hither. I t has been divertedinto other channels. Many of our securities do not finda place in the London stock market ; they are not even

274 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMME RCE

accessible here. I sometimes think that those who have gottheir nose into the Indian manger, and have found out whatgood grain is to be found there, are also a little jealous aboutd isseminating the information or sharing the spoils. Perhapsthis is not surp rising, for commerce is not, after al l, a veryaltruistic pursuit. However that may be

,I believe that this

condition of afl'a irs is drawing to an end, and my reason for

thinking so is that the other channels of investment, outsideof India, are gradually be ing fi lled up, not merely by Britishcapital, but by the capital of al l the wealth - producingcountries of the world and, if this be so, then a time mustsoon come when the current of British capital

,extruded from

the banks between which it has long been content to meander,will want to pour over into fresh channels, and wil l , by thelaw of economic gravitation, find its way to I ndia, to whichit should be additional ly attracted by the security of Britishinstitutions and British laws.Then there is another factor that has long retarded the

movement in this direction, that is the uncertainty and wantof confidence in our currency, the acrobatic and disconcertingmovements of our old friend the rupee. We have been busyfor more than three years in curtail ing the agility and in re

pressing the freaks of that dangerous mountebank ; and Ireal ly begin to think that we have reduced him to propersubjection, and made him a fit subject for complimentaryreference even at the table of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. I feel tempted to say with some confidence that wehave given to India that which is the first condition of

economic and industrial advance, namely, a currency possessing fix ity of value and steadiness of exchange. I do notsay that this policy has everywhere been attended withequal benefit, or that there are not some industries that didnot profit, or appear to profit, more by a steadi ly decliningrupee. But I do say that, whether you regard the credit ofthe Government, the trade of the country, the public growthof confidence, or even the material test of individual gains,our currency policy, based upon the gold standard, has

justified itself, and is continuing to justify itself, al l along theline. I may put it in two ways. Memories of financiersand business men are almost as short as those of politicians.

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276 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMME RCE

thawed under the genial influences of the Delhi Durbar,ventured upon the polite remark that the Government of

India stinks in the nostri ls of the city world in London.

Poor,unpopular

,and odoriferous Government of India ! I

have been wondering if there is anything that I could say ordo to render ourselves more fragrant, if there is any sort ofscented handkerchief that I could offer to the gentleman

possessed of these delicate organs. First let me make anadmission . I think that there is someth ing, or at any ratehas been something, in the charge. Capital ists and promotersare persons who want to do their business quickly, to get aswift and , if possible, a substantial return . They do notalways quite realise the d ifli culties of a complex and manyheaded administration like ours. The Government of India,though the supreme, is not an autocratic power in India ;and outside of India we are not the supreme power at al l.In this country there are numerous departments to be

consulted, there are local Governments, there are oftennative States and Durbars. We ourselves are commonly il lequipped with expert advice. Then when the ground has beencleared here, we have to go home to the India Office, andsometimes the whole th ing begins again . These are someof our difl‘iculties , inevitable and very hard to overcome. The

alert business man no doubt thinks that we are hagglingwith insufficient cause

,and he attributes the de lay to an

inherent and malignant passion for obstruction . I will notretaliate upon him by saying, as I might, that he veryfrequently changes his own ground , and, whenwe are gettingto a direct issue, fails to come up to time at al l , or that hesometimes thinks himself at liberty to treat a Government ina manner that he would not presume to apply to any privatefirm or institution in the world . I say I wil l not reply inthis spirit

,because I do not want to indulge in any sort of

tuquoqua argument. I would rather admit that our procedureis sometimes very slow and ponderous ; and I would preferin any case that is brought before me to do what I can toaccelerate its pace. You have yourself, sir, generouslyacknowledged in your speech that delay finds no place inthe present po licy of the Government of Ind ia. That I canassure this company is no more than the truth. I speak for

BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMME RCE 277

the whole of my colleagues when I say that no effort hasbeen wanting, or will be wanting, on our part to purge theadministration from the reproach of di latoriness or indifference to the commercial development of the country

,if such

reproach is sti l l thought to appertain to it. There is noobject that is more constantly in our minds than the desireto deal both with promptitude and sympathy with everyreasonable mercantile or industrial claim .

But there are two obstacles to the expansion of which Ihave been speaking that I have yet to name. I hinted atthe first just now. It is the inadequacy of our trainedstaff. After an experience of four years in this country , I

do not hesitate to say that we are trying to run thisEmpire with a stafl

'

that would be considered inadequatein a second- class European kingdom . We came here as

traders, we developed into conquerors, and long since wewere turned into administrators. But now the Governm entof India are expected to be much more. We are requiredto be up- to-date and to know everything about agriculture,commerce

,emigration

,labour

,shipping, customs, the applica

tionof science to every form of production, the secrets of

coal, iron , steel, salt, oil, tea, cotton , indigo, and jute. The

fact is that we have not yet expanded to the needs of thenew situation . You cannot in a moment take a race of

special ly trained administrators and expect them to developthe capacities of the merchant. Gradually

,but surely, we

shall make things right. I am the last man to proposethe multiplication of posts or the creation of sinecures.But it is clear to me that we must systematise and specialiseour work far more than we have hitherto done. We musthave special departments and special men over them todeal with special jobs, instead of al lowing technical subjectsto be dealt with at the end of a day’s work by a tired-outcivi l ian . Already in my time we have done a good dealin this respect. We have placed Education and Arche ologyunder expert heads. We have brought out mining expertsto inspect our mines. We have imported a Governmentarchitect to purify our egregious taste. We have createda Department of Agriculture with an Inspector-General atits head

,and we now propose, with the aid of the munificent

278 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

donation that I recently received from a wealthy American

gentleman , Mr. Phipps, to unify in one place all the variousdepartments of scientific investigation in connection withagriculture ?

I have long had my eye on railways, and it has alwaysbeen my hope, before I leave India, to do something to

introduce a more commercial and a less purely departmentalelement into their administration, though I might be

speaking here at midnight were I to embark upon thatdiscussion now. Final ly, there is the proposal about whichwe have been in consultation with your Chamber, name ly,the creation of the Commercial Bureau. I saw somewhereor the other that I was expected to make a pronouncementonthe subject to-night. I am sorry to say that that is notin my power ; for the case is now with the Secretary of

Sta te, who has not yet replied, but whose acceptance of the

general principle of the scheme may, I think, be taken forcertain. But, sir, there is one thing to my mind even moreimportant than the scheme itself, and that is the man whois to be its head. You wil l add very materially to the

services that you have already rendered both to the

commercial world and to Government, and which have sorecently m et with a most popular recognition in the titlethat you now wear, if you can enable me to put my fingeron the man. I want the very best individual in India forthe job ; and I have no prejudices whatever as to the sourcefrom which I take him ?

I said a little while back that there was anotherobstacle to rapid progress with which I yet had to deal .

1 This was the first expl icit announcem ent by an Indian V iceroy of that

which has beenfor years the m ain shortcom ing of the Ind ianGovernm ent, andwas also one of the principal reform s of Lord Curson’s Adm inis tra tion. Inadditionto the expert appointm ents here nam ed , the fol lowing were also created

during his term of office : Chief Inspector of Mines , Inspector-General of

Volunteers , Government Architect, Imperia l Lib rarian, Governm ent E lectrica lAdviser, Di rector of Crim inal Intell igence Departm ent, Sanitary Comm iss ioner,Director-General of Comm ercial Intelligence, Director of Central ResearchInstitute, Inspector-General of I rrigation. These appointm ents were necess itatedto m eet the rapidly expanding needs of the Adm inistration, and i t is certainthatas time passes more must follow.

3 The scheme for a Commercia l Bureauwas ultimately expanded into the

proposal for a new Department of Comm erce and Industry , which was accepted

by the Secretary of S tate and carried into effect in 1904 5 , after the necessaryBi l l had beenpassed by the House of Commons.

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280 BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMAIE RCE

the capita l itse lf. When I hear the employment of Britishcapital in India deplored, I feel tempted to ask wherewithout it would have been Calcutta ? Where would havebeen Bombay ? Where would have been our railways, ourshipping

,our river navigation

,our immense and prosperous

trade ? And why should a different argument be appliedto I ndia from any other country in the world ? WhenGreat Britain poured her wealth into South America andChina, I have never heard those countries complain that theywere be ing ruined. No one pities Egy pt when a foreignnation resuscitates her industries and dams the Ni le. It wasforeign capital and foreign brains that exploited the industries of Russia, which are now beginning to be a source ofsuch profit to that country. WhenAmerica floods England

,

as she is doing, with the resources of her accumulatedcapital, her amazing inventiveness, and her commercialgenius, none of us at home sits down and bewails our cruellot at being bled by a foreign drain . I therefore wouldsay to the people of this country—if my words couldhave the slightest effect—Look facts in the face. Recognisethat capital does not wrap itself in the flag of any onecountry. It is international . I t is l ike the wind whichbloweth where it listeth , and comes and goes as it wi l l .The whole industrial and mercantile world is one great fieldfor the til ler to til l and if the man who lives on the spotwil l not cultivate it with his own spade, then he has noright to blam e the outsider who enters it with his plough.

Of course the country is in the strongest position whosecapital is self-generated and self-employed ; and it is forthis reason that I say that the first duty of the patrioticIndian , instead of carping at those who have profited byhis neglect, is to enter the field

,though late in the day

,

himself, and to uti lise the wealth that he has inheritedor acquired for the benefit and the development of his ownpeople.

I have detained you a very long time, and I may nowbring these over- lengthy remarks to a close. You havesa id, sir, that it is my endeavour to see things through.

Yes,I confess that I l ike the res ges ta ,

the thing done.While others are preaching efficiency

,I think more high ly

BANQUE T OF BENGAL CHAMBER OF COr’

PIMERCE 28 1

of the man who practises it. I have never claimed themerit of the first discovery in anything that I have attemptedin this country. Wiser brains have started the ideas longago. More prudent hands have sped them on their way.

But at least let me drive the machine a few laps forward inmy time.

Not invainthe distance beacons,

Forward,forward let us range.

Let the great world sp infor everDownthe r inging grooves of change.

If I thought it were al l for nothing,and that you and I ,

Englishmenand Scotchmen and I rishmen in this country,

were simply writing inscriptions on the sand to be washedout by the next tide

,i f I felt that we were not working here

for the good of Ind ia in obedience to a higher law and to anobler aim , then I would see the link that holds England andIndia together severed without a sigh. But it is because Ibe l ieve in the future of this country, and in the capacity of

our own race to guide it to goals that it has never hithertoatta ined , that I keep courage and press forward. You andI m ay not live to see the day when these hopes are

fulfi lled . But fifty years hence, when the Bengal Chamber ofCommerce is celebrating its centenary, and when a stil l morepowerful and more numerous body entertains the Viceroy of

that day at an even larger banquet in a more commodioushal l

,I am sanguine enough to be l ieve that it wil l be in his

power to point to the realisation of some at least of the

pred ictions in which I have indulged this evening, and tocongratulate your successors upon the ever-expanding rangeof your influence and the fruition of your toil .

FAREWELL ADDRESS FROM BOMBAY

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

OnNovem ber 8 , 1 905, the V iceroy m ade the following speech,summ ing up the financial and comm ercial positioninIndia at the

close of h is V iceroyalty in rep ly to a Farewell Address from the

Bombay Cham ber of Com m erce

It is impossible for me to receive the Addres s which youhave just read without recognising that it is no ordinary or

282 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

perfunctory document, but that it constitutes one of the mostremarkable tributes emanating from an exceedingly reptesenta tive body of public men, engaged in almost every walkof business , and representing one of the great commercialcommunities of the British Empire, that can ever have beenoffered to a departing Governor-General . When you say of

that Governor-General that during his term of office thebarrier that seemed some years ago to divide Governmentfrom commerce has been completely broken down, and thathis administration will be long remembered for the activeinterest that he has taken in al l that concerns internal affairs,and for the confidence that he has inspired in every branchof commercial life—while I cannot feel that I deserve thesegenerous words

,I yet should be made of dull clay if I were

not proud to receive them . For I am conscious that inI ndia commerce has not always opened its arms in th is wayto Government or the representatives of Government, while Iam also aware that the sentiments which youexpress reflecta revulsion of feeling that is not confined to Bombay, buthas spread from one end of India to another, inaugurating ahappier era in which the development of this great countryis regarded as the combined work and the equal duty of allthose, official or unofficial , whose lot is cast within its borders.I propose to respond to your confidence by a few remarks

uponthe present commercial position of India, suggested bywhat you yourselves have said

,and summarising ina con

venient form the situation as it now appears to me to be.

The first condition of sound finance, and the first aim of our

financia l administration in India,has been the foundation of

a sound monetary system . Here I profited by the wisdomof my predecessors in closing the Mints as far back as 1 8 9 3,and by the advice of the London Committee that sat andreported during my first year of office. We were able inconsequence to introduce the gold standard

,and we have

ever since maintained a stable exchange. But currency reform ,

however urgent in itself, was only the condition of widerimprovements and larger aims

,and the moment we had

obtained it, it ceased to be an end in itself, and became themeans by which the economic and industrial progress of thecountry might be pursued upon a score of parallel l ines.

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284 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

five times over,and we could have raised nearly 5 crores

on almost the same terms as we raised four. I hope thatthis experience wil l encourage the Government of India to abolder policy in the future. When we had to pay a high

p rice for our loans, when the Indian money market did notexhibit its present elasticity, and when our railways werethemselves not a paying concern, there was a good excusefor timidity. But I think that a policy of greater confidenceand courage is now required, and I have endeavoured toinaugurate it. You have been good enough to al lude to theconsiderable administrative reform which has accompaniedthis history of progress, and which wi l l, I trust, be an efficientagency for guiding it, namely, the creation of the RailwayBoard. It would be absurd to pretend that this idea wasmine or that of any one now in India. Years ago I rememberreading al l about it in Sir G . Chesney’s admirable book, andfrom the day that I laid down charge of the Public WorksDepartment in the summer of 1 8 9 9 , having held it a fewmonths in order to obtain a grasp of the business, I was bentupon getting a Board, as the indispensable condition of

business- like management and quick and intelligent control .I t only remained to se ize the psychological moment and towork out a plan adap ted to our present needs.I might draw a similarly rosy picture of the prospects of

I rrigation and the outlay upon it. But I dealt with thissubject in my Budget Speech of March las t, and wil l notrepeat myself to-day.

Neither wil l I say anything about other features of ourcommercial and industrial policy, such as the imposition of

countervail ing duties on sugar,our pronouncement on pre

ferential tariffs, our attitude towards local industries as

instanced by the Tea Cess Act, the tea and indigo grants,and the encouragement to iron and steel works

,our hitherto

unsuccessful but still unabandoned attempts to readjust themachinery and to remove some of the restrictions of ourexisting banking system, our reform of the Customs Department, and creation of a single Imperial Customs Service,largely due to suggestions from Bombay

,or even the creation

of the new Commerce and Industry Department,which has

already in so short a time been so gratifying a success, owing

ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y CHAMBER OF COMME RCE 285

no doubt very greatly to the fact that we came prowlingdown to Bombay and took some of your best men to ass istus in start ing the venture.

I wil l not say more of any of these topics, because theywould encroach too much upon my limited space, but I shouldlike to add a word upon two subjects

,the policy of the

Government of India about which you have noticed withspecial satisfaction .

The first of them is the reduction of Telegraphic charges.This is a matter to which I attach the very highest importance, and of which I can truthful ly say that I have assumedpersonal charge sometimes in the face of no smal l difficulty.

I be lieve in the reduction of cable rates to Europe,because a

cheap tarifl'

is the greatest instrument of Imper ial unificationthat can be devised . I t has been brought down from 43 . to

2 s . a word in my time. But it must go lower stil l. If therewere a cheap rate, say of 6d . a word—and of course pressmessages would be cheaper -between England and India

,

the almost indescribable ignorance that prevails in each

country about the other, and which is often the despair of

the friends of both, could no longer exist. I am not surethat the task of Government would be rendered easierperhaps the reverse but the relations of the two peoplescommercial, social, and sentimental—could not fail to becomemore intimate. Onsimilar grounds I have been an earnes tadvocate of reduction of internal rates in India. Since thechanges were made two years ago, there has been an increaseof 30 per cent in private messages in India, while thestimulus given to press traffic may be shown by the factthat in a single year the total number of words jumped upfrom to or an increase of between80 and 90 per cent. I be lieve in giving news to the people—some persons, I know, do not ; and I sometimes rub myeyes and wonder where my imaginary reactionary tendencies

,

in this respect at any rate, are supposed to come in .

The other subject to which I referred was Agr iculture, inthe development of which you were good enough to say thatI had taken the greatest interest. I was pleased to read inan Address from a Chamber of Commerce so frank a recognition of the momentous importance of this subject, because

286 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

in the last resort the welfare of the agricultural populationis just as vital to you as it is to the Government of I ndia.What have we beendoing for agriculture I do not speakfor the moment about land revenue assessments or colleetions

,or remissions, or takaw

'

grants , or the many waysin which we have tried to make things easier for the I ndiancultivator. Our real reform has been to endeavour for the

firs t time to apply science on a large scale to the study andpractice of I ndian agriculture. It is quite true that theIndian peasant, perhaps the Guzerat peasant in particular,knows, as wel l as any peasant in the world, how to make themost of the soil and of the fruits of til lage. In his way heis a hereditary expert. But his greatest admirer cannot

pretend that he knows anything of scientific discovery orexperiment, while not even the most hidebound conservativecan give any good reason why India should be the onlyagr icultural country in the world to which the lessons of

research are incapable of be ing applied. Anyhow we aredoing our best to apply them and one of my last acts , inpursuit of the special grant of 20 lakhs per annum toprovincial agriculture which we gave for the first time thisyear, and are going to continue and possibly to increase

,has

been to address the Secretary of State and propose to hima great scheme for establishing in every province an agricultural college and research station, with a farm attachedto it, where agriculture may be studied both in the laboratoryand in the field. Each province will then have its owndirector of agriculture and its own expert staff ; and in eachdistinctive agricultural tract there wil l be an experimentalfarm under a trained agriculturist. Everywhere the objectwil l be the same, namely, to bring the stafl

'

in touch with thecultivator, so that knowledge may pass up and down betweenthem. In this way we shall, I hope, provide a training forhundreds and thousands of the young men of the country.

I ndeed , we shal l soon train our own experts , without havingto import them ; and we cannot fail to make discoveriesand to introduce reforms that wil l quicken the entire futureof Indian agriculture.The sum total of my own experience in the last seven

years is to send m e away a convinced Optimist as to the

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288 ADDRE S S FROM BOMBA Y CHAMBE R OF COMME RCE

years preced ing the two dates of inquiry, namely, 1 8 9 3-

4

and 1 904 5, shows an increase of 1 20 per cent in the later,of silver 1 36 per cent. The total value of Indian importshas gone up 35 per cent, of exports 48 per cent. The

productive debt has increased in the same period by 69crores, but the non-productive debt has decreased by 1 6

crores . Now these figures , which I have had specially prepared for you, are worth thinking over. From whateverpoint of view you regard them,

bearing in mind that theseconsiderable and in some cases amazing increases haveoccurred in a period in which the increase in the populationhas only been 4 per cent, it is impossible to deny the ircollective testimony to an advance in every test that can beapplied to the progress of a nation , which is without examplein the previous history of India, and rare in the history of

any people . I t is indeed a magnificent property that I amhanding over to my successor, and may he faithful ly anddil igently guard it.

DELH I CORONAT ION DURBAR

LEGISLATIVE COUNC IL,S IMLA

AT a m eeting of the Legis lative Counci l at S im la, September 5,1 90 2 , the V iceroy delivered the following speech with regard to

the CoronationDurbar wh ich it was proposed to hold at Delh i onJanuary 1

,1 903

I desire to take advantage of the present occasion to saya few words about the great function, or combination of

functions,at Delhi, which wil l fi l l so large a part of our

attention during the next few months, and which will bringtogether so immense

,and probably unprecedented

,a con

course of the Indian peoples at the old Moghul capital inJanuary next. His Majesty the King has already beenhappily crowned in England and he is as much already ourKing and Emperor as he was the day after the death of thelate Queen -Empress. No ceremony can increase his titlesor add to the legal ity of his position . Why then

,it may be

asked,should we have in India a celebration of his Corona

tion at all ? Public opinion has, I think , already answeredthis question to its own satisfaction . But, perhaps, I mayalso be permitted to contribute a few words to the reply.

To the East,there is nothing strange, but something fami liar

and evensacred,in the practice that brings sovereigns into

communion with their people in a ceremony of publicsolemnity and rejo icing, after they have succeeded to theirhigh estate . Every sovereign of I ndia, or of parts of I ndia,did it in the old days. Every chief in India—the i l lustration may even be carried as far as the titled noblemen andzemindars—does it now ; and the instal lation durbar is anaccepted and acceptable feature of ceremonial l ife from one

289 U

290 LE GI S LA T1 VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

end of the country to the other. If thi s is so in al l the

grades of our social hierarchy, how much more importantand desirable it is that it should obtain in the highest. Ifind

, for my part, in such a ceremony much more than amere official recognition of the fact that one monarch hasdied and another succeeded . To mil lions of the people intheir remote and contracted lives this can make but l ittledifference. But the community of interest between asovereignand his people —to which such a function testifies ,and which it serves to keep alive—is most vital and mostimportant. Society in al l ages has sought a head to whomit has been prepared to pay reverence, and kingship is thepopular form that has been assumed by this almost universalinstinct. But it is in proportion as the superiority thuswil lingly acknow ledged by the subject ceases to be merelyofficial and titular, and as the King becomes the repre

sentative as wel l as the figure-head of his people, that therelationship is of value to both of them . The life andvigour of a nation are summed up before the world in the

person of its sovere ign . He symbolises its unity, andSpeaks for it in the gate. Here, in I ndia, it is for the firsttime under the British Crown that this unity has beenattained, and that the entire Continent has acknowledged asingle ruler. The political force and the moral grandeur ofthe nationare ind isputably increased by this form of cohesion ,and both are raised in the estimation of the world by ademonstrationof its real ity. There is another point of viewfrom which I regard such a display as having far more thana superficial value. In all our various divisions in thiscountry—divisions of race and class and custom and creed—the one thing that holds us together, and subordinates thethings that make for separation to the compell ing force ofunion, is loyalty to a common head, membership of thesame body politic, fellow-citizenship of the same Empire.

The more we real ise this, the happier will be our individuall ives, and the more assured our national destinies. I t is,therefore, as an act of supreme public solemnity

,demon

strat ing to ourselves our union and to the world our strength ,

that I regard the Delhi ceremonial , and certainly as no merepageant, intended to dazzle the senses for a few hours or

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292 LE GIS LA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

such a gathering as that which wil l take place at Delhi wi l l

be of value. The weak spot of I ndia is what I may cal l itswater - tight compartment system. Each Province, eachNative State, is more or less shut off by solid bulkheads

even from its neighbour. The spread of railways and therelaxation of social restrictions are tending to break thesedown. But they are sti l l very strong. Princes who live inthe south have rarely, if ever, in their l ives seen or visitedthe States of the north. Perhaps among the latter thereare Chiefs who have rarely left their homes. I t cannot but

be a good thing that they should meet and get to knoweach other and exchange ideas ; and yet no opportunity of

meeting on a large scale is poss ible, unless it be afforded bya State occasion such as this. If we look at the Continentof Europe, we shall see what immense strides have beenmade in the development of common interests and in thecause of peace since the European rulers have taken tomeeting each other on important occasions. Where theyused, in the old days, to set their armies in motionupon theslightest breath of suspicion

,they now have a talk and

exchange toasts at official banquets . Greece did the samething in ancient times, and in a way pecul iar to herself ; forit cannot be doubted that the national spirit

,which held al l

those little States together and enabled them to stand upagainst the greatest military empires of the old world

,was

largely bred and nurtured at the Pan-Hellenic gatheringsknown as the Olympic Games.Again, in this country I think that it is an equal benefit

to the British administrators from different provinces tomeet. There is many a man in Madras who has never seenthe Punjab, or even in Bombay who is wholly ignorant of

Bengal . The Viceroy is almost the only man in India whohas the chance of knowing the whole country and of applying the comparative test. People are apt to complain of

uniformity in government. I can assure them that the

differentiations of system and plan in India are amazing.

I am not the person to wish to blot them out ; but I do sayconfidently that an occasion l ike the Delhi Durbar

,when

soldiers and civil ians from all parts of India wil l meet,not

for a few hours or a day, but for a fortnight, and can

LE GI SLA T1 VE COUNCIL,S IMLA 293

compare notes and exchange ideas with each other,will be

fraught with incalculable advantage both to the participantsand to the administration which they serve.These appear to me, apart from the act of homage to

the Sovereign , to be the principal benefits that will accrueto India as a whole from the Durbar. I have

,as is known

,

endeavoured sti ll further to util ise the Opportunity in apractical spirit by arranging for a great Exhibition of IndianA rt Manufactures to be held at Delhi at the same time. Iconfidently assure the public that they wi ll be greatlyastonished at the range

,the variety, and the beauty of this

Exhibition. Whether it is true that the old Indian arts arebeing kil led by European competition—a charge that isfrequently brought by those who do not make the smallesteffort to keep them alive themselves

,-or whether they are

perishing from this apathy,or whether India merely

provides, as I suspect, an il lustration of a world-wide law,

the fact remains that the process of extinction has not beencarried nearly so far as many suppose, and that the art ificersstil l exist in India

,even inthese days of commercial ideals

and debauched taste,who are capable of satisfying the

demand for the artistic and beautiful and rare, if such ademand there be. I cannot pretend by a s ingle exh ibitionto create it ; but if it already be in existence—as I cannotbut think

,though perhaps dormant and abashed ,—then we

may do a good deal by an opportunity such as this to reviveand stimulate it for we shall

,I hope, both advert ise to the

world what we are capable of turning out, and also—whichis much more important—encourage the aptitudes andeducate the taste of our own people.And now I wish to say a few words about an even more

practical aspect of the case,viz. the charge that will thereby

be im posed uponthe revenues of India. I have seen statements made about this subject that have startled even myhardened mind . I t seems to be quite a popular thing toallege

,incertain quarters

,that the Durbar is going to cost

India at least a crore ; while in one responsible organ I readthat Lord Curzon was going to throw away upon senselesspomp and show a sum of two millions sterling. Of course,too

,our old friend Nero

,who is al leged to have fiddled while

294 LEGIS LATI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

Rome burned, has often been brought out for my specialdelectation . Personal ly, I deprecate the tendency to applyto every act of State, great or small, the sordid tes t of its

actual equivalent in pice, and annas, and rupees. There are

some th ings for which no expenditure can be too great, justas there are others for wh ich none can be too small . But Iquite recognise that these abstract considerations wil l notappeal to everybody, and that there are both seriousness andsincerity in the contention that, des irable and even necessaryas the function may be, the public money should not beneedlessly squandered upon it. This plea seems to me tobe so reasonable that I propose to give to it the answer thatit deserves.I t emanates, I think, from two classes of persons—from

those who think that no money ought to be spent at Delhiat all while parts of I ndia are suffering from drought or

scarcity and from those who are anxious that, while somemoney 15 spent, it should not be too much. I wil l deal withthe first class first.A few weeks ago it is true that we were in the greatest

anxiety and trepidation as to what might be in store for usin Guzerat, in parts of the Deccan, in Ajmer, and in portionsof the Central Provinces and the Punjab. But I can truthfully say that the past three weeks have been, on the whole,the happiest that I have Spent S ince I came to I ndia ; for,by the merciful and continuous fall of rain in those tractswhere it was most needed, we have, I be l ieve, escaped al lchance of real or widespread famine in the forthcomingwinter, and though here and there we may be confrontedwith distress

,yet nothing in the shape of a national calamity

is to be feared . But even supposing that this rain had notfallen, or that I am all wrong in my prognostications now,

does any one suppose for a moment that, because we are

going to expend a certain number of lakhs of rupees atDelhi, one penny less would have been devoted to the reliefand sustenance of the destitute in other parts of I ndia ? Atthe beginning of the famine of 1 8 9 9 , I gave the assuranceon behalf of Government that not one rupee would be

stinted or spared that could be devoted to the alleviation of

distress and the saving of human life. That promise we

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296 LEGI SLA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

to runa campa ignon commercial principles. I think thatin respect of the Durbar we may lay a similar flatteringunction to our souls. The whole of the buildings andstructures at Delh i that are being erected for the specialpurposes of the gathering are being made of materials thatwill reta in their value after their preliminary use, and wi l l beoffered for public sa le. In many cases recoveries of from 60

to 80 per cent of the in itial outlay are thus expected. Thetents , and carriages , and horses, which have had to be madeor collected in such enormous numbers for the convenienceof the visitors, will be similarly disposed of and here inmany cases I expect that we shal l retrieve 100 per cent ofthe value. The entire electric plant for l ighting the campsand the Fort is part of the machinery that has been orderedby the Military Department for instituting the great experiment of ventilating and lighting the barracks in India byelectricity. Down to the sm al lest detail

,we are so arranging

that the money wi ll not be thrown away, but in some formor other wil l come back. Then I take another form of

recovery. A S we all know,rai lways are

,for the most part,

Government property in this country and whether we workthem ourselves or through others the whole or a considerable proportion of the profits come into our hands. I thinkthat the critics may be invited to pause and wait to see thetraffic receipts of December

,January

,and February next

before they continue their lamentations. I sha l l be verymuch surprised if these returns do not put back into thepocket of Government the major portion of what it hasspent. There are also the postal and telegraphic services ,the profits of which pass into the Government ches t, andfrom which we Shall receive largely increased returns.Finally, I would invite those who are so fearful of an unremunerative outlay to Open their eyes to what is going on ,and has beengoing on for months past

,in al l parts of I ndia.

I assert that hundreds of thousands of I ndian workmen andartisans are receiving full employment and good wages inpreparing for this Durbar. Go to the cotton mil ls of Cawnpore and Jubbulpore and Lahore

,where the tents are made

to the factories, where the harness and saddlery are turnedout ; to the carriage builders, where the landaus and victorias

LE GI S LA T1 VE C0UNCIL , S IMLA 297

are being bui lt by the hundred to the carpet factories,where

the durries and rugs are being woven to the furniture makers,

where the camp equipage is manufactured. Go to everyNative State, where the dur az

’

s and embroiderers wil l befound working double time. Go to any town or evenvil lage in India where a native art industry exists

,and has

perhaps hitherto languished, but where you wil l find thecoppersmiths and silversmiths, the carvers in wood and ivoryand stone

,the enamellers and painters and lacquerers, hard

at work . GO to all these places, and then form an Opinionas to the effect upon Indian labour of the Delhi Durbar.Supposing we were to follow the advice of some of ourfriends and to issue a proclamation suspending the entireproceedings to-morrow

,I predict that a cry of protest and of

appeal would be heard from one end of the country to theother

,and that

,without benefiting a single individual

,we

Should deprive the I ndian artisan of one of the greatestOpportunities that he has enjoyed for generations, and infl ictupon him a cruel and senseless injury.

I have thus argued that a large portion of the expendi

ture to be incurred at Delhi will be nominal only, and thatwe shal l take back or give back to India with one handwhat we expend with the other. Let me deal with the

actual figures. In the Budget of last March we provided foran outlay of 26% lakhs upon the Durbar. This is the sumthat

,in the fert ile imagination of some writers

,has been

magnified to 1 crore, and even to 2 mill ions sterling. I donot include in this outlay the sum of 4 lakhs which havebeen devoted to the Arts Exhibition

,because I do not

suppose that any one wil l be found to argue that that is anexpenditure of public money upon the Coronation. Thegreater part Of it wil l be recovered

, and in any year, Coronation or otherw ise

,it would have been a prudent and re

munerat ive expenditure of the public money. Neither do Itake the 8g lakhs provided for the troops. For we shouldnot

, of course, have expended that sum in bringing so large anumber of troops to Delhi for the Durbar alone. I t is beingexpended

,in the m ain, upon the great military manoeuvres

that are an inseparable feature of modern military training,and that wil l take place during the month preceding the

298 LEGI SLATI VE COUNCIL. S IMLA

Durbar, in the same way as the m ane uvres held by LordDufferin in the same neighbourhood , independently either ofDurbar or of Coronation, in the year 1 8 86. There remain,then, the 26§ lakhs , supplemented by such local expend iture as may be imposed upon local Governments by their

preparations ; and of the total sum , as I have pointed out,the greater part wil l most certainly be reimbursed. The

actual net cost of the proceedings at Delhi it is of courseim possible at this date to calculate or forecast, but I hope Ihave said enough to Show that it will be almost immeasurablyless than the dimensions which a too tropical imaginationhas allowed it to assume, and that a great State ceremonialwill never have been conducted in India upon more econo

m ical lines.1

I cannot help thinking that the sensitiveness aboutexpenditure here

,which I hope that I may have succeeded

in al laying,has been to some extent fomented by the

impression that prevailed, til l a little while ago, that Indiamight also be called upon to pay for a portion of the enterta inm ent Of the Indian visitors and military contingent whorecently proceeded to England to take part in the Coronation festivities there. This was a subject upon which the

Government of India placed themselves some time ago incommunication with the Home Government ; and, as asequel to this exchange of opinion , it was with pleasure thatwe hea rd that the Secretary of State had persuaded the

Imperial Exchequer to assume the entire cost of all chargesthat had been incurred in England in connection with theIndian visitors. These include the entertainment of theIndian chiefs and representatives, and of the contingentrepresenting the Army and Volunteers, as well as the entirecost of the India Office ceremony. The principle that eachcountry Should pay for its own guests is, in my Opinion ,incontestably right ; and it wil l, I hOpe , be accepted andacted upon in the future.I have now said enough

,I hope , to show that neither is

Rome burning—oh the contrary, I be l ieve that she standson the threshold of an era of great prosperity,—nor, most

Vida p. 306. Whenthe figures were fina lly made up in1904 it was foundthat the total charge amounted to a little over

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300 LE GISLA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

as health and strength are given to m e to pursue the task,I should regard it as an abnegation of duty to lay it down.

Whether the work be worth doing for the sake of the

country, it is not for me to say. But I may be permittedto add that to me

,at any rate, it appeals as the highest and

most sacred of trusts .

THE DURBAR

At half-past twelve O’clock on Thursday, January 1 , 1 903,

the V iceroy, by command Of the K ing-Em peror, held a Durbar at

Delh i for the purpose of proclaim ing the Coronationof H is MajestyKing Edward V I I . Em peror of India.

The number Of spectators present inthe arena was overand included their R oyal H ighnesses the Duke and Duchess of

Connaught, and the Grand Duke of Hesse, all the Officials Of the

highest rank inIndia, and the principal Ruling Chiefs, one hundredinnumber, with their retinues. I t was the largest and m ost b rilliantas sem b lage Of the kind ever witnessed in India and for the

sp lendour of its surround ings, and the im press iveness wh ich m arkedthe proceedings throughout, it was unequalled in the history of

sim ilar ceremonies . The Durbar was held ina specially constructedam phitheatre three m iles beyond the R idge at Delh i, the routefrom the V iceroy

’

s Cam p to it being closely lined with troops . On

the plainoppos ite to the entrance to the amph itheatre, whence theycould be seenby the spectators , were drawnup over troops

massed bands in the centre Of the arena perform ed selections of

music at intervals during the cerem ony. After the herald had

read the Proclam ationannouncing the Coronation of H is Majestythe K ing Em peror of India, the V iceroy addressed the Durbar as

follows

Your Royal Highnesses, Pr inces, and Peoples of India,Five months ago inLondon H is Majesty King Edward VI IKing of England and Emperor of India

,was invested with

the crown and sceptre Of the English kings. Only a fewrepresentatives Of the Indian Empire had the good fortuneto be present at that ceremony. TO-day His Majesty hasby his royal favour afforded an opportunity to all his Indianpeople to take part in similar rejoicings

, and here,and

elsewhere throughout India,are gathered together inhonour

of the event the Princes and Chiefs and nobles, who arethe pil lars of his throne the European and Indianofficials

,

THE D URBAR 301

who conduct his administration with an integrity anddevotion to duty beyond compare ; the Army, British andnative, which with such pre-eminent bravery defends hisfrontiers and fights his wars and the vast body of the loyalinhabitants of India of all races, who, amid a thousandvarieties of circumstance and feeling and custom

,are united

in their spontaneous allegiance to the Imperial Crown. I twas with the special object of thus solemnising his Coronation in India that His Majesty commanded me

,as his

Viceroy, to convene this great Durbar, and it is to signifythe supreme value that he attaches to the occasion that hehas honoured us by deputing his own brother

,His Royal

Highness the Duke of Connaught,to join in this celebration .

It is twenty- S ix years since, on the anniversary of thisday

,in this city of Imperial memories and traditions

,and on

this very spot, Queen Victoria was proclaimed the firstEmpress of India. That act was a vindication of her profound interest in her Indian subjects , and of the accomplishedunity of her Indian dominions under the paramountcy of theBritish Crown . To-day, a quarter of a century later

,that

Empire is not less but more united. The Sovereign towhom we are met to render homage is not less dear to hisIndian people, for they have seen his features and heard hisvoice. He has succeeded to a throne not only the mostillustrious

,but the most stable in the world and ill - informed

would be the critic who would deny that not the least of

the bases of its security—nay, I think a principal conditionof its strength—is the possession of the Indian Empire, andthe faithful attachment and service of His Majesty’s Indianpeople. Rich in her ancient traditions, India is also rich inthe loya lty which has been kindled anew in her by the West.Amid the crowd Of noble suitors who, through al l thecentur ies

,have sought her hand , She has given it only to

the one who has also gained her trust.Nowhere else in the world would such a Spectacle be

possible as that which we witness here to-day. I do notSpeak of this great and imposing assemblage, unparal leled asI believe it to be. I refer to that which this gatheringsym bol ises

,and those to whose feelings it gives expression .

Over 1 00 rulers of separate States , whose united population

302 THE DURBAR

amounts to of people, and whose territoriesextend over 5 5 degrees of longitude, have come here totestify their al legiance to their common Sovereign . We

greatly esteem the sentiments of loyalty that have broughtthem to Delhi from such great distances , and Often at cons iderable sacrifice ; and I shall presently be honoured byreceiving from their own l ips their message of personal con

gratulation to the King. The oflicers and soldiers presentare drawn from a force in India of nearly m en,whose pride it is that they are the King’s army. The leadersof Indian society, official and unoflicial, who are here, are themouthpieces Of a community Of over 2 souls. In

spirit therefore, and one may almost say, through their rulersand deputies, in person, there is represented in this arenanearly one-fifth of the entire human race. All are animatedby a single fee l ing, and all bow before a single throne.And should it be asked how it is that any one sentimentcan draw together these vast and scattered forces and makethem one, the answer is that loyalty to the Sovereign is

synonymous with confidence in the equity and benignity Of

his rule. I t is not merely the expression of an emotion, butthe record of an experience and the declaration of a be l ief.For to the majority of these mill ions the King’s Governmenthas given freedom from invasion and anarchy ; to others ithas guaranteed their rights and privileges to others it opensever-widening avenues of honourable employment ; to themas ses it dispenses mercy in the hour of suffering ; and toal l it endeavours to give equal justice

,immunity from

Oppression, and the blessings of enl ightenment and peace.To have won such a dominion is a great achievement. Tohold it by fair and righteous deal ing is a greater. To weldit by prudent statesmanship into a single and compactwhole wil l be and is the greatest of all .Such are the ideas and aims that are embodied in the

summoning of this Coronation Durbar. I t is now my dutyto read to you the gracious message which His Majesty hasdesired me to convey to his Indian people

I t gives me much pleasure to send a message of greet

ing to my Indian people, on the so lemn occasion when they

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304 THE DURBAR

the increasing prosperity of my Indian Empire and the

greater happiness of its people.”

Princes and peoples of India, these are the words of theSovereign whose Coronation we are assembled to celebrate.

They provide a stimulus and an inspiration to the oflicers

who serve him,and they breathe the lessons of magnanimity

and good-will‘to al l. To those of us who, like my col leagues

and myself, are the direct instruments of His Majesty’sGovernment, they suggest the spirit that should guide ourconduct and infuse our administration. Never was there atime when we were more desirous that that administrationshould be characterised by generosity and lenience. Thosewho have suffered much deserve much and those who havewrought wel l deserve wel l . The Princes of India haveOffered us their soldiers and their own swords in the recentcampaigns of the Empire ; and in other struggles, such asthose against drought and famine, they have conductedthemselves with equal gallantry and credit. It is difficult togive to them more than they already enjoy, and impossibleto add to a security whose inviolability is beyond dispute.Nevertheless, it has been a pleasure to us to propose thatGovernment shall cease to exact any interest for a periodof three years upon all loans that have been made orguaranteed by the Government of India to Native States inconnection with the last famine ; and we hope that thisbenefaction may be acceptable to those to whom it is offered .

Other and more numerous classes there are in this greatcountry to whom we would gladly extend and to whom we

hope before long to be in a position to announce rel ief. I nthe midst of a financial year it is not always expedient tomake announcements, or easy to frame calculations. I f

,

however, the present conditions continue, and if, as we havegood reason to believe, we have entered upon a period of

prosperity in Indian finance,then I trust that these early

years of His Majesty’s reign may not pass by without theGovernment of India being able to demonstrate their feelingsof sympathy and regard for the Indian population bymeasures of financial rel ief, which their patient and loyalconduct in years of depression and distress renders it

THE D URBAR 305

especially gratifying to me to contemplate. I need not nowrefer to other acts of consideration or favour which we haveassociated with the present occasion , since they are recordede lsewhere. But it is my privilege to make the announcement to the officers of the Army that henceforward the nameof the Indian Staff Corps will cease to exist, and that theywil l belong to the S ingle and homogeneous Indian Army of

the King.

Princes and peoples,if we turn our gaze for a moment

to the future, a great development appears with little doubtto lie before this country . There is no Indian problem

, be

it Of population or education or labour or subsistence, whichis not in the power of statesmanship to solve. The Solutionof many is even now proceeding before our eyes. If the

combined arms of Great Britain and India can securecontinued peace upon our borders, if unity prevails withinthem, between Princes and people, between European andIndian , and between rulers and ruled, and if the seasons failnot in their bounty, then nothing can arrest the march of

progress. The India of the future wil l,under Providence

,

not be an India of diminishing plenty, of empty prospect,or of justifiable discontent, but one of expanding industry ,

of awakened faculties, of increasing prosperity, and of morewidely distributed comfort and wealth. I have faith intheconscience and the purpose of my own country, and Ibel ieve in the almost i l l imitable capacities of this. But underno other conditions can this future be realised than theunchallenged supremacy of the Paramount Power, and underno other controlling authority is this capable of be ing mainta ined than that of the British Crown .

And now I wil l bring these remarks to a close. I t ismy earnest hope that this great assemblage may long beremembered by the peoples of India as having broughtthem into contact at a moment of great solemnity with thepersonality and the sentiments of their Sovereign. I hopetha t its memories wil l be those of happiness and rejoicing,and that the reign of King Edward VI I so auspiciouslybegun, wil l live in the annals of Ind ia and in the hearts ofits people. We pray that

,under the blessing of the

Almighty Ruler of the Universe , his Sovereignty and powerX

306 THE DURBA R

may last for long years, that the well- being of his subjects

may grow from day to day, that the administration of h is

Ofl‘icers may be stamped with wisdom and virtue, and thatthe security and beneficence of his dominion may endure

for ever.Long live the King, Emperor of India !

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc/z 2 5, 1 903

These remarks lead m e by a natural transition to saysomething about the Durbar itself. And first I must devotea few words to the cost. A S I said in my speech in

September last—though this is not the test which I woulddream of applying myself as the final or crucial touchstoneto a ceremony which I at any rate regard as having had a

profound po l itical S ignificance, and an almost immeasurable

political effect, yet I have no right to object to its be ingapplied by others, and I realise that even symbolism presentsitse lf to many minds in terms of rupees and pies. If, however, we apply this standard, then I do not hesitate toc laim an absolute vindication for all that I said last autumn .

I remarked then that of the 26% lakhs estimated for

Imperial expenditure we should recover the greater part,and I added that a great State ceremonial would never havebeen conducted in I ndia upon more economical l ines.These prophecies were not universally accepted at the time,but they have turned out to be scrupulously correct. Andindeed they overestimated, rather than understated , theactual outlay. The net charge against Imper ial revenuesfor the entire Durbar works out at l ittle more than 1 2g lakhsor If to this we add the expenses incurred bylocal Governments for their provincial camps

,over which

,

from the circumstances of the case,the Government Of India

could exercise l ittle control, and which amounted to a nettotal of a l ittle over 14? lakhs or we get a ne tcharge, Imperial and provincial , of about for

the Durbar.

l I s there any one who wil l tel l me that this is1 Whenall the accounts had come in, this was raised , as has beensaid , to a

little over

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308 EXTRACTFROM B UDGE T S PE E CH

the ceremonial criterion also. I have read a great dealsince January about pomp and pageantry

,and the idea Of

some persons seems to be that the Durbar was intendedonly to Show the magnificence of the Empire and the trappings of the East. How strangely we often misread eachother in the world . I Suppose that reams of paper andgallons of ink have been expended upon the de l ineation of

the splendours of the Durbar. May I make a confessionI have never read these accounts without a positive pang ;for all the whi le I have been thinking about something else.I hope I am not a rhapsodist or a dreamer ; but to me,and I hope to the majority of us, the Durbar meant not apanorama or a procession it was a landmark in the historyof the people, and a chapter in the ritual of the State.What was it intended for ? It was meant to remind al l thePrinces and peoples of the Asiatic Empire of the BritishCrown that they had passed under the dominion of a newand single Sovereign , to enable them to solemnise that greatand momentous event and to receive the Royal assuranceand greeting. And what was its effect ? They learnedthat under that benign influence they were one ; that theywere not scattered atoms in a heterogeneous and cumbersome mass, but co - ordinate units in a harmonious andmajestic whole. The scales of isolation and prejudice anddistrust fell from their eyes

,and, from the Arab sheikhs of

Aden on the west to the Shan chiefs of the Mekong on theborders of China, they felt the thril l of a common loyaltyand the inspiration Of a single aim. Was there nothing inthis ? IS it nothing that the Sovereign at his Coronationshould exchange pledges with his assembled lieges—Of protect ionand respect on the one S ide, of spontaneous allegianceon the other ? I t is nothing that the citizens of the Empireshould learn what that Empire means ? Even if we takethe rest of India, which could not be present at Delhi, butheld its own rejoicings in its own place

,is it nothing to

l ift an entire people for a l ittle space out of the rut of the irnarrow and parochial l ives, and to let them catch a glimpseof a higher ideal, an appreciation of the hidden laws thatregulate the march of nations and the destinies of men ? Ibelieve that the Durbar, more than any event in modern

EXTRA CT FROM B UDGE T SPEE CH 309

history, Showed to the Indian people the path which, underthe guidance of Providence, they are treading, taught theI ndian Empire its unity

,and impressed the world with its

moral as well as material force. I t wil l not be forgotten.

The sound of the trumpets has already died away ; the

captains and the kings have departed ; but the effect produced by this overwhelming display of unity and patriotismis sti l l al ive and wil l not perish. Everywhere it is knownthat upon the throne of the East is seated a power thathas made Of the sentiments

,the aspirations, and the interests

of 300 mill ions of Asiatics a living thing, and the unitsin that great aggregation have learned that in their incorporation lies their strength. As a disinterested spectatorof the Durbar remarked, Not until to-day did I realisethat the destinies of the East sti l l l ie, as they always havedone, in the hollow of India’s hand. I think

,too

,that the

Durbar taught the lesson not on ly of power but of duty.

There was not an Ofl‘icer of Government there present, therewas not a Ruling Prince nor a thoughtful spectator, whomust not at one moment or other have felt that participation in so great a conception carried with it responsibilityas wel l as pride, and that he owed something in return forwhatever of dignity or security or opportunity the Empirehad given to him .

EDUCAT ION

MAHARAJA’S COLLEGE AT TREVANDRUM

(TRAVANCORE)

IN the course Of his visit to the Native S tate of Travancore inNovember 1 900, the V iceroy vis ited the Maharaja’s College at

Trevandrum , and addressed the students as follows

I am sure that we have al l heard with the utmostpleasure the announcement that has just been made bythe Dewan of the gracious and liberal manner in whichHis Highness desires to commemorate my visit to thisplace. It is very characteristic of the enlightenment andgenerosity of His Highness, and the opening which willthus be afforded to the accomplishments and abilities of theyoung men who have studied in this Col lege, even though itdoes not serve to rem ind them in the future of the occasionOf the foundation of the prize, wil l at any rate be a valuableincentive to their own studies.

Nothing gives me greater pleasure in my tours throughIndia than to visit those institutions where the young menare be ing educated who in the next generation will havethe fortunes of the country to so large an extent in theirhands. Whether the College be one that is training upyoung Chiefs and nobles who wil l one day be cal led uponto manage estates or to govern peoples, or whether it isqualifying young men who, although not of such exaltedbirth

,wil l yet supply the offi cials and administrators and

public servants of the future, the spectacle is equal lyinteresting and equal ly inspiring. When we are at schoolor col lege ourselves we hardly appreciate what a work isgoing on among us. We are absorbed in the friendlyrivalry of passing examinations, or winning pr izes, or

3 10

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3 12 MAHARAJ A’S COLLEGE AT TRE VANDRUM

Think therefore of the number of Openings that lie beforeyou in this interesting country. I bel ieve that there isscarcely a single branch of scientific or technical educationwhich is not capable of practical and remunerative pursuitinTravancore. There are minerals to be unearthed thereis an abundant water-supply capable of be ing converted intodifferent forms of energy and productiveness ; there is aninfinite richness Of plants and timbers and trees ; there aremanifold varieties of animals and birds and insects there areall sorts of experiments that might be made in agriculturethere are numerous openings for public works there is amplescope both for the student who prefers the laboratory, andfor the out-of-door explorer or engineer.In al l these pursuits I am sure that you wil l meet with

the warmest encouragement from the European professors ofthis College

,and not less from His Highness the Maharaja

himse lf. The Maharajas of Travancore have always beendistinguished for their patronage of learning. His Highnesstakes the keenest interest in the welfare of this Col lege ;and I have heard with pleasure, with reference to oneof the fields of study that I mentioned just now

, viz.

that of Scientific Forestry, that he is sending four pupils tostudy in the Forest School of the Government of I ndia atDehra Dun.

Let me urge you,therefore, students of this Col lege

,to

remember that your patriotism,wh ich is an excellent thing

,

Should not stop at thinking or saying that there is no suchplace as Travancore—otherwise it would be a rather cheapand tawdry sentiment,—but should proceed to the discoveryof independent channels by which you may each of yourender service to the State. You have a great manyadvantages offered to you in this institution . You haveadmirable tuition . You have, I be l ieve, the second bestl ibrary in the whole of the South of India. You havea generous and paternal Government. You are

,in fact

,a

very highly favoured and rather a spoiled body of youngm en. For all this you owe some return . Take

,therefore

,

a line for yourselves ; get out of the rut ; the whole Of

life is not summed up in the Ofl'

ice or in the law courts ;remember that while the opportun ities for a career can be ,

J IAHARAJ A’S COLLEGE AT TRE VANDRUM 3 13

and are, here provided for you by others, the career itselfwil l be what the individual makes it ; and let the ambitionof each one of you be to say, when his time is nearing its end,that, whether in a small way or in a great, he has renderedan appreciable service to his native country.

EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE, SIMLA

InSeptem ber 1 90 1 the V iceroy convened anEducational Conference at S im la, to discuss thevarious reformatory measures that

were required in every branch Of Indian education. There werepresent the leading members Of the Governm ent, the Directors ofPub lic Instruction from every province in India, and representatives of the principal Colleges. The Conference, which was pres idedover by the V iceroy, sat every day for a fortnight, and passed a seriesof resolutions which were the basis of the reform s that were carriedout during the ensuing four years. Lord Curzon indica ted theirnature inh is opening address, which was as follows

I have invited you here to assist me with your advice inthe inquiry upon which the Government is engaged withreference to the existing system of education in India. In

any scrutiny of this system it is, I think, desirable that weShould consider it from every po int of view,

in its broaderand more important as wel l as in its narrower aspects. If

we are to embark upon reform, it wil l be wel l that our ey esshould range in advance over the entire arena, that weshould co-ordinate the various departments of educationaleffort

,and Should deal with them as parts of a systematised

whole. In this way we may best succeed in observing proportion in our treatment of the matter and fidelity to the

guiding principles upon which it is our desire to proceed . Ishall therefore ask your attention successive ly to the following subheadings Of our main subject—University Education,Secondary Education , Primary Education , Technical Education

,and

,finally, to such general questions as remain over

from our more detailed inquiries. I wil l indicate to youpresently what is the nature of the problems to which Ithink tha t we should endeavour to find a solution in each of

the categories to which I have referred.

But, before doing th is, I should l ike to say a few

3 14 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

prefatory words as to the character and scope of the presentConference. We are a small number of persons col lectedround this table. Had I accepted one-half of the Offers andsuggestions that have been made to me, this room , large asit is, would not have held the numerous authorities whocourteously volunteered their services. They did so,

I think,in the be lief that this gathering is more than it pretends to be .

We are not met here to devise a brand- new plan of educational reform,

which is to spring ful ly armed from the headof the Home Department, and to be imposed m lens vole":upon the Indian public. This Conference is merely a gathering of the highest educational offi cers of Government, as wel las of the ofli cial representatives of our leading Universities,whom I desire to consult upon many matters concern ingwhich we at headquarters are lacking in first—hand knowledge, but to which, on the other hand, they have devotedmany years of their lives. They wil l give us informationwhich the Government does not possess, and wil l prevent usfrom committing mistakes into which we might otherwisefall .But I do not expect our meetings

,informal and confi

dential as they will be, to take the place of that examinationof the subject and of our ideas upon it

,by the educated

sections of the outside public,which I think that they are

quite entitled to offer,and which I

,for my part, shall be

grateful to receive. The question of Education in India isone that concerns not only the Viceroy or his Council, orthe persons who are engaged , official ly or otherwise, in

administering the present system . It is the concern of everyeducated man in the country—aye, and also of the uneducated millions whom we hope to draw gradually within itsrange. Their interest in the matter is as great as ours for,

while in it is involved our responsibil ity,upon it hangs their

future. Do not let any one suppose,therefore, that we are

going to launch any vast or sudden surprise uponthe Indiancommunity without hearing what they think or what theymay have to say. Concealm ent has been no part of mypolicy since I have been in India ; and the education of thepeople is assuredly the last subject to which I should thinkof applying any such canon . It is for this reason that I

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3 16 EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

English education in India. They think that it has givenbirth to a tone of mind and to a type of character that isi ll- regulated, averse from discipline, discontented, and in

some cases actual ly disloyal. I have always severed myselffrom these pessimists , and I do SO again now. I have nosympathy with those who mope and moan over that whichhas been the handiwork of our own hands. Let us take itwith its good and its evil . To me it seems that there is nocomparison between the two. Mistakes and blunders therehave been, otherwise we should not have m et here to-day inorder to discuss how we may set them right. But thesuccesses have been immeasurably greater. Crude andvisionary ideas, and half- educated and shal low products ,of education, are far too plentiful but I firmly be l ievethat by the work of the past three -quarters of a centurythe moral and intel lectual standard of the community has

been raised, and I should be ashamed of my country if I didnot think that we were capable of raising it stil l higher.I have made this disclaimer of views to which express ion

is given in so many quarters, because it wi l l be my duty today to cal l your attention to the weak points of the system ,

rather than to its merits ; and because it might otherwise bethought that I had joined the band of carpers myself, andwanted to disparage and pull down

,where my whole object

is to reconstruct and build up. This,however, we cannot

do until we realise where we have gone wrong and al lowedunsoundness to enter in.

Some of these errors are very much on the surface. We

started by a too slavish imitation of English models, and tothis day we have never purged ourselves of the taint. Forinstance

,we thought that we could provide India with al l

that it required in the shape of University education bysimply copying the London University. In later times wehave tried bodily to transplant smaller educational flora fromthe hothouses of Europe. Then we opined that it wasenough to teach English to Indianchildren before they hadeven mastered their native tongues. Further, we assumedthat because certain subjects were adapted to the Westernintellect they could be equal ly assimilated by the Eas te rn ,and that because they were communicated incertain formula

EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA 3 17

and a recognised terminology to English boys these wouldbe equal ly intell igible to I ndians. Finally

,by making

education the sole avenue to em ployment in the service ofthe State, we unconsciously made examination the sole testOf education. Upon this point I must enlarge somewhat

,

seeing that it is at the root of the evil which we are

convened to examine.

The late Dr. Thring, who was one of the greatesteducationalists that England has produced , once remarkedthat education is the transmission of l ife from the livingthrough the living to the l iving. I am afraid that in Indiawe have fallen Somewhat from this ideal . The secret of lifehas been inour hands, and we have not stinted its outpouring but about the instruments, the form,

the methods,and

the recipients of the gift we have been not too particular.Examinations are be ing carried to extremes in most civilisedcountries, and cramming, which is their inevitable corol lary,is now general ly recognised as a universal danger. But inI ndia we appear to have pushed the method to an excess

greater than I have come across in any country, with theexception of China. We examine our boys from childhoodto ado lescence, and we put a pass before them as the

sum mum bonum of l ife. When I contemplate the thousandsof youths in our I ndian schools and colleges

,steadily

grinding away in order to get their percentage of marks inan endless series of examinations, the spectacle does notseem to me less open to lament than that Of the monkswhom one sees in Tibet, and who by a never - endingm echanica l revolution of the prayer-whee l

,accompanied by

the repetition of sounds which convey little meaning even tothe suppliant, think that they are compassing eternal salvation . I am not speaking Of the results of the examinationsystem so much as I am of its effect upon its victims. Thatis the real issue. I t is of no use to turn out respectableclerks or muns ifs or vakils, if this is done at the expense ofthe intel lect of the nation. A people cannot rise in thescale of inte l l igence by the cultivation of memory alone.

Mem ory is not mind , though it is a faculty of the mind .

And yet we go onsharpening the memory of our students,

encouraging them to the application of purely mnemonic

3 18 ED UCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE ,S LMLA

tests , stuffing their brains with the abracadabra of geometryand physics and algebra and logic, until, after hundreds, naythousands, have perished by the way, the residuum , whohave survived the succes sive tests, emerge in the Elysianfie lds of the B.A . degree. Teachers get carried away bythe same fundamental error as their pupils, and, instead of

thinking only of the mental and moral development of thestudents committed to their care, are absorbed with percentages and passes and tabulated results . This is the

furrow out of which we ought to lift Indian education if wecan , before it has been final ly dragged down and choked bythe m i re.There are other questions which I ask myself, and to

which I cannot give the answer that I would l ike. I haveremarked that we have been at work for seventy years. Evenif we have done much, have we made the anticipated progress, and are we going ahead now We are educating 4imil lions out of the total population of British India. Is thisa satisfactory or an adequate proportion We spent uponeducation in the last year from public funds a sum of

as compared with £ 1 ,360,OOO from fees andendowments. Is the State’s contribution suflicient Oughtit to be increased ? IS there an educational policy of the

Government of India at al l ? If so,is it observed

,and what

is the machinery by which it is carried out ? Is there anydue supervision of this vast and potent engine of creativeenergy

,or, after its furnace has been fed , are the wheels left

to go round, and the piston - rod to beat, without control ?A S I say

,I cannot answer al l these questions as I should

wish. There seems to me to be a misdirection , and in somecases a waste, of force , for which I cannot hold the Government free from blame. I observe a conflict of systems whichfinds no justification in the administrative severance or inthe local conditions Of separate provinces and areas. I nthe praiseworthy des ire to escape centralisation at headquarters we appear to have set up a number of pettykingdoms

,a sort of heptarchy in the land

,whose adm inis

tration, in its freedom and lack of uniformity,reminds me

of the days of the Hebrew judges when there was no kingin Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own

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320 EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

of its past, by the influence of its public buildings,by its

common institutions, and by the cosmopolitan field of interes tand emulation which it offers.

How different is India ! Here the University has nocorporate existence in the same sense of the term it is nota collection of buildings

,it is scarcely even a site. It is a

body that controls courses of study and sets examinationpapers to the pupi ls of afli liated Colleges. They are notpart of it. They are frequently not in the same city, sometimes not in the same province. The affi liated Colleges ofthe Calcutta University are scattered in regions as remote asBurma and Ceylon . Then look at the Col leges. They are

not residential institutions,with a history

,a tradition

, a

g enius loci , a tutorial staff, of their own . They are for the

most part collections of lecture -rooms, and class- rooms, andlaboratories. They are bound to each other by no tie of

common feeling, and to the University by no tie of fi l ia lreverence. Onthe contrary, each for the most part regardsthe others as rivals, and pursues its ownpath in self-centredand sometimes jealous isolation . The reproach has evenbeen brought against them that their lecturers are notteachers, but are merely the purveyors of a certain articleto a class of purchasers, that this article happens to be cal lededucation, and that the purveyor stands not behind a counterbut behind a desk . There may be exaggeration in thisdescription , but there may also be a grain of truth. Evenif the process may be termed education, it is not in the truestsense teaching : it may sharpen some facets of the mind, butit cannot properly develop the whole.These are, of course, the familiar characteristics of an

examining as contrasted with a teaching University ;characteristics which

,owing to Indian geography and to

the pecul iar circumstances of I ndian life,are seen in exag

geration in this country. The question that they suggestto me is whether we cannot do som ething to combine withthe obligatory features of an Indian University some portionof the advantages and the influence of Western institutions.Of course, we cannot all in a moment, by a stroke Of the

pen,create an Indian Oxford or an Indian Cambridge. The

country is not ready for the experiment, the funds are not

EDUCA TI ONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA 32 1

forthcoming,the students would not be there, it would not

fit in with the I ndianenvironment. But at least it may bepossible to remove the impediments that retard the ultimaterealisation of such an ideal . The younger sisters of ourpremier I ndian Universities were given constitutional powersthat had been denied to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombaythirty years before. They may appoint or provide for theappointment of professors and lecturers,

” whereas Calcutta,

Madras, and Bombay enjoy no such statutory power. It istrue that there is no obstacle to the private endowment of

lectureships or professorships at these Universities, and the

Tagore Law Professorship and the Sri Gopal Basu MallickFel lowsh ip at Calcutta are instances of such endowments .

But they are not University foundations in the sense of

be ing controlled by the University, nor is attendance at thelectures included in any University course . Now I do notsay that if the legal faci lities for the constitutionof a teaching University were provided

,advantage would forthwith

be taken of them . The Universities of Allahabad andLahore have not yet profited by their pr ivileges in thisrespect. Neither do I say that education has yet reached apoint of development in India at which they are essentialto its progress. But it is conceivable that the opportunitywi l l in time create the desire. Wealthy men in India

,as

elsewhere, m ay be tempted to expend their resources upon

the endowment of University institutions or Universitycha irs ; and thus by slow degrees the I ndian Universitiesm ay one day rise to the dignity of the superior status

,and

may learn to deserve their name. The foundation of pri zesor scholarships for origina l work lying outs ide the Universitycourses m ight also tend in the same direction . If, at thesame time, it were found possible to concentrate and to unifythe educationa l power that is now diffused in so manydifferent directions

,and to institute even tentatively a

sy stem of l inked lectures among some at any rate Of

the affi l iated Col leges,I think that we Should be doing

something to infuse greater unity into the present conflictof jarring atoms

,and to inspire higher education in India

with a nobler ideal. There is one matter upon which , inview of the fact that our advance must in any case be S low,

Y

322 EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

too much stress cannot, in my opinion, be laid. I allude tothe adequate provision and due inspection of hostels or

boarding-houses for the pupils at the Col leges in the largetowns. I n the absence Of residential Colleges , these institutions appear to furnish the nearest equivalent that can forthe present be supplied. Many a father is deterred fromsending up h is son to take part in the College courses inthe great cities, from fear of the social and moral temptationto which he wi l l be exposed. If attached to every Col legeor group of Col leges there were such a bui lding or buildings

,

a parent might feel less alarm ,and the student would quick ly

become the gainer by the comradeship and espri t de com:

which life in such surroundings, if properly controlled , wouldengender. I therefore commend the consideration of th issubject to the Conference.

I pass to the government of the Indian Universities,by

which question I mean the constitution and composition of

the Senates and Syndicates. Here I do not shrink fromsaying that there is substantial need for reform . To someex tent the failure of the Universities to satisfy the ful lexpectation of their founders has been due to faults alreadyindicated

,the nature of the education Offered, and the system

under which it is supplied. But for these faults the executive authority cannot be held free from blame ; and whenone realises the principles upon which that authority hasbeen constituted, and the sources from which it has beenreplenished, there cannot be much cause for surprise. Ifind that the strength of the various Senates differs in thefollowing degrees : Allahabad 8 2 , Lahore 104, Calcutta1 80,

Madras 1 9 7 , Bombay 3 10. There can be no sufficientreason for such extreme disparity. These bodies, moreover,are constituted in different ways and in different proportions .The majority of them suffer from being much too unwieldyand they al l suffer from being fil led, in the main, not bythe test of educational interest, or influence, or knowledge ,but by that of personal or official distinction . I do not saytha t it is not a good thing to place uponthe governing bodyof every University a number of eminent outs iders who wil llend dignity to its proceedings, and will regard academicmatters from a not exclusively academic standpoint. Every

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324 EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

great mistake to be too rigid, or to try and force everybodyand everything into the same mould . But, on the othe rhand

,I do say that the present absence of system is

indefensible, and that it tends to produce much of the

uncertainty and confl ict which I have deplored . I havealready, in a speech at the last Convocation of the CalcuttaUniversity,

l indicated some of the directions in which Ithink that reform should lie ; and as they wi ll form the

basis of our discussions, I will summarise them here. I twi l l be for us to examine whether the larger Senatesshould be reduced to more moderate proportions, whethersome machinery should be devised for placing upon them asuffi cient number of educational experts, whether a Fel lowship should be a terminable honour, capable of renewal , andwhether a reasonable attendance test Should be im posed .

As regards e lected Fel lows, we must consider whether it isdes irable to give a statutory basis to this most importantand highly valued privilege, and, if so, what Should be the

qualifications both of the electoral body and Of the candidates, and for what duration of time the Fellowship shouldbe held. As regards the Syndicates, it is for considerationwhether statutory recognition should be given to those bodieswho are at present without it

,what Should be their due

numbers in relation to the strength of the Senate and the

position of the University, what are the funct ions thatthey Should discharge

,and what steps are required to ensure

that these influential Committees,which practical ly have the

government of the Universities in their hands,shall contain

a due proportion of experts,who will guide them towards

the goal that all friends of educationmust have in view.

All these are important questions. I do not venture to

pronounce dogm atically upon any of them . But from suchopportunity as I have had of consulting authoritativeopinion as well as of testing the currents of the popularmind, I am incl ined to think that they wil l furnish the basisof a general ly acceptable reform . They are attempts to

introduce order and regularity into that which is at presentformless and void, and to provide us in future with a m orescientific and effi cient machine.

1 This speech is not reproduced inthis volum e .

EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA 325

But improvements in mechanism cover but a small partof the field of inquiry. They are the mere instruments of

administration, and their consideration leads us by a naturalt ransition to a study of the system which they administer.I shall put to this Conference the questions—IS theacademic standard which it is their business to maintainsufli ciently high, or is it unduly low ? Is it in course of

being elevated,or is the tendency in a retrograde direction

What are the facts as regards the Entrance ExaminationsAnd what as regards the First Arts and B.A . Examinations ?These are questions upon which I have not the knowledgeto enable m e to pronounce with any certa inty

,but concern

ing which the facts that have come under my notice lead m eto entertain some doubt. The evidence varies somewhat indifferent parts of the country, but the general impressionseems to be that there is cause for alarm .

When I find that at Madras in the past year, out of 7 300persons who presented themselves for the Entrance University Examination

,certified by their teachers to be fit for

the higher courses of teaching, as many as four-fifths wererejected, I ask myself what the value of the school finalcourses can have been. When I find that in Calcutta, out of6 1 34 who entered for the Entrance Examination , only 3307 ,or 54 per cent, passed that out of 37 2 2 who entered forthe First Arts Examination

,only 1 208 , or 32 per cent,

passed, and that out of 1 9 80 who entered for the B.A .

Examination,only 370,

or 1 9 per cent, passed ; and that,roughly speaking

, of those who aspire to a Universitycourse

,only 1 in 1 7 ultimately takes a degree, and of those

who actua l ly start upon it, only 1 in 9—I cannot but fee lsome suspicion as to the effi cacy and the standards of a systemwhich produces such results. Some might argue that testswhich admit of so many failures must be too hard. I amd isposed to ask whether the preceding stages are not too easy.

Now I know that a proposal to raise the standard anywhere is not popular. Every pupil wants to go forward ;every Col lege desires to send up as many as possible of itsstudents every teacher is personal ly concerned in pushingon his pupils. No one wants to discourage the Collegeswhich are engaged in a most momentous and uphil l work , or

326 EDUCATIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

to dishearten and retard the boys. SO much we may all

concede. But my gorge is disposed to rise when I read in

respectable papers that it does not matter whether thestandard is high or low, and when I am invited, as I was on

the occasion of the death of the late Queen Victoria,to

commemorate her name by lowering the standard al l round.

Only the other day I read an argument that, because at someof the less influential Oxford or Cambridge Colleges them atriculation standard is low, therefore it does not matter howlow it is here. There is not the remotest analogy betweenthe two cases. An undergraduate does not pass thoseexaminations in England as a tes t for the public service andhe goes to a Col lege in many cases less for the sake of theacademic standards to which he is required to conform, thanof the social and moral influences which result from aUniversity career, and which are entirely lacking in thiscountry.

We must regard the matter not from these low or selfishstandpoints , but in the higher interests of education at large .

A system, the standards of which are in danger of beingdegraded, is a system that must sooner or later decline. We

do not want to close the doors of the Colleges, or to reducethe number of their pupils. I t is quality

,not quantity, that

we should have in view. Whether this danger is a seriousone, and how far it is desirable to meet it by increasing the

length of the school courses,or by fixing a limit of age for

the Entrance Examinations, or by raising the percentageof marks required for a pass, are matters upon which Ishall take your opinion . But let the criterion of our action ,and also of the public attitude upon this matter, be notthe sordid one of self- interest, but the welfare of educationas a whole, and the advancement of the future generationsof our people.These are the main questions in connection with

University Reform that I shal l submit to your notice. Butthere are others of scarcely inferior importance which Ihave no time to do more than summarise tod ay. I havespoken of the duty of maintaining a high standard inexaminations. Is it not equally our duty to maintain a highstandard in the affi l iation of Colleges I have examined

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328 EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE ,S IMLA

prescribe the tex t-books and courses of study, that there mus tbe something queer in the background if they are so nervousabout any intervention. Sure ly we al l realise that successfulteach ing must depend upon two things, the qua l ity of the

teachers, and the nature of the th ing taught. To tell m e

that Government is responsible for ed ucation in this country,

but that it is not to be at l iberty to say a word upon the

thing taught, is to adopt a position which seems to m e

i l logical and absurd. The views that we entertain uponth is matter were clearly stated in the Resolution to whichI have referred, and I will quote them

The Government of India cannot consent to divest itself of therespons ibi lity that attaches both to its interest and its prerogatives.If it is to lend the resources of the S tate to the support of certa inschools, it cannot abrogate its right to a powerful voice in the

determ inationof the course of studies which is there im parted .

I have now finished with the subject of UniversityEducation. Your authority and advice should enable m e

to solve many of the doubts that I have here expressed ;and we shall al l profit by the out-of-door criticism whichthese views may perhaps be fortunate enough to elicit. I f

it be found desirable to take any comprehensive action inthe matter, I suggest for further consideration whether itmay not be well to institute some prel iminary inquiryat the various centres affected

,at which those who are

interested may have an opportunity of favouring us withtheir views.The subject of Secondary Education

,to which I now

turn, presents , in many ways, more encouraging features thanits S ister subjects, both higher and lower inthe scale. Thisis due in the main to the increasing demand for Englisheducation , to the starting of schools in order to meet it

,

and to the rise in income from fees thereinObtained . Thereare several matters in connection with this branch of oursubject to which I Shall invite your attention but there areonly two of them upon which it is necessary to say anythinghere.

The first of these is the degree to which is be ing carriedout the Government po l icy as laid down by the EducationCommission Of 1 8 8 2 - 8 3 and by subsequent Resolutions

E DUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE ,S IMLA 329

viz. that private effort should be encouraged by everypossible means, and that Government should graduallywithdraw from the direct management of secondary schools.This seems to me to be a very diff icult question , for, whileit cannot be doubted that the principles underlying th ispolicy are sound, and while progress in that direction shouldbe our aim, Secondary Education is not yet in most partsin a position to stand alone. The existence of a limitednumber of well-managed Government schoo ls undoubtedlyserves to keep up a high standard in aided schools, andtheir d isappearance would probably be followed by a seriousdiminut ion in the quality of Secondary Education. Myview is that a par z

'

pas su development wi l l probably for

some time longer be found desirable,but that Government

should be careful to regard its own institutions not ascompetitors, but as models.The second question is how far the policy of bifurcation

of studies in the upper classes of High Schools—as recommended by the Education Commission—is being carried out,and what are its results. The object of this recommendationwas to institute a practical course of instruction for thoseyouths who do not intend to proceed to the UniversityExaminations, but who aspire to a commercial or nonl iterary career. Progress in this direction has

,on the

whole, been slow, and has varied in different portions of thecountry. The obstacles have been great. The Indianmiddle-class public has not yet attuned itself to the need forpractical education a Superior commercial value stil l attachesto literary courses. To some extent the studies thus organised have not beensuccessful

,because they lead to nothi ng,

because they have been too optional and not sufficientlypractical , and because they have not been eo-ordinated withtechnical or commercial education in a more advancedstage. I expect that if we can provide the boys who electfor what I may call

,upon the English analogy, the modern

side, either with employment when they leave the schoolsor with facilities for a continuous training in technicalcourses, we shall do better in the future. But somethingwil l also depend on the attitude of the educated classes,and the direction which they give to the popular mind.

330 EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

Primary Education, by which I understand the teach ingOf the masses in the vernacular, Opens a wider and a morecontested field Of study. I am one Of those who think thatGovernment has not fulfi l led its duty in this respect. Eversince the cold breath of Macaulay’s rhetoric passed over thefield of the Indian languages and Indian text-books, theelementary education of the people in their own tongues hasShrivel led and pined . This, I think, has been a mistake ,and I say so for two principal reasons. In the first place ,

the vernaculars are the living languages of th is greatcontinent. English is the vehicle of learning and of ad

vancement to the small minority ; but for the vast bulk it isa foreign tongue which they do not speak and rarely hear.If the vernaculars contained no literary models, no classics,I might not be SO wil ling to recommend them . But we al lknow that in them are enshrined famous treasures Of l iterature and art ; while even the secrets of modern knowledgeare capable Of being communicated thereby in an idiom andin phrases which wil l be understood by mil lions of people towhom our English term s and ideas wi ll never be anythingbut an unintel ligible jargon . My second reason is evenwider in its application . What is the greatest danger inIndia What is the source Of suspicion , superstition , outbreaks, crime—yes, and also Of much of the agrariandiscontent and suffering among the masses ? It is ignorance .

And what is the only antidote to ignorance ? Knowledge .

In proportion as we teach the masses, so we shal l maketheir lot happier, and in proportion as they are happier,so they wi l l become more useful members Of the bodypolitic.But if I thus stoutly urge the claims Of the educationof

the people, there is one misapprehension to which I mustprotest against being exposed the man who defends PrimaryEducation is not therefore disparaging Higher Education .

It is one Of the peculiar incidents Of journalistic criticismas practised in the native Press, that you cannot expressapproval of one thing without being supposed to implydisapproval of another. Let me say then, in order to disarmthis particular l ine of comment

,that I regard both Elementary

and Higher Education as equally the duty and the care of

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332 EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE ,S IMLA

The phrase Technical Education is employed in manysenses in this country, just as it also is in Europe. In bothparts of the world many of those who use it have no clear ideaof what it sign ifies ; and so great is the general confusionthat I Observed the other day that no less a personagethan the Prime Minister of Great Britain declared that hewas unable to find a meaning for the phrase. Here inIndia there seems to be a general idea that in TechnicalEducation wil l be found the regeneration of the country.

Technical Education is to resuscitate our native industries,to find for them new markets and to recover old , to relieveagriculture, to develop the latent resources of the soil, toreduce the rush of our youths to literary courses andpursuits, to solve the economic problem , and general ly torevive a Saturnian age. The imagination of the peoplehas been struck by the al leged triumphs of Germany, andby the unquestionable enterprise of the youth Of Japan .

The Government of I ndia has been caught in the sames tream of anxious interest, but uncertain thought ; andthe autumnal leaves are not more thickly strewn inVallombrosa than the pigeon-holes of our Departments are

fi l led with Resolutions on the subject inculcating the mostSpecious and unimpeachable maxims in the most beautifullanguage.There is nothing to wonder at in the relatively small

progress that has SO far been attained . Where knowledge isfluid, action is not l ikely to be consistent or strong ; andwhere every dreamer expects to find in a particular specificthe real isation of his own dream ,

there are certain to bemore disappointments than successes. But from this it mustnot be inferred either that nothing has already been done,or that much more cannot be done, or even that a good manyof those who write and talk rather vaguely m ay not be tosome extent on the r ight track .

First, however, let me say clearly what I mean , and whatI do not mean , by Technical Education , for the purposes ofthe present discussion . I mean that practical instructionwhich wi ll qualify a youth or a man for the practice Of somehandicraft, or industry, or profession . I do not include inthe phrase that more advanced form of educational activity

EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA 333

which is knownas Scientific Research ,and which involves

the appl ication of the most highly trained faculties toscientific experiment. Nor

,at the other end of the scale

,do

I include the practical steps to be taken for the revival ofInd ian arts and industries. That is a question in which Itake the keenest interest ; but it is a question which has acommercial aspect

,and which wil l be solved by the applica

tion Of private enterprise and capital , and by followingthe recognised and traditional lines of Indian practice,rather than it wil l be by education inGovernment Collegesor Schools. Nor

,again , do I refer to those steps for impart

ing a more practical turn to the educat ion of the young inour Primary and Secondary Schools

,mention of which has

already been made, but which must not be confused withtechnical instruction

,partly because they are general instead

of special ised, partly because they are in the majority of

cases intended to train up faculties rather than to train forprofessions.Eliminating al l these aspects of educational effort

,wh ich

are sometimes, though as I think incorrectly, included in thephrase Technical I nstruction , and confining its use to the

narrower interpretation which I have suggested , let us seewhat has already been done, and where lies the necessity forincreased activity or for reform . The institutions Of thischaracter that have been founded or aided by the Governmentof India fa l l into two classes ( 1 ) Technical Colleges orSchools ; (2 ) I ndustrial Schools. The former have beenfounded for the direct object of training Skil led workers incertain professions, arts, or trades. They include Collegesof Engineering and Agriculture,Veterinary Colleges, Schoolsof A rt

,and other analogous institutions. Some of these,

such as the Rurki and Sibpur Engineering Col leges, theCollege of Science at Poona, the Victoria Jubilee Instituteat Bombay, have turned out, either for the public service orfor professional careers, most excellent m en. Several of theSchools ofArt have done much also to keep alive Old arts anddesigns ; though I fancy that their pupils, when the coursesare over

,are too apt to drift away from artistic pursuits, and

that they cannot claim as yet to have produced any considerable art ists or architects. The Agricultural Col leges have

334 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

beenles s successful. They have beenresorted to as stepp ingstones to Govem ment service in the revenne or settlem ent

by agriculture, they have as yet been but poorly patronis edby the class who are hereditarily connected as landowners

with the so il. Nevertheles s, survey ing the whole field, i tdoes not seem to m e that it is inrespect of ins ti tutions of the

class that I have beendescribing tha t reform is most urgentlyrequired. Indeed, there is a certa in danger in starting toomany am b i tious schem es . We have to provide not merelyfor the se lect thousands , but, if possible, for the less favouredtens of thousands .

Th is brings me to the subject of the Industri al Schoolsthat exist, or should ex ist, on a rather lower plane—wha t Imay ca l l ordinaryMiddle Class Technica l Schools. Last year

,

as youknow, I entrusted Sir Edward Buck, who has devoteda lifetim e to infus ing ideas into I ndian adminis tration, wi ththe task Of advis ing the Government upon Technical Education in general in this country and his Report, which youhave already received, will supply us with a useful basis fordiscuss ion. I t cannot be doubted that here l ies a fruitfulfield for reform. These schools have been started in

different parts Of the country upon no definite principlesand with no clear aims, and have so far been attended withinsignificant results . I n the first place

,it is a common

place Of al l Technical Education that it must have certainantecedents, z

'

.e. it must be preceded by a good generaltraining of a practical character in the schools. Thisconsideration explains the importance of the subject towhich

,when speaking of Primary and Secondary Education

,

I have already drawn your attention . Then,when the

pupil comes to your Industrial School, you must makeup your mind whether you wish to turn him into ascholar or to make him a craftsman—it is difficult to doboth at the same time. If the latter is your object, as itobviously must be, then you must give him an educationneither too high nor too low to qualify him for an artisan .

If it is too high, you make him discontented with manuallabour ; if too low, he becomes a useless workman . Further

,

when you propose to teach him a handicraft, let it be one

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336 E DUCA TIONA L CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

on the remark to a higher stage, and say that as the headof the Training School is

,so wil l the teaching staff be

whom he turns out. The second is, that no country wi llever have good education until it has tra ined good teachers .

My tours in India have not brought me into contact wi thany of these preparatory institutions, and I therefore cannotspeak of them at first hand. I am disposed

,however

, to

think that, while there is no great deficiency in theirnumbers, there is room for much improvement in respect ofquality and work, and that our policy should be not to

multiply, but to raise the status. Of course here,as

everywhere else, raising the status means in the last resortraising the pay. I would not shrink from recommendingthis conclusion to the local Governments, since I cannotimagine any Object to which they could more profitablydevote their funds .The second question is that Of the recruitment of the

higher officers of our educational service,and the tests

,in

respect both Of educational knowledge and Of acquaintancewith the language, to which they are required to conform .

Are we sufficiently strict in these particularsThe third topic is that Of Female Education . Here the

figures exhibit a relatively very backward state of affairs .I ndeed

,Mr. Cotton in the last Quinquennial Review de

scribed it as the most conspicuous blot on the educationalsystem of India .

” I n the past year there were onlygirls attending al l classes of schools out Of the entire pOpulation , and of these nearly one- third were in Madras, wherethe native Christian and Eurasian populations are unusual lylarge. Moderate as I have Shown the number of boys to bewho go to school , only one girl attends for every ten of themale sex , and only zi per cent of the female population of

school-going age ; and the tota l expenditure upon FemaleEducation in Primary and Secondary Schools from all publicfunds ( I exclude fees, subscriptions, and endowments) waslast year only 1 1 lakhs, as compared with 80 lakhs on boys.Fema le Education has to suffer from many drawbacks inthis country. It is contrary to the traditions and prejudicesof the people. Their native customs, particular ly that of

early marriage, and the idea that women ought not to be

E D UCA TI ONAL CONFE RENCE ,S IMLA 337

trained up to remunerative employment, are unfavourable toit. I n so far as it is practised, it is almost entirely confinedto girls of the lower classes, who go to the Primary Schoolsto pick up the three R’s. Parents in the higher classes wil lnot send their girls to school . They prefer to have themeducated in the zenana at home. I t is too much

,with al l

these Obstacles in the way, to expect that Female Educationin India wil l make any sudden or rapid strides. But I thinkthat we might do more to foster its growth by providingsuitable teachers

,and, perhaps, by encouraging the forma

tion of a few model schools.The fourth subject to which I referred is that Of Moral

Teaching in our schools. I do not feel it necessary to speakof rel igious instruction

,because

,profoundly as I believe that

no teaching of the young can have the desired results unlessit rests upon a religious foundation, I hold as strongly thatit is not for ourselves to undertake the teaching of a foreignrel igion in the Government schools. But the question of

moral training is one to which the Government of Indiahave often devoted much attention . I am not incl ined tofind a solution in the moral primer or textbook that wassuggested by the Education Commission . If pupils cancram Euclid

,there is nothing to p revent them from cram

ming ethics. I am not certain either that the moral precepts which we understand are as easi ly grasped by thenative mind . The ideas of good and evil are equally enterta ined , but are differently expressed, by the East and theWest. We must look for rel igious instruction, Christian,Mohammedan

,or Hindu

,to the private institutions,where the

tenets of those faiths are taught by their own votaries, andto wh ich we can lend the assistance of Government grants~

ih -a id. As regards the mora l standard, there are threemethods by which it can be inculcated : by the carefulselection of teachers, by the use of textbooks that imbue byprecept or exam ples a healthy moral tone, and by disciplinein the boarding-schools. The sum and substance of the

matter is that books can do something, but teachers can domore.My last topic is the desirabi lity of creating a D irector

General of Education in India. Upon this point I will give2

33s EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

my Opinions for what they may be worth. To understandthe case we must first realise what the existing system and

its consequences are. Education is at present a sub-headingof the work of the Home Department, already greatly overstrained . When ques tions of supreme educational interestare referred to us for decision, we have no expert to guideus

,no staff trained to the business, nothing but the p re

cedents recorded in our fi les to fal l back upon. I n everyother department Of scientific knowledge— sanitat ion,hygiene

, forestry, mineralogy ,horse-breed ing, explosives

the Government possesses expert advisers. In education,

the most complex and most momentous of all,we have none.We h ave to rely upon the Opinions of Officers who are constantly changing, and who may very likely never have hadany experience of education in their lives. Let me point toanother anomaly. Under the system of decentralisationthat has necessarily and, on the whole, rightly been pursued,we have little idea of what is happening in the provinces

,

unti l,once every five years, a gentleman comes round , writes

for the Government of India the Quinquennial Review,

makes all sorts of discoveries of which we know nothing, anddiscloses shortcomings which in hot haste we then proceedto redress. How and why th is systemless system has beenal lowed to survive for all these years it passes my wit todetermine. Now that we realise it, let us put an end to itfor ever. I do not desire an Imperial Education Department, packed with pedagogues and crusted with ofli cialism .

I do not advocate a Minister or Member Of Counci l forEducation. I do not want anything that will turn theUniversities into a department of the State, or fetter theCol leges and schools with bureaucratic handcuffs . ButI do want some one at headquarters who wi l l prevent theGovernm ent Of India from going wrong, and who will helpus to secure that community of principle and of aim withoutwhich we go drifting about like a deserted hulk on choppingseas. I go farther

,and say that the appointment of such

an Officer, provided that he he himself an expert and anenthusiast, wil l be of immense assistance to the localGovernments . His wider outlook will check the perils of

narrowness and pedantry, while h is custody of the leading

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340 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VERS I TY

CONVOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY

Speech at the Annua l Convocationof the Calcutta Univers ityonFebruary 1 3, 1 964

I address this assemblage to-day in the unique positionof a Chancellor presiding for the sixth time in succession ata Convocation of the Calcutta University. But I alsooccupy the

,if possible, stil l more unusual position of the last

Chancellor of an old regim e, addressing the last Senate andthe last Syndicate of an era that is about to disappear,There may be some who think that they see in the ViceChancellor 1 and myself the two chief executioners, about toadmonish their victims before leading them to the scaffold,and who may think that the position is one of some painfu lness and restraint. But I can assure this Convocation onbehalf of my hon . colleague as wel l as for myself that weentertain no such feelings. For the patient in our view isin no wise doomed to extinction, but is about to reappearwith a fresh lease of l ife and the instruments of the sentencehold in their hand, not the executioner

’s axe, but the ph ialthat contains the elixir of a new and happy resurrection .

Neither, again, do we regard the old Senate and the oldUniversity as passing out of their present existence with anysentence of shame or disgrace recorded against them . On

the contrary, if we look back at the forty years Of theirexistence, there is much to be grateful for inwhat they havedone or attempted to do. If they have not yet givenHigherEducation to I ndia inany true sense of the term , they haveat least made it an aspiration to the best of her sons. Slowlybut surely they have raised the standards of national morals

,

and they have brought to the door of thousands the wisdomand the idea ls of the West. But like many im plementsthat have been working for nearly fifty years without arespite

,their machinery has grown rusty and obsolete ; they

have fal len into a narrow and stereotyped groove of workthe quality of their output is greatly inferior to its volumeand in too many cases the end arrived at bears little relation

1 S ir Thomas Raleigh.

CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VERS I TY 341

to education at all. These are the reasons why we have feltcalled upon to undertake the task, familiar in every workshopin the world, of taking stock of our plant, of overhauling it,and bringing it up to the needs of the day. There arealways persons on these occasions who deprecate thisnecessary and businesslike proceeding

,because it involves

a shock to some interests,or some prospective risk, or even

some positive change. We, however, on whose shoulders theresponsibil ity has been laid

,cannot afford to be deterred by

these pleas. We must not be rash or hurried in our proCedure ; and, assuredly, when I remember myself standingno less than five years ago in this place and announcing thecommencement of the task of which we are now approaching the completion, that seems to m e about the last accusation which Should be brought against us. We must as faras possible, in a matter of the supreme national importanceof education, be Open to advice and correction, and must tryto carry the community along with us. I say as far aspossible, because there are always some persons who do notmean to be concil iated, and who cavi l and sneer at the veryreform which they are one day destined to applaud. Thatclass we may argue with

,but we cannot, I fear, placate. But

it is, on the whole, a smal l one and I prefer rather to turnto the far wider section of the community with whom it hasbeen my good fortune to come into contact during these fiveyears of strenuous preparation and discussion to good menengaged in the work or profession of teaching, but eatingtheir hearts out because of the unsatisfactory conditionsunder which it has hitherto been carried on ; to officials whohave seen the administrative side Of the system, and are

burning to remedy its flaws and abuses to non -officials wholook rather to the broad results

,and have recognised that

learning in India is not making the progress that it shouldto native gentlemen who

,irrespective of party politics or

national feeling,desire to see their countrymen raised higher

in the intellectual scale,who feel that

,somehow or other, the

soul and heart of the people are not giving forth al l thatthey are capable of doing

,and who have sufl‘icient independ

ence of thought to realise that, unless Government interferesto set matters right

,there wil l be no setting right at all . All

342 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VERS I TY

these are the classes from whom I have met with sympathy,co-Operation , and support ; and I rejoice to think that they,a long with the Government of I ndia, are the joint authorsand co-sponsors of the projected reforms.

I do not propose to address this Convocation on the

present occasion on the provisions of the Un iversities Bi l l.That measure is now before the Select Committee of the

Legislative Council, and in what form it may ultimatelyemerge I cannot tel l. I shal l have Opportunities of speaking upon the matter and of defending the attitude of theGovernment, if it requires defence, later on. Nor do I thinkthat the present audience

,which contains so many young

men who have just taken their degrees, and who have notfamiliarised themselves with the polemics of public l ife—at

least I hope that they have not,—would be altogether themost suitable for the purpose.I would l ike, however, to address these young men for a

few moments, and to ask them ,and their seniors at the same

time—for my remarks wil l be equally applicable to both,— if

they have at all realised what it is,or at least what it ought

to be, to belong to a University ; and if I can get them tounderstand this

,then they will be in a better frame of mind,

on some other occasion , when the Universities Bil l is beingdiscussed in the Legislative Council or in the Press, to

realise what it is that we are struggling for, and why wetake so much trouble

,and are wil ling to fight so many battles

,

in the pursuit of our aim .

I daresay that to many of this audience the Univers itymeans nothing more than the final stage in a long andirksome series of examinations in which they have beenengaged ever since they were young boys. I t has , perhaps,something rather grander and bigger about it than anyeducationa l institution tha t they have known before , becauseit is in the capital of I ndia, and possesses this great hall ,and sti l l more because it is the dispenser of the gown andthe hood that signify academic rank, and carry with themthe coveted initials that are the passport in India to somany places and occupations. But the name , I daresay,suggests to them no other associations ; it inspires fewambitions ; it is invested with no romance . I n hundreds

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344 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE R S I TY

for the oldest University in India is not yet half a centuryold we have not the environment or the atmosphere—theycannot be created in twice that time we lack the building s,the endowments

,the teachers

,the scholarships, the fund s .

I t would be easy for any critic to contend that our Univers ities are no more than examining boards, our Collegesschools of a higher grade

,our courses a textbook at one

end and a notebook at the other. I would not disputewith him if he went farther

,and said that the pursuit of

knowledge for its own sake,or for the training Of characte r,

is only in its infancy, and that, while we trim the wick Of

the intel lect with mechanical accuracy, we have hard lylearned how to light up the lamp of the soul .But are we, therefore, to sit sti l l or be dismayed ? A re

we not to make a beginning,or to foster such beginning

and I think that it clearly exists—as has already been madeLord Beaconsfield once said that it is a holy thing to see a

nation saved by its youth. Yes,it is but there is a hol ier

thing stil l,and that is to save the youth of a nation . I

wonder how many of the good people who go to meetingsand denounce the Government for ringing the death-kne l lof Higher Education in India and other tropes of thatdescription—pause to think that you cannot ring the deathknel l of that which in the truezsense of the term has neverbeen born . Is there a thoughtful man in India who doesnot know that if we go on as we are now doing

,education

in this country, instead of becoming higher, must becom e

lower, and that the best education wil l continue, as now, tobe the monopoly of the few,

instead of being increasinglydiffused among the classes who are worthy of it ? Our

purpose,therefore

,is not destructive

,but constructive. We

have to save the rising generation of India from walking infalse paths, and to guide them into right ones. No Government can do this by itself

,and no law that can be placed

upon the statute-book will effect it. But Government can

provide the opportunity,and the law can supply the means

and then the responsibility will rest with others,both of

your race and mine,for taking advantage Of them .

If, then , we have not got the ideal University, and are

not in a position by a stroke of the pen to create it, at

CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VERS ITY 345

least let us render it possible in the future. The materialis here in abundance ; the teachers are avai lable or canbe procured ; the system alone is at fault. I can see noreason why India should not one day rise to the conceptionof a University, not perhaps as advanced as that which Isketched a few moments ago

,but immeasurably higher than

anything at present existing in the country ; a Universitywhich Shall gather around it collegiate institutions proud of

affi liation, and worthy to enjoy it ; whose students, housedin residential quarters in close connection wi th the parentUniversity

,shall feel the inner meaning of a corporate l ife ;

where the governing body of the University shal l be guidedby expert advice

,and the teachers shall have a real influence

upon teaching ; where the courses of study shall be framedfor the development, not of the facile automaton, but of thethoughtful mind ; where the professors will draw near to thepupils and mould their characters for good and where thepupils will begin to value knowledge for its own sake, andnot as a m eans to anend. I should like to see this sparkof the sacred fire that has been brought across the seas litin one or two places at leas t before I leave the country,and I would confidently leave others to keep alive the flame.

I think that amid much of doubt and discouragement wemay see the signs of a better day. The most thoughtfulIndians know how urgently it is required. The bestEuropeans are ready to help it on. Both realise that onlyby cO-Operationcan the end be attained. It would be absurdto argue that education is a matter for Government only.

That is not the mean ing of Government supervision orGovernment control . Education is the interest of the wholepeople ; and under the new system we shall want the co

Operation of the I ndian just as much as under the old.

But it is the best Indian that we Shall want just as much asthe best European

,and in my view we shall Obtain him .

All his ideals are summed up in making education a realityfor his countrymen . Otherwise what wil l India become ?

Our interests are the same, for an ignorant India is a discontented India

,while the real ly well - educated Indianis a lso

the best citizen. I t is because these truths to me are soself-evident that amid the noisy warfare of words, and even

346 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VER S I TY

of aspirations, I decline to lose heart, and once more at th islast Convocation of the Old University e lect to take m y

stand on the platform of confidence and faith. If to anymy words seem riddles, or the future dark and the way long,let me quote to him our English poet’s assurance, which inmany much worse storms has given solace to others as itdone to myself

Say not the struggle nought availeth,The labour and the wounds are va in,

The enem y faints not, nor faileth,And as th ings have beenthey remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liarsIt may be, inyonsm oke concealed,

Your com rades chase e’ennow the fl iers,

And,but for you, possess the field.

For wh ile the tired waves, vainly b reaking,Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets m aking,Com es s ilent, flooding in, the m a in.

These words contain the hope, the consolation, and the

prayer of every man who is struggling for the reform of

education in this country.

EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE,S IMLA

On September 20,1 90 5, the V iceroy delivered the following

address at a Conference of the Directors of Pub l ic Instruction at

S im la, in which he summ ed up the Educational policy Of his

adm inistration. This speech is the natural sequel to that wi th

wh ich he opened the first S im la Conference onSeptem ber 2,1 90 1 .

I was very much gratified when I learned that it was

the desire of the D irectors of Pub l ic Instruction who are

assembled in Conference at Simla that I should attend one

of their meetings to say a few words of farewell . This

desire was conveyed to me by Mr. Orange in language so

flattering that I could not resist it ; for he said that he

spoke for all the D irectors, and that they spoke for the

whole service of which they are m embers. Accordingly Iaccepted the invitation , and that is why I am here to-day.

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348 EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

canoffer to us the right educational prescription is the truephysician of the State.There is another reason for which Education in I ndia is

a peculiarly British responsibil ity. For it was our adventin the country that brought about that social and mora lupheaval of which western education is both the symbo land the outcome. As regards religion , we sit as a Govemment in India

holding no form of creed,But contem plating all.

We have deliberately severed rel igion from politics and,though we have our own Church or Churches

,we refrain, as

an act of publ ic policy,from incorporating Church with

State. But we do not , therefore, lay down that ethics are

or should be divorced from the l ife of the nation, or thatsociety, because it does not rest upon dogmatic theology ,

should lose the moral basis without which in al l ages i tmust sooner or later fal l to pieces. For education isnothing unless it is a moral force. There is morality insecular textbooks as well as in sacred texts

,in the histories

and sayings of great men , in the example of teachers, in thecontact between teachers and pupils

,in the discipline of the

class- room , in the em ulation of school l ife. These are thesubstitutes in our Indian educationa l system for the oraclesof prophets or the teaching of divines. To them we look tomake India and its people better and purer. If we thoughtthat our education were not raising the mora l level weshould none of us best ir ourselves SO greatly about it. I tis because it is the first and most powerful instrument of

moral elevation in I ndia that it must for ever remain aprimary care of the State. The State may delegate aportion of the burden to private effort or to missionaryenterpr ise ; but it cannot throw it altogether aside. Solong as our Governm ent is in India what it is

,we must

continue to control and to correlate educational work , tosupply a large portion of the outlay

,to create the requisite

models, and to set the tone.As soon as I looked about me

,but little investigation

was required to Show,in the words of a familiar quotation,

that there was something rotten in the State of Denmark .

ED UCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA 349

For years education in India had been muddling along,

with no one to look after it at headquarters or to observe itssymptoms

,ti l l the men who had given up their l ives to it

were sick at heart and well-nigh in despair. I t was notthat splendid and self- sacrificing exertions were not beingdevoted to the task it was not that any class, European orI ndian

,was indifferent to its claims, for I be l ieve that in

I ndia there is a genuine passion for education among al lclasses ; it was not that there had been deliberate or con

scious neglect. But there was a deplorable lack of co

ordination ; there was a vagueness as to fundamentalprinciples ; slackness had crept in, standards had depreciated , and what was wanting was the impulse and movement of a new life. I t was for these reasons that I threwmyself with a burning zeal into the subject of educationalreform . I knew the risks that had to be run—there wasnot one among them that could be apprehended that hasnot been incurred. I was aware of al l the taunts thatwould be levelled ; that we should be accused, when we

were merely raising a debased standard, of wanting to shutthe doors of education in the face of the people ; and, whenwe felt it our duty to assert the proper control of Government

,of desiring to aggrandise the power of the State, and

many other equal ly unfounded charges. But the objectseemed to me to be worth the risk. The all ies and fellowworkers were there who were only too ready and anxious tojoin in the struggle, and it merely remained to formulatethe plan of action and to go ahead.

For the first two years we surveyed the ground andreconnoitred the position of the opposing forces, and thenwe began . I look to the meetings of the Simla Conferencein the month of September 1 90 1 , just four years ago, as thefirst act inthe rea l campaign. That Conference has oftenbeen denounced, by those who knew not the real nature of

its labours, as a sort of Star Chamber conclave, that wasengaged in some dark and S inister conspiracy. Some of

you were present at its meetings, and you know how muchof truth there was in that particular charge . I do nothes itate to say that a Conference more independent in itscharacter

,more S incere in its aims, or more practical and

350 E DUCA TIONAL CONFER ENCE ,S IMLA

far- reaching in its results, never met at the headquarters of

the Indian Government. The meeting was a body Of

experts, non-official as wel l as ofl‘icial, convened in order tosave Government from making mistakes

,and to assure m e

that we were advancing Upon right lines. Our programm e

was laid down in the published speech with which I openedthe proceedings. We covered the whole field of educationalactivity in our researches, and we laid down the clear anddefinite principles which, so far from being concealed, werepublished at ful l length later on in the Education Resolutionof March 1 904, and which for years to come will guide thepolicy of the State. Then followed the appointment of aD irector - General of Education , most fully justified by the

devoted labours, the informed enthusiasm,and the unfai l ing

tact of Mr. Orange. Next in order came the UniversitiesCommission, presided over by my former col league, Sir T .

Raleigh, in 1 902 . Then followed the Universities legislation of 1 903

-

4, of which, looking back calmly upon it, I saythat I do not regret the battle or the storm , S ince I am

firmly convinced that out of them has been born a new l ifefor Higher Education in I ndia. Final ly came the comprehens ive Resolution of which I have spoken. Since then thepolicy of reform laid down by the Simla Conference hasbeencarried into execution in every branch of educationaleffort ; until at last the D irectors of Public Instruction fromevery province have been sitting here for a week in con

ference to compare notes as to what has already beenaccomplished

,and to discuss fresh plans for the future.

These are the main landmarks of the great enterprise uponwhich we have all been employed for so long ; and a momenthas arrived when it is not impossible to some extent toreckon up the results.What was the state of affairs that we had to redress ?

I will try to summarise it. As regards Primary or Elementary Education, z

°

.e. education of the children of themasses in the vernaculars, the figures which appeared in theResolution were sufficiently significant. Four out of everyfive Indian vil lages were found to be without a school ;three out of every four Indian boys grow up without anyeducation ; only one Indian girl in every forty attends any

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352 EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

the interests of an evil commercial competition, and management on unsound principles. Final ly, coming to the Universities

,we found courses of study and a system of tests which

were lowering the quality, whi le steadily increas ing the

volume, of the human output, students driven l ike sheep

from lecture- room to lecture-room and examination to ex

amination , textbooks badly chosen, degrees pursued for thei rcommercial value, the Senates with overswol len numbers ,se lected on almost every principle but that of educationalfitness

,the Syndicates devoid of statutory powers—a huge

system of active but often misdirected effort,over which ,

l ike some evil phantom , seemed to hover the monstrous andm aleficent spirit of Cram.

Of course there were better and reassuring features inthe picture, and there were parts of the country where themerits greatly exceeded the defects . But we had to correctthe worst even more than to stimulate the best, and like adoctor it was our duty to diagnose the unsound parts of thebody rather than to busy ourselves with the sound. Moreover, there were some faults that were equal ly patent everywhere. It is recorded of the Emperor Aurungzeb

,after he

had seized the throne of the Moghul Empire,that b e

publicly abused his old tutor for not having prepared h improperly for these great responsibilities. Thus

,he said

,

did you waste the precious hours of my youth in the dry ,

unprofitable, and never - ending task of learning words.”

That is exactly the fault that we found with every phase of

Indian Education as we examined it. Everywhere it waswords that were being studied, not ideas . The grain wasbeing spil led and squandered, while the husks were beingdevoured . I remember a passage in the writings of HerbertSpencer in which he says that to prepare us for completeliving is the true function of education . That is a concep tion which is perhaps as yet beyond the reach of the

majority of those whom we are trying to educate in thiscountry. But in the rut into which it had sunk

,I doubt

if European Education in India, as we were conducting it,could be described as a preparation for l iving at all

,except

in the purely materia l istic sense, where unhappily it wastoo true. But of real living, the life of the intel lect, the

EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA 353

character, the soul, I fear that the glimpses that wereobtainable were rare and dim.

Of course al l these tendencies could not be correctedstraight away. It would be a futile and arrogant boas tto say that we have reformed Indian Education. Thereis equal scope for educational reformers now, tomorrow,

next day, and always. Education is never reformed. Itmay advance, or remain stationary, or recede . I t may alsoadvance on right l ines or on wrong lines. Our claim is

merely to have rescued it from the wrong track, and givenit a fresh start on the right one. If we have set up a fewmilestones on the path of true progress, we shal l have donesomething for it, and perhaps made further advance eas ierfor our successors.What I think we may claim to have efl

'

ected has beenthe following. In Primary Education we have real ised thatimprovement means money ; we have laid down thatPrimary Education must be a leading charge on provincialrevenues ; and inorder to supply the requisite impetus, wegave in our last Budget a very large permanent annual grantof 35 lakhs to be devoted to that purpose alone. This wil lbe the real starting-point of an advance that ought never tobe al lowed henceforward to slacken . Most of the moneywil l go in buildings

,to begin with, and a good deal in

maintenance afterwards. Thousands of new PrimarySchools are already Opening their doors under these auspices,and in a few years ’ time the results should be very noteworthy. I n building we lay stres s upon the provision of

suitable and airy school-houses in place of the dark roomsor squalid sheds in which the children had previously beentaught. Training schools for teachers are similarly springing up or be ing multiplied in every direction . We havedefined the nature of the object- lessons that ought to betaught to the children in Primary Schools, and the coursesof study and the books that are required for the instructionof the cultivating classes. We have everywhere raised thepay of primary teachers where this was inadequate, andare teaching them that their duty is to train the facultiesof their pupils

,and not to compe l them to the listless

repetition of phrases in which the poor children find no2 A

354 EDUCA TIONAL CONFE RENCE , S IMLA

meaning. I look as the result to this policy to See a grea tdevelopment in Elementary Education in the near future .

It is apt to be neglected in India in favour of the loudercal ls and the more showy results of Higher Education.

Both are equally necessary ; but in the structure of I ndiansociety one is the foundation, and the other the copingstone ; and we who are responsible must be careful not toforget the needs of the voiceless masses while we providefor the interests of the more highly favoured minority whoare better able to protect themselves.In Secondary Education the faults were largely the

same, and the remedies must be the same also. Moreteachers are the first desideratum

,more competent teachers

the second, more inspectors the third . The increase thatwe have everywhere effected in the inspecting staff isremarkable. Next comes reform in courses of study and

buildings. All these necessities are summed up in the duty,which we have undertaken

, of laying down sound tests forofli cial recognition. From this we pass on to the developm ent of the commercial and industrial sides of these schoolsas against the purely literary

,since there are thousands of

boys in them who must look to their education to providethem with a practical livel ihood rather than to lead themto a degree ; and above all to the reduction of examinations.That is the keynote everywhere. Have your tests

,sift out

the good from the bad, furnish the incentive of healthycompetition. But remember that the Indian boy is ahuman being with a mind to be nurtured and a soul to bekept alive ; and do not treat him as a mechanica l drudge,or as a performing animal which has to go at statedintervals through the unnatural task to which its trainerhas laboriously taught it to conform .

I hOpe that the Government of India wil l not beindifferent to the claims of Secondary Education in thefuture. When the Universities and the Colleges have been

put straight, we must look to the feeders, and these feedersa re the High Schools. Indeed we cannot expect to have

good Colleges without good schools. I am not sure,if a

vote were taken among the intel l igent middle classes of

this country, that they would not sooner see money devoted

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350 EDUCA TIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

amateurs . I t is a science—the science of human life and

conduct—in which we must give a fair hearing and a

reasonable chance to the Professor.If our reforms are looked at in this l ight, it will be seen

that they are based upon a uniform and logical principle.We swept away the old overgrown Senates or bodies of

fellows, and reconstituted them on lines which should makeeducational interests predominate in the government of theUniversities. Similarly we placed experts in the majorityon the executive committees or Syndicates. I t is thesebodies who will draw up the new courses

,prescribe the

text-books, and frame the future standards of education .

Of course they may go wrong, and Government retains theindispensable power of putting them right if they do so.

But the initial and principal responsibil ity is theirs ; and ifthey cannot make a better thing of Higher Education inIndia, then no one can. Similarly we carry the expert intothe m ofussz

’

l. If we are to improve the afli liated institutions,

we must first prescribe, as we have done, sound and definiteconditions of afl‘iliation, and then we must send roundsympathetic inspecting ofl‘icers to detect local shortcomings

,

to offer advice, and to see that the new conditions are

observed . Simultaneously, if sustained efforts are made, aswe are making them, to improve the quality of the teachers

,

and give them opportunities when on furlough of studyingother systems ; and if at the other end of the scale weprovide for proper entertainment of the boys in wellmanaged hostels or boarding-houses, then it seems to m e

that we have created both the constitutional and the

academic machinery by wh ich reform can be pursued,and

that, if it be not accomplished , it must be for some reasonwhich we have failed to discern . Anyhow I can see

noth ing in the objects or processes that I have describedto which the most sensitive or critical of Indian inte l l igencesneed object ; and the most hopeful guarantee of success isto be found, in my view, in the fact that the best and mostexperienced Indian authorities are entirely on our side .

Personally therefore I regard our University legislationand the reform that will spring from it as a decree of emaneipatiou. It is the setting free for the service Of Education

,

EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA 357

by placing them in authoritative control over Education, ofthe best intel lects and agencies that can be en listed in thetask , and it is the casting off and throwing away of the

miserable gyves and manacles that had been fastened uponthe l imbs of the youth Of I ndia, stunting their growth,crippling their faculties

,and tying them down . I n my view

we are entitled to the hearty co-operation of all patrioticI ndians in the task

, for it is their people that we are workingfor, and their future that we are trying to safeguard andenlarge. Already I think that this is very widely recognised .

The old cries have to a large extent died away, and amongthe valedictory messages and tributes which I have receivedin such numbers from native sources during the past fewweeks have been many which placed in the forefront theservices which I am generously credited with having renderedto the cause of IndianEducation . One of the most gratifying features in this renascence in the history of I ndian

Education , as I hOpe it may in time deserve to be called , hasbeen the stimulus that has been given to private l iberality,showing that Indian Princes and noblemen are keenly aliveto the needs of the people, and are in cordial sympathy withthe m ovement that we have striven to inaugurate. TheRaja of Nabha called upon the Sikh community to rousethemselves and put the Khalsa College at Amritsar on aproper footing for the education of their sons, and theyresponded with contributions of 20 lakhs. In Bengal therehave been handsome gifts for the proposed new College atRanchi . The Aligarh Trustees continue to improve theirmagnificent Col lege, and last year, I be l ieve, achieved arecord subscription list in their conference at Lucknow. Inthe United Provinces the enthusiasm of Sir J . La Touchehas kindled a corresponding zeal in others. The College atBarei l ly is to be shifted from a corner of the High Schoolbuildings to a new building on a fine S ite given by theNawah of Rampur. When I was at Lucknow in the springI saw the site of the new residential College in the BadshahBagh to which the Maharaja of Bulram pur has given a

donation of 3 lakhs. Government has not been behindhandin similar l iberality ; and apart from the 2 5 lakhs which wepromised and are giving to assist the Universities in the

358 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

work of reconstruction , we have assisted the purchase of sitesfor University buildings in many places, and are prepared tohelp in other ways. I t is

'

a truism in Higher Education aselsewhere that the first condition of progress is m oney, andthis is be ing provided both by Government and by privateeffort in no stinted measure.I might detain you much longer by discussing the various

measures that we have taken with regard to other branchesof Education in India, for it is to be confessed that theaspirations which I set before myself and before the SimlaConference were not confined to the sphere of Primary

,

Secondary, and Higher Education alone, but embraced the

whole field of educational reform. There is no corner of i twhere we have not laboured and are not labouring. We

have not in our zeal for Indian Education forgotten the causeof European and Eurasian Education in this country. Wehave revised the Code, we have made a most careful examination of the so-called Hil l Schools, and are re-establishing thebest among them on an assured basis ; we are giving handsome grants - in- aid and scholarships

, we are appointingseparate inspectors for these institutions, and are starting aspec ial Training College for teachers.Then there is a class of Education which deserves and

has attracted our particular attention , viz. that which is

intended to qualify its recipients for the professional occupations of Indian l ife. Here our Agricultural College at Pusa

,

which is intended to be the parent of similar institutions inevery other province, each equipped with a skilled s tafl

~

and

adequate funds, has been special ly devised to provide at thesame time a thorough training in all branches of agr iculturalscience and practical instruction in estate management andfarm work . These institutions will, I hope, turnout a bodyof young men who will spread themselves throughout India

,

carrying into the management of states and estates,into

private enterprise and into Government employ, the trainedfaculties with which their college courses wil l have suppliedthem . Agriculture in India is the first and capital interestof this huge continent, and agriculture, l ike every othermoney-earning interest, must rest upon Education.

Neither have we forgotten Female Education , conscious

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300 EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA

ham and our latest step was to grant three scholarshi p s fo rtexti le indus tr ies in Bombay. Other attempts wil l fo llow ,

and ina short time there wil l, in my view, be no lack e i th e r

of candidates or subjects . S imilarly with Industrial Schools,

which we have been anxious to start on a large sca le for thepractica l encouragem ent of local industries, there is the wid es td ivers ity Of opinion as to the principles and the ty pe. For

it must be remembered that although India is a countrywith strong traditions of industrial skil l and excel lence, w i thc lever artisans, and with an extant machinery of trade-gu ild sand apprentices , these are constituted upon a caste ba s iswhich does not readily admit of expansion, while the industries themselves are, as a rule, localised and sma ll ,rendering co-ordination difficult. We are

,however

,about

to make an experiment on a large sca le in Bombay and

Bengal, and I have'

every hope that upon the labours andresearches Of the past few years posterity will be able tobuild .

Upon these and many other subjects I might discourseto you at length. But you are better acquainted with themthan I am,

and I have addressed myself tod ay not so muchto details as to the principles that have underlain the greatmovement of educational activity upon which we havetogether been engaged . To you and to your successors Imust now commit the task . It is a work which m ay wellengage your best faculties, and be the proud ambition of a

l ife - time. On the stage where you are employed there isinfinite scope for administrative energy, and , what is better,for personal influence ; while in the background of all yourlabours stands the eternal mystery of the East, with itscalm and immutable traditions

,but its eager and passionate

eyes. What the future of I ndian Education may be neitheryou nor I can tel l . It is the future of the Indian race, initse lf the most hazardous though absorbing of speculations.As I dream of what Education in India is to be or become,I recal l the poet’s lines

Where lies the land to which the sh ip would go ?

Far far ahead is all her seam enknow.

And where the land she travels from Away

Far far behind is all that they cansay.

EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE , S IMLA 361

In the little space of navigable water for which we are

responsible between the mysterious past and the sti l l moremysterious future

,our duty has been to revise a chart that

was Obsolete and dangerous, to lay a new course for the

vessel , and to set her he lm upon the right tack .

EURAS I ANS

ANGLO- IND IAN ASSOCIATION, CALCUTTA

A DEPUTATION from the Anglo- Indian Association (representingthe dom iciled Anglo- Indian and Eurasian Community throughoutIndia) was received by the V iceroy at Calcutta, onMarch 23, 1 900.

H e spoke as follows

Since I received an address from your Association morethan a year ago, Shortly after I had taken up my presentOffi ce, I can truthful ly say that the appeals and claims andprospects of the community which you represent haveoccupied a good deal of my attention . I never fai l to read,or to study, anything that bears upon the subject, or toconverse with those who are qualified to give me usefulinformation . These efforts on my part to arrive at thetruth, and to analyse the diffi cult problem of your future,rest upon the double basis of personal sympathy—since noman with a heart canfail to be touched by the misfortunesof a community, partly, if not mainly, of his own race, whoappear to have fallen upon hard times

,—and of political

interest— since no Viceroy of India can be indifferent tothe fortunes of a section of the population

,increas ing in

numbers, but apparently not increasing par i pas se: in wealth,contentment, or opportunity. Every Viceroy from LordCanning downwards has gazed at the problem,

and has beenleft sympathetic but puzzled . Some

,l ike Lord Lytton

,

have tried to do something positive. Others have felt thedifficulty of State intervention. That I am receiving youto day is, I hope, an evidence that I am not anxious to beincluded in the passive category

,or to how you out with a

compliment and a smile. Nothing would have been easierfor m e than to acknowledge your representations

,and to

362

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364 ANGLO-INDIAN A S S OCIA TION, CALCUTTA

compelled to say that if I were to judge by the natura lmeaning of words, I should have no idea of what the

Imperial Anglo- I ndian Association could mean . AngloIndian is a phrase which is applied in popular acceptance toa particular individual and society, British as a rule in origin ,which spends its life, offi cial, professional, or otherwise, inI ndia

,and as a rule final ly goes home. Thus when we

speak Of Anglo- I ndian offi cials, judges, clubs, newspapers,opinion

,and so on, everybody understands exactly what is

meant. You have a perfect right to take the same name ifyou please

,and to some extent it covers the component

e lements of your Society. But I am not certain that youdo not rather confuse some of your friends and wellwishersby adopting a designation that in popular parlance meanssomething else, whilst the title certainly does not becomeany the more—on the contrary, I think that it becomes theless—intel ligible by having the epithet Imperial prefixed toit. True and loyal and devoted sons of the Empire weknow you

,and your history has shown you to be. But so

are we all ; and why your Society should especially requirethe adjective Imperial to describe it I have never seenexplained. But there is another result of the expressionof your designation and composition which is of morepractica l consequence. I be l ieve that you desire in themain to cal l attention to the claims and to focus the

aspirations of what has hitherto been called the Eurasiancommunity, although there is also the case of many Englishor European families domiciled, perhaps born and bred , inthe country

,whose blood has never been commingled with

a native strain,but whose interests you desire equal ly to

promote. But the result of this very elastic classificationappears to me to be not clearness but confusion ; since ,when you make your demands, that which applies to yourconstituents at one pole

,bears l ittle or no relation to those

who are at the other. The arguments from race do not,for instance

,apply to the domiciled Europeans ; and the

interests, and employment, and prospects of the latterdepend upon conditions wholly apart from those that retardthe advance Of the man of mixed descent. Your Society

,in

fact, as at present constituted , rests upon two bases which

ANGLO-INDIAN A S S OCIA TIOIV, CALCUTTA 365

have a pr ion’

little in common with each other, viz., domicileand race ; and the considerations that are apposite in theone case , are often irrelevant in the other. Whilst, therefore,by casting your net so wide, you no doubt enve lop a largerhaul of fish, I am less confident that you advance the

general interests of your clients , which is, after al l, the mainObject for which you exist.I have only one other word of advice to give before I

pass on to an examination of your specific claims. If I wereone of your D irectors, I almost think that in the interests ofyour cause I should move a motion for a withdrawal of thepamphlet in which you bring your case before the public.The case has so much to recommend it in its intrinsicfeatures that it seems a pity that it Should be weakened byexaggeration and by declamation

,since such an attitude

cannot but prejudice your chances. To suggest that theGovernment of India and the India Office are engaged in adeep and malignant conspiracy to deprive you of your birthright

,that they desire

,or that any one else desires, to stamp

upon you the brand of inferiority or subordination,or that

as a community you are hunted down and proscribedphrases which very fairly represent the spirit of some of

your publications— is,in my judgment, very il l -judged and

quite untrue . Such statements are sufficient to set peopleaga inst you . Your object should be to attract

,not to

alienate,public support ; and you wil l do this by sober

reasoning, and not by angry rhetoric. There are pages of

the pamphlet in which your claims are fairly and moderatelystated . This seems to be the case when you are engagedupona Deputation

,as you have been this afternoon . But

whenyouare talking among yourselves,you seem , if I may

say so without offence, to boil over in a rather superfluousfash ion and onsuch occasions things are sa id which

,I am

afraid,would hardly stand the test of a critical examination .

There is another suggestion that I would make inpassing. Who are your clients and what are their numbersI observe that in the pamphlet they are represented by one

of the speakers,whose words are reported, as being over a

million strong. Onthe other hand,in an able essay that I

read the other day upon the Euras ian ques tion by a Mr.

366 ANGLO-INDIAN AS S OCIA TION, CALCUTTA

Nundy , which I would commend to the careful attention of

every one here present, I find tha t the total Of that com

munity was estimated by the writer as 1 There is awide margin between these two extremes. Of whom doesthis margin consist ? When you cal l yourselves AngloI ndians, do you include Englishmen who are not permanentlydomiciled in I ndia ? Do you include domici led fore ignersof other races , and, if so, how can they be termed AngloI ndians ? And do you embrace Eurasians of, for instance,Portuguese descent, and, if so, how can they fall into the

Anglo- Indian category ? Would it not be well to let thepublic know who, and of what numerical strength

,are the

various classes for whom you plead, and who are includedunder the common heading which you have decided to

adopt ?From these preliminary observations, which, if they have

been critical in character, have assuredly not been unfriendlyin intention, I pass to an examination of the specific pro

posals which have, from time to time, been put forward byyour spokesmen , and the majority of which have beenrepeated in the statements to which I have just l istened.

The first of these is the proposal to employ Eurasianson a larger scale in the Indian Army by the constitution of

a Special regiment or regiments enlisted from that class.Of course, as it is, Eurasians are frequently accepted asrecruits, a point as to which it would be well if your spokesm en in the pamphlet agreed with each other ; for, whereasone of them states that thousands have been so admitted

,

another declares that this admission on sufferance,which he

impl ies to be rarely exercised, is an insult to your people.Now

, in this context, I frequently see mention made of theloyalty and bravery shown by Eurasians during the Mutiny—and of this fact there cannot be a shadow of a doubtand by the Eurasian Corps that were raised in that time.

But it does not follow therefrom that the Corps were asuccess ; and , as a matter of fact, they were all disbandedbetween 1 860 and 1 8 70, on the grounds that they were ascostly as a British force, that the same confidence was notreposed in them, and that there were not sufficient recruitsforthcoming ( I think this a very remarkable and dispiriting

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368 ANGLO-INDIAN A S S OCIA T101V, CALCUTTA

Civil services, and about the necessity for legislation , sinceE uropeans in I ndia cannot be enl isted for local servicewithout the passing of a Bi ll through the British Parliament,a fence which even friendly Secretaries Of State sometimesfind it difficult to surmount. Such has been the fate thathas attended our proposal . I am sorry that it has notfared better. But you wil l do we l l to look facts in the face

,

and to realise that Governments are compelled to regard thisquestion to a large extent from the utilitarian po int of viewand that, until you can convince them that a Euras ianregiment, which would cost quite as much as, if not morethan

,a British regiment, will be at least as efficient for

military purposes, they are hardly likely to give it to youfor the sake of sentiment, or even of political expediencyalone. As regards the subsidiary suggestion which youhave submitted this afternoon for the formation of a EurasianA rmy Hospital Corps, the same difficulties apply. Eurasianscould never serve for the rates of pay that are now given tothe native equivalent ; nor could the subordinate duties,such as those of the O/zistzir, bearers, and sweepers, be carriedout by a Eurasian Corps. The long and the short of it isthat, for the present at any rate, the objections to Eurasianenlistment in the regular army are held at home to outweighthe advantages. I would gladly reverse this current of

Opinion if I could . But it rests, believe me, not upon anyprejudice or hostility—there is not a trace of that—butupon expert advice which it is difl‘icult to contest or tooverturn. At the same time, if you were to submit yourproposals as to an Army Hospital Corps in a definite and

intell igible shape, I shall be prepared to place them beforethe Mil itary Authorities, though I can give you no assuranceas to the reception that they may meet with.

I pass to the question of the employment of AngloIndians and Eurasians upon Railways. Last year

,I caused

a letter to be addressed to the Presidents of the variousas sociations throughout India that represent your cause

,

drawing their attention to the great Opening that appearsto be present to your community for employment

,notably

in the Traffi c, Locomotive, and Engineering Departments,

and to the meagre advantage that has SO far been taken of

ANGLO-IND IAN A S S OCIA TIOIV, CALCUTTA 369

these facil ities. The figures show that out of a total ofpersons employed upon Railways in India , only

7000 are Eurasians, or less than zi per cent. I am gladto have heard this afternoon that you have taken seriousnotice of this suggestion , and I hope that you wil l not letthe matter drop. I doubt

,however, if you are suffi ciently

aware of the possibil ities . In the three Departments that Ihave named, there are some 1 1 50 posts on every thousandmiles of l ine in India, the pay ranging from Rs.30 toa month, or posts in all, for which Anglo- Indiansand Eurasians are free and qualified to compete. Why doyou not enter for these appointments ? Why, on the contrary , do you allow the European and Native employés toincrease at the rate

,during the past year, of 32and 4i per

cent respectively, while your numbers have only increasedat the rate of less than 2 per cent ? You are mistaken ifyou suppose that the Railway administration can ever giveyou a fixed proportion of these appointments for which youcan qualify at leisure. Railways are commercial undertakings

,and they are apt to be somewhat indifferent to

sentim ent. I can but point out to you the broad, and notunremunerative

,avenue that is here afforded to your

energies,and invite you to profit by it more materially than

you appear hitherto to have done.I next turn to your claims as regards appointments in

the Civil Service. I understand you to complain that youno longer have the share that you once enjoyed in the

higher ranks of the Public Service, and that in respect Ofthe lower ranks you are handicapped by competi tion withnatives of this country. You claim accordingly that a

certain proportion of appointments in all ranks of the

Public Service Should be reserved for you, provided thatyou can satisfy the requisite intellectual tests. Now Imight remind you that the days to which you refer weretimes when the number Of Eurasians was much less thanit is at present

,when the competition was smaller, and

when the connection between European and Euras ian wasmore immediate and direct. I m ight also point to the caseof Eurasian Engineers who are even now enjoying veryhigh appointments and pay. But it is suffi cient to note

2 B

370 ANGLO-INDIAN A S SOCIA TION, CALCUTTA

that your appeal ignores in i ota two landmarks in recenthis tory, whi ch I am afraid that no amount of special pleading—I use the term in no invidious sense—can ava i l tosubmerge. The first of these was the Report of the Publ icService Commiss ion, upon which the Euras ian communitywas represented, and which del iberate ly laid it down as

a broad principle, subsequently accepted by the Secretary of

State, and S ince acted upon by the Government of India,

that there should be two classes of the Public Service : theImperial Service, recruited in England , though not necessarily from Englishmen and the Provincial and SubordinateServices, recruited in India. If I ndians desire to join the

former service, they have to go to England, and to pass theexaminations there in order to do so. The same oppor

tunities are Open to yourse lves. I t is simply impossible tothrow over the findings of the Commission

,and to ignore

the entire principle upon which the Public Service isrecruited by creating a special exemption in your or inany other case.

The second landmark is the principle laid down by theSecretary of State in 1 8 9 3 about S imultaneous examinations. Under that ruling, you enjoy precisely the sameopportunities, as regards the competitive test, as do anyother communities in this country. You are equal ly eligibleto employment with them . Nay , the Government havegone further, and have inpractice in many of the Subord inate Departments reserved a special proport ion of placesfor yourselves. I n the Subordinate Accounts Department

,

in the Provincial Branch of the Survey of I ndia , in theSalt Department, in the Customs Department, in the OpiumDepartment, I find that a large proportionof the appointments is either reserved to domiciled Europeans andEurasians

,or is open to them. Nor do these facilities

always pass without protest, or meet with the promptjustification that might be desired. I n the Opium Department, where three-fourths of the appointments are Opened toyour community, the Government of India have twice inthe last tenyears received protests from the Bengal Government in favour of recruitment from England, onthe groundthat sufficiently qualified candidates were not forthcom ing

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372 ANGLO-INDIAN A S S OCIA T101V, CALCUTTA

increas ing, and that the grants to them both from Provincia lRevenues and from Governm ent were largely onthe increasealso. More recently I have heard a com plaint as to the

unsui tabi lity of the H igh School and Calcutta Univers i tyExam ination for Ang lo- Ind ian boy s, and as to the des i r

ab i l ity of introducing the Cam br idge University Loca lExaminations in this country . Before pronouncing uponthi s suggestion, one would have to co-ord inate the value of

such anexam ination with the exam inations already estab

lished in India. The sugges tion has , I th ink , some merit ;and it is undoubtedly des irable to afford to your chi ldrenthe chance of passing an examination that possesses acomm on standard of value. But if you have a system of

Universities in a country, I see some d iffi culty in givingthem the go

-by altogether , and in regulating your educationby the standard s of a fore ign insti tution .

When you speak about Technical Education, youemploya phrase which is on everybody

's lips, but which not everybody takes the trouble to understand. I am quite in favourof a training which wil l fit a young m an for indus tria l employment, but I do not fee l at all clear that the best methodof attaining that end is by introducing the teaching of

Special trades into the curriculum of our schools. I thinkthat technical instruction Should fol low at a later stage ;and

, whilst we are quite wil l ing to give State aid toencourage any such enterprise, I think that local adm inistrations and private initiative may be expected to helpGovernment in a matter inwhich we have not the meansto take a big plunge ourselves. I understand from yourstatement to-day that you do not substantial ly disagreewith these views, and that you are taking steps for the

establishment of allied technical institutions.As regards the Hil l Schools for colonisation , I do not

know what part of the world you propose to colonise, orwhat sort of education you would suggest. I believe thata Euras ian agricultural colony was tried in Southern Indiaa few years ago and proved a failure. I do not draw fromthis any inference as to other or larger schemes and I amglad to hear that you propose to renew the experiment .I t seems to m e that Eurasians might be very useful in the

ANGLO-INDIAN A S S OCIA TIOIV, CALCUTTA 373

peopling of many blank spaces on the map of the BritishEmpire outside of I ndia—say in South Africa ; and thatthe idea is worthy Of careful examination. But it is hardlyin a shape to be submitted to Government unti l it hasattained a much more definite form.

I have now dealt with all of the suggestions that youhave put before me. There are many other suggestions

,I

dare say neither novel nor exciting,which

, if I had time, Imight be wil l ing to place before yourselves. There are

many forms of handicraft in India,mechanical and other

wise, for which your community seems to me to be welladapted, but all the talk about which general ly ends insmoke. Why a speaker at a publ ic meeting in Calcuttashould find the greatest d ifl‘iculty in getting his Speechaccurately reported because there are so few competentshorthand writers, why mill-owners should have to importmechanics from the British I sles, why bandmasters andbandsmen should have to be imported from Europe, whythe supervisors of Native labour in workshops and factoriesshould he often of similar origin, why the higher classes ofdomestic servants are so commonly drawn from communitiesother than your own—are all problems which puzzle me

considerably,but which your community might

,I think

,

assist to solve. The fact is,I suspect, that its numbers are

being gradually bisected into two classes : those who are sonear to the European standard that they have not theslightest difficulty in obtaining lucrative employment, andwho

,therefore, do not protest ; and those who are gradual ly

drifting away from it,and wish to preserve a superiority

which they are scarcely competent to maintain . I knowthat there is no more unpopular philosophy to preach toany community than Self-help ; and if such a doctrine wereto imply in the present case that the Government are

resolved to remain apathetic while you prosecute your ownfortunes

,I would not for a moment endorse it. On the

contrary,I am anxious to do you every good turn that I

properly and legitimately can , and my action in respect ofregiments and railways has sufl‘iciently vindicated my intentions. But if I am to have any success, I must cal lupon you to formulate your programme with definiteness

374 ANGLO—INDIAN A S S OCIA TION ; CALCUTTA

and precis ion, to eschew fallac ious rhetoric, to view yourpos ition in its true and to convince the Governm ent of India that in aiding you they are aiding a comm unity to whom they are not mere ly bound by ties of raceor sentiment, but who are qualified to hear their ful l shareinthe workaday compet itionof modern life .

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370 EXTRACTFROM B UDGE T S PEE CH

But let me represent the severi ty of the affliction to youfrom another point ofview. I see it sometim es stated, and

the cr itics of British rule in I ndia are very fond of th is

argument, that the rea l causes of recurr ing famine are not

the fa ilure of rain, the exhaus tion of the so i l, or the

loss of crops , but the pressure of land taxation and the

drain upon the resources of the people. Now I cannotpause to-day to discuss the ques tion of land assessments .

But I may point out, in terms of pounds, Shi l lings, and

pence, exactly what a great Indian drought does involvein the destruction of agr icultural wealth ; and those who

hear the figures may then judge how far any revision or

m od ification of our revenue system, putting aside the

ques tion whether it be or be not desirable or feasible, wouldof itse lf alone enable an agricultural population to standthe shock of a ca lamity at once so sudden and so devastating.

The wheat crop of I ndia averages tons, worthat leas t This year the es timate rece ivedfrom the provinces point to a crop of about tons .

Even if we allow that the money value of thesetons ina famine year is greater than in an ordinary yea r

,

we yet cannot put the losses of the Indian agriculturist onthis one crop alone at less than from to

Take another great staple crop —cotton. The

I ndian cotton crop averages in value £ 1 sterl ing.

This year its outside value does not exceed or

a loss of sterling. A third great crop is oil- seed ,

namely, l inseed and rape- seed. It ordinarily covers 1 8 millionsof acres. In the present year this crop is practically nonex istent outside of Bengal

,the North-Wes tern Provinces

, and

Oudh.

These losses, great as they are in relation to the annualproduce of I ndia as a whole, are sti ll greater in relation to

the produce of the famine region, to which they are practical lyconfined. I wi ll take the case of a single province. A verycareful return of this year’s harvest of food-grains has justbeen received from Bombay. On a very moderate computation , the loss to the cultivators in that Presidency, ascompared with the value of the harvests in preceding years

,

EXTRACT FROM B UDGE T SPE E CH 377

has been They have also lost abouton their cotton crop. What they have further

lost in the matter of cattle it is impossible to conjecture, butthe figures must be enormous.These facts appear to me to be sufficient of themselves

to explain how it is that the present famine is so terribleand the distress so great ; and how impossible it would befor any Government to anticipate the consequences of avisitation of nature on so gigantic and ruinous a scale.

Now let me turn to the financial aspect of the famine.

The cost of famine to the Government of India is incurredin a number of different ways : in direct famine grants tothe Local Governments

,in the decrease of revenue arising

from suspensions and remissions,in indirect expenditure ,

and in increase of prices. Summarising these heads, I findthat the cost of the present famine, partly estimated, partlyalready incurred , will be somewhat as fol lows —Faminerelief in the past year, 308} lakhs, in the ensuing year 500}lakhs ; loss of revenue in the past year, 2 36 lakhs, in the

ensuing year 1 2 1 lakhs ; compensation for clearness of

provisions and increase in cost of food-suppl ies in the pastyear

, 37 lakhs, in the ensuing year 7 1 lakhs—or a grand totalof over 1 22crores, or nearly S i millions sterl ing. To thisshould be added the temporary cost of other direct charges,such as loans to Native States, amounting in the past yearto 48 lakhs, in the ensuing year to 7 5 lakhs, and agriculturaladvances amounting to 372and 20 lakhs in the two yearsrespectively.

So much for the financial aspect of famine. Perhapsthe figures of cost, when viewed alongside of those of thenumbers of persons affected, and the loss of crops involved ,

may give to the public some sort of idea what a greatfamine in India means. That to some extent its magnitude hasalready been realised in England is, I think, clear from the

l iberal contributions that are now pouring in upon us fromBritish sources. I am confident that I shall not err if I takeadvantage of the present opportunity to express our unitedacknowledgments to the Lord Mayor of London in particular, and to the Lord Mayors and Mayors of other greattowns in Great Britain and Ireland

,for the patriotic readiness

378 EXTRACT FROM B UDGE T SPEE CH

with which they have inaugurated the various relief funds,and also to the generous British public for the splendidmanner in which, in the midst of al l their distractions, theyhave remembered our sorrows, and are, weekly and da ily,giving of their substance for India’s relief. We have doneour best for them in respect of their war ; and they are

nobly repaying the obligation in respect of our famine. Nor

must we fail to include in our thanks those British Coloniesin both hemispheres who are once again showing a mostpractical sympathy with our misfortunes ; and whose unionwith the mother country and with her great Asiat icdependency, whether it be for the purpose of conducting awar , or for that of al leviating the suffering of the masses,strikes a harmonious and resounding note at the dawn of anew century, which wil l re-echo throughout the world .

When in the month of December last a warning Circularwas issued by the Government of India concerning relieftests and relief distribution, apprehension was expressed insome quarters that its purport might be misunderstood bythe local Governments, who might thereby be led to restrictrelief to a dangerous degree, and to read into the cautiousutterances of the Supreme Government a hint that rel iefmus t be contracted and expenditure curtai led, howeverurgent the requirements of the people. The Circular hasnow been in operationfor three months. The numbers uponrel ief are in themselves sufli cient to Show how l ittle groundthere was for the apprehensions which I have quoted . Ontheother hand, we know from the replies of local Governmentsthat our insistence on the proper application of tests andprecautions, and on the limitation of relief to the strictnecessities of the case, was greatly needed ; and that ourwarning has led to very desirable reforms. We are satisfiedfrom the reports as to the health and general condition of

the people in the distressed tracts which we constantly receivethat sufficient relief is being given

,and we also have the best

of reasons for believing that, had not the conditions of rel iefbeen made more stringent , and had not additional precautions been applied, the State would now be engaged inthe support of many who were by no means at the end of

their resources.

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380 EXTRA CT FROM B UDGE T S PEE CH

facts prove irrefutably an entirely opposite condition of

affairs.Now in connection with famine there are certain

remedial or preventive measures frequently sugges ted tous , about which I should like, at this stage, to say a word.

The employers of labour in I ndia are in the habit of saying :Here we are in great straits for want of labour in our

m ines, our factories, or our mills. Onthe other hand, onlya few hundred miles away are thousand s of able-bodiedpersons, who are only being saved from starvation by theintervention and at the cost of Gove rnment. Why does

not Government spare its own pocket, and at the same timehe lp us, by moving these people from where they are notwanted to where they are Nothing, indeed , can soundmore S imple on paper. But nothing more d ifl‘icult in practice.

In the first place, human labour, and particularly nativelabour, is not l ike a cartload of bricks, or gravel, or stoneswhich can be taken up here and dumped down there,wherever you please. In the second place, we and ourofficers have too much to do in time of famine to be able toconvert Government into a sort of vast Emigration Bureau .

For such a purpose is wanted a close inquiry into the con

ditions of labour, the organisation of transport, protectionof the labour when transported, and so on . If we undertaketo move these large batches of men , we shal l also , if the ex

perim ent proves a failure, be held responsible, and shall haveto bring them back again . In all l ikelihood very many of

them would die on the way. Now that is not primarily ourbusiness. It is emphatically a case in which capital shouldhelp itself, and should not Shift its own responsibi lity on toGovernment. I t is the business of Government to lendevery assistance in its power

,and that I would most gladly

do. But I should like to see the employers of labour a l itt lemore wil l ing to help themselves. I know that, if I were oneof their number, and were inneed of labour, I would have myagents out at once, travelling here, there, and everywhere,and picking out the stuff that I wanted in suitable provincesand localities.

LEGI S LA TI VE COUNCI L , S IMLA 38 1

LEG ISLATIVE COUNC IL, SIMLA

At a m eeting of the Legislative Counci l at S im la onOctober 1 9 ,1 900, the V iceroy summ ed up the adm inistration of the recentFam ine inIndia inthe following speech

Exactly a year ago to-day I made a speech in this Councilupon the then impending Famine. Throughout the twelvemonths that have intervened, this famine, which, withinthe range of its incidence, has been the severest that Indiahas ever known , has been the main preoccupation of Govemment. I t has engrossed our whole attention

,has placed a

terrible strain both upon our resources and our ofl‘icials , hasdisorganised our finances , and has addressed a perpetual andirresistible appeal to our individual humanity. Now that itis drawing to a close ,

it may not be inappropriate that Ishould attempt to sum up the results of the past year’sexperience ; so that the public may real ise within a shortcompass what the Great Famine of 1 8 9 9

- 1 900 has meant,how we have endeavoured to meet it, what a mark it has left,or wil l leave, upon the history of the country, and what is theteaching that may be derived from a study of its features.We cannot, I think, be accused of having failed to antici

pate or to provide for this great drought. Our anxiety asto the prospects dated from as far back as July 1 8 9 9 . Inthe early autumn the local Governments and ourselves werebusily occupied in making preparations for the possiblefailure of the monsoon . When I spoke in October, reliefoperations had already commenced , and half a million personswere onrel ief. The numbers rapidly rose, month by month,ti l l, inJuly last, they touched the unprecedented total of cons iderably more than six mil l ions of persons. Even now

,over

two m il l ions are still in receipt of relief ; though we hOpethat, in the course of next month, the necessity may disappear

,and that the whole of this number may before long

go away to their homes.The main statistical features of the famine are already

sufficiently well known,and may be briefly dismissed . I t

has affected an area of over square miles, and a

population of about sixty mill ions, of whom twenty-five

382 LE GI S LA TI VE COUNCIL,S IMLA

millions be long to British India and the remainder to NativeStates. Within this area the famine conditions have, duringthe greater part of the year, been intense. Outside it theyhave extended

,with a gradual ly dwindling radius, over wide

districts which have suffered much from loss of crops andcattle

,if not from actual scarcity. In a greater or less

degree nearly one - fourth of the entire population of the

Indian continent have come within the range of relief operations. I t is difficult to express in figures with any closedegree of accuracy the loss occasioned by so widespread and

severe a visitation. But it may be roughly put in this way.

The annual agricultural production of I ndia and Burmaaverages in value between 3 50 and 400 crores of rupee s. 1

On a very cautious estimate, the production in 1 8 9 9- 1 9 00

must have been at least one-quarter, if not one-third,be low

the average. At normal prices the loss was, at least, 7 5crores, or fifty mil lions sterling. In this estimate India istreated as a whole. But in reality the loss fe l l on a portiononly of the continent, and ranged from almost total failureof crop in Guzerat, Berar, Chattisgarh, and Hissar, and

in many of the Rajputana States, to 20 and 30 per cent indistricts of the North-Western Provinces and Madras

,which

were not reckoned as falling within the famine tract I f tothis be added the value of some millions of cattle, some conceptionmay be formed of the destruction of property whicha great drought occasions. There have been many greatdroughts in I nd ia

,but there has been no other of which such

figures could be predicated as these.It must further be remembered that, unlike previous

famines, that of 1 900 was separated by the short space of

only two years from a drought not greatly inferior to it inextent and scarcity. Some tracts which suffered in 1 8 9 6

-

7

have been fortunate enough to escape in 1 8 9 9- 1 900. But

the most calamitous feature of the recent famine has beenthat there were others which not only suffered again , butsuffered in a worse degree. This was the case in theCentral Provinces, and in portions of Rajputana, CentralI ndia

,the South - East Punjab, and the Bombay Deccan .

Apart from this area of twofold distress, the centre of

Vide p. 9 1 .

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384 LE GI SLATI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

havevaried greatly. The preced ing famine had bequeathedexperiences and lessons of the utmost va lue, which wereca reful ly gathered up by the Commission Of 1 8 9 8 , and whichhave profoundly affected the policy of the present fam ine .

The stress laid by the Commiss ion on the necess ity forstarting relief before the people have run down ; theiradvocacy of more extens ive gratuitous re l ief, especiallyin the form of kitchen relief ; their recommendationsconcerning the special treatment of aboriginal and fores ttribes ; their approval of small or vi l lage re l ief works inSpecial circumstances in preference to large works : these

and other injunctions will be found to have influenced ourmeasures and Shaped our course throughout the fam ine.

The Commiss ion’s recommendat ions were generally in the

direction Of grea ter flexibility in rel ief methods and greate rliberality of rel ief. The dangers of ill- regulated profusionare Obvious ; and, apart from all considerations of cost, itwould be a national misfortune if relief were ever made sofacile or so pleasant as to destroy the se lf-respect and selfre l iance of the people . But the Commission were notunmindful of this danger ; and their findings amounted to

this, that they recognised that, in the last famine, we hadnot succeeded in preventing great mortality and suffering ,and that they thought better results might be attainableby a larger expenditure Of money and a somewhat greaterregard to the circumstances of special localities and classes .

They said in effect that, if it was good policy to comba t afamine, it was good policy to combat it efl

'

ectively . I t ispossible that, in certain directions, their recommendationserred on the side of over- l iberality. Their wage- sca le is aninstance. I t was tried in all provinces at the commencement of the present famine, but was Speedily reduced bythe independent consent of all local Governments . Again

,

their advocacy of gratuitous re l ief may be said by some tohave led, in the present famine, to a scale of alms-givingunprecedented in magnitude, and likely to embarrass futurefamine administration. This question I wil l discuss in amoment. I merely mention the matter now to Show that

,

in the present famine, we have broken new ground, and ,acting upon the lessons of its predecessor, have accepted a

LE GI SLA TI VE COUNCIL , S IMLA 385

higher standard of moral and financial obligation than hasever before been recognised or acted upon in this or anycountry.

If, indeed, a special characteristic should be attributedto our campaign of famine relief in the first year, it hasbeen its unprecedented liberality. There is no parallelin the history of India, or in that of any country in the

world, to the total of over six mil l ion persons who, in Brit ishIndia and the Native States, have for weeks on end beendependent upon the charity of Government. Let m e compare these figures with those of the preceding famine.In 1 8 9 7 the high-water mark of relief was reached in the

second fortnight of May, when there were nearly 4 mill ionpersons on relief in British India . Taking the affectedpopulation at 40 mil l ions, the ratio of rel ief was 1 0 per

cent. I n one district of Madras, and in two districts of the

North-Western Provinces,the ratio for some months was

about 30 per cent ; but these were exceptional cases. Inthe most distressed districts of the Central Provinces, 1 5 or1 6 per cent was regarded in 1 8 96

-

7 as a very high standardof relief. Now take the figures of the present year. Forsome weeks in June and July

,upwards of 4i mill ion persons

were on relief in British I ndia. Reckoned on a populationof, say, 2 5 millions, the ratio Of relief was 1 8 per cent a scompared with 1 0 per cent in 1 8 9 7 . In many districts theproportion exceeded 20 per cent. In several it exceeded 30per cent. In two districts it exceeded 40 per cent. In thesmall district of Merwara , where famine has been present fortwo years

, 7 5 per cent of the population has been on rel ief.Nothing that I might say can intensify the simple eloquenceof these figures.The next test that I apply is that of the number of

officers whom we have lent both to British districts and toNative States to reinforce the overworked, and in manycases undermanned, local establishments. From the Army84 Staff Corps offi cers, 1 7 native officers, 10 British noncommissioned officers and privates, and 2 2 8 native noncommissioned officers and privates, have been deputed forperiods of various length to famine duty in British India andNative States. They have done excel lent work. I ncluding

2 C

386 LE GI S LA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

the above, the total number of public officials deputed fromcivi l and military employ to famine duty has amounted to

637 . Among these were 3 5 assistant surgeons, and 1 4 1

hospital assistants, 44 civil engineers, 1 0 Royal Engineers ,and 24 Public Works subordinates. Large as these numbe rswere

,we would gladly have sent more

,had the men bee n

forthcoming. Since the famine began , I cannot recall eve rhaving refused an application, if it was possible to grant i t.We literally scoured the remaining provinces of I ndia for theloan of men , and with great generosity, wherever practicable ,

their Governments responded to the appeal. After myreturn from Guzerat, we collected and sent down a largenumber of additional hospital assistants

,of whom I had

noted a regrettable paucity, to Bombay. Similarly, in th eNative States, as the Chiefs and Durbars have repeated lyacknowledged , it has only been owing to the admin istrativeknowledge, the unflagging energy, and the devotion of the

British officers whom we have lent to them,that they have

escaped a disastrous breakdown .

My third test is that of financial outlay. The directexpenditure on famine rel ief in British India, and in Berar,from the commencement of relief operations up to theend of August, has been 8 54 lakhs of rupees. We estimatea further expenditure of about 1 50 lakhs up to the 3 1 5 1March next, making in al l

,in round numbers

,about 1 0

crores of rupees. I n loans and advances to landholdersand cultivators we have expended 2 38 lakhs. We havemade advances for plough cattle and for agricultural operations this autumn free of interest, and on very easy term sas to eventual repayment ; and our expectation is that notmore than one - half wil l be recovered. I n the matter of

land revenue, our latest estimate is that, of a dem and of

39 2 lakhs in the Central Provinces and Bombay, 1 64

lakhs wil l be unco l lected during the year. Inthe distresseddistricts of the Punjab, suspensions aggregating 4 1 lakhsare anticipated. With these figures I compare those forthe famine of 1 8 96

-

7 , cal l ing attention , however, to thefact that, in 1 8 96 7 , the area and population in British I ndiaaffected by famine were considerably larger than in thepresent year. The total direct expenditure on famine relief

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388 LE GI SLA TI VE COUNCIL , S IMLA

preparation . If we have now,in some cases, gone too far

in the opposite direction, some al lowance must be made for

the natural recoi l from earlier mistakes.Guzerat supplies another instance of the degree in which

we have accentuated and added to the flexibil ity of the

Famine Code. When the great outbreak of cholera hadd isorganised the large relief works and had driven the terrified workers away to their homes, and when extraordinari lyhigh death-rates revealed the existence of very widespreaddestitution and suffering, the Government of India did nothesitate to advise the Bombay Government to meet thesituation by enlarging the customary bounds of gratuitousrelief, and by Opening petty vil lage works to take the placeof the deserted Public Works relief camps. The effec t of

this po l icy was that, whereas in the middle of May thenumber of persons on gratuitous re l ief in the five districtsof Guzerat was l ittle more than at the end of Juneit had risen to at the end of July to andby the middle Of August to 38 the last figure representing more than 1 2 per cent of the entire population of thosed istricts. Before the present famine

,such a percentage

would have been regarded as a flagrant abuse of faminerel ief. We were, however, satisfied that a strict adherenceto the labour- test principle would

,inJune and July last

,have

failed to meet the very special set of circumstances createdby the cholera outbreak in Guzerat

,and I have no doubt

that the satisfactory decl ine in the death-rate was largelydue to the policy adopted.

In drawing attention, however, to the greater liberalityof relief that has been practised , the question may be askedwhether it was, after al l, only due to the superior intensityof this year’s famine, or whether it has denoted greaterefli ciency and perfection of method

,or has perhaps on ly

been the result of prom iscuous and thoughtless charity.

Some part of it must, no doubt, be attributed to the greaterseverity of the recent distress which I have already demons trated . Upon the second head we may safely claim tohave profited by experience in the improvement of our rel iefa rrangements, and in their more accurate adaptation tothe special circumstances of different districts

,the special

LE GI SLATI VE COUNCIL , S IMLA 389

requirements of different classes, and the different seasons ofthe year. No critic would dispute this proposition. Asregards the third point

,it is not without a smile that, while

I now read in some quarters that the conditions of relief,notably in respect of kitchen relief in the Central Provinces,have been relaxed to a dangerous and demoralising degree,I remember that, nine months ago, the Government of Indiawere being assailed for the al leged stringency and harshnessof the warnings that they had given in the Circular of

December 1 8 9 9 . Looking back upon our entire experience,I have now no hesitation in saying that our warning notewas well timed and was wisely issued. Our inquiry wasfollowed by a very salutary re-organisation of rel ief worksin the Central Provinces and elsewhere, by large additionsin al l provinces to the superior famine staff, and by considerable improvements in the supervision and conduct of reliefmeasures . One of its results was the exposure of the

inadequacy of the superior staff, and of the dangers whichwere certain to ensue if this were not rectified. I t wasin consequence of this discovery that we Offered the substantial help

,in respect of Staff Corps Officers, Medical

Ofli cers , offi cers drafted from the Postal, Salt, and PoliceDepartments

,and Engineers

, of which I have alreadyspoken .

I should like to add that,in my Opinion, there was no

inconsistency between the position taken up by the Government of India in the first months of the famine and theirsubsequent attitude in permitting a vast expansion of

gratuitous relief during the rains in the Central Provinces,and incounselling the Government of Bombay to relax theconditions of rel ief in Guzerat, when cholera had disorganisedthe large works. Conditions are radically different at thebeginning and at the height of a famine ; and a degree of

firmness at the outset is essential,which would, at a later

stage, he a ltogether out of place. If this be borne in mind ,our po licy will , onexamination, prove to have been consistentthroughout. Onthe one hand, we have set our face againstindiscriminate and pauperising charity, and have endeavouredto insist on re l ief being administered with the care andmethod which we owe to the taxpayer and to the exchequer.

390 LE GI S LA TI VE COUNCIL, S I J I LA

On the other hand, we have been prepared to accept anyexpenditure of wh ich it could be Shown tha t it was requiredto save l ife

,or to mitigate genuine distress . The only intelli

gent, and the only poss ible, pol icy is based on these two

principles. There is no contradiction between them. No

famine has ever been , or ever will be, successfully adm inis

tered , that does not exh ibit, according to the point fromwhich it is scrutinised , the opposite cha racteris tics of

str ictness and leniency, or that is not Open to the charge—if charges are to be brought—of being at differe ntmoments profuse and grudging.

Nevertheless, we may stil l be asked whether we are quitesatisfied that the abnormal mortality in Guzerat, the wideSpread m isery described by competent observers, and the

temporary breakdown of the relief machinery in that par t,were not due to any fault in our initial instructions. Thatthe mortality was very great cannot be denied. In Broachthe monthly death- rate rose from per mil le in October1 8 9 9 , to in May 1 900. In the Panch Mahals , the

death-rate for the same month of May was per mi l le ;inKaira in Ahmedabad 24. These rates includedeaths from cholera, a most virulent wave of which sweptover Guzerat in April ; although it is impossible to distinguish accurately between the mortal ity for which cholerawas directly responsible

,and that which was due to other

diseases, to debility, to privations, and to the temporarydisorganisation of the camps. I have seen the Report of aspecial inquiry which has just been conducted into theGuzerat mortality by the Sanitary Commissioner to theBombay Government. He specifies no fewer than eightcauses for the excessive death -rate in that district . Theywere—insufficient and unwholesome food resort to Rangoonrice and other unaccustomed grains ; bad cooking and badwater ; the physica l softness of a people who had neverpreviously experienced famine ; the unwil lingness of certainc lasses, such as the Bhils and herdsmen, to apply for relief ;and the vagabond instincts of large sections of the populat ion . Some of these causes were preventible or reducible ;the majority were not. If a perfect rel ief system is anywhere attainable

,it is obvious that it is more l ikely to be

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392 LE GI SLA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

been highest, it has never exceeded 8 per mille, exc ludingcholera. The result of my examination has been to Showthat relief has been fully and sufficiently given in th e

Punjab,and that there has been no mortality from starvation,

or even from direct privation, save in the case of wanderersfrom Native States, who arrived in too debilitated a conditionto be saved .

In Berar the death - rate has been general ly moderate,

except in two districts adjoining the Nizam ’s Dominions,

where there was much pauper emigration across the borde r.I n the last weeks of the hot weather the mortal ity roseeverywhere, especial ly in those two districts ; but no one

has been found to suggest that it was due to any deficiencyof relief.I do not speak of the mortality in the Native State s,

which has,in many cases

,been shocking, because the

Government of India cannot be held responsible for a systemwhich it does not control

,and because my sole desire has

been, while stating the best, and admitting the worst, thatcan be sa id about our own methods, to ascertain how far

the latter have justified themselves , or are capable of

amendment. Broadly speaking,it may be said that no

endeavours which it is in the power of the most philanthropic or generous of Governments to put forward wil lavail to prevent an increase of mortality during a severefamine. NO relief system in the world wil l counteract theeffects of reduced food supply

,cessation of wages, high

prices,and break-up of homes

,among mill ions of people

,or

wil l prevent famine from be ing attended by its twin sister,

pestilence .

When , however, I read the records of earlier famines,

and compare their results with this, I do feel some cause forsatisfaction . We are sometimes told of the wonderful thingsthat happened in India before the days of British rule, andare invited, in most unhistorical fashion , to regard it asa Saturnian age. I have looked up the statistics of the lastgreat famine that occurred in Bengal

,while that province

was stil l under Native administration . This was in the

year 1 770. I speak of local administration,because ,

although the D iwani of Bengal had been assumed by the

LE GI S LATI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA 393

Company a few years before,the latter had not yet taken

over the civi l administration,which remained in the hands

of the former Native Officers of the Delhi Government.Throughout the summer Of that year it is on record thatthe husbandmen sold their cattle ; they sold their im plements of agriculture ; they Sold their sons and daughters,ti l l at length no buyer of children could be found they atethe leaves of trees

,and the grass of the field and , when the

height of the summer was reached,the living were feeding

on the dead. The streets of the cities were blocked upwith promiscuous heaps of the dead and dying ; even thedogs and jackals could not accomplish their revolting work .

D isease attacked the starving and shelterless survivors, andswept them off by hundreds of thousands. Before the endOf May, 1 7 70, one - third of the population was official lycalculated to have disappeared ; in June the deaths werereturned as 6 is to 1 6 of the whole inhabitants ; and it wasestimated that one-half of the cultivators must perish. Twoyears later WarrenHastings

,who had assumed the Govem

ment of Bengal on behalf of the British power, stated theentire loss as at least one third of the inhabitants, andsubsequent calculations revealed that the failure of thissingle crop, in the single province of Bengal , had carriedOff, within nine months, no fewer than ten , out of lessthan thirty mil lions of human beings.After this appalling record of what famine meant in

I ndia a century ago,it was almost with a sense of relief

that I read the other day, in a manifesto issued by anEnglish MP . to his constituents

,whom I may observe in

passing that he no longer represents, that Lord GeorgeHamilton and Lord Curzon have looked helplessly on , whiletwo mil lions of human be ings have perished of starvationand disease in India.

” Had this statement been true,however damaging to the Secretary of State or to myself,it would yet have pointed an extraordinary contrast betweenthe methods and results of 1 900 and those of the eighteenthcentury. But that it is not true is known to every intel l igentperson in England and in this country. Every man, woman ,and child who have perished in India in the presentfamine has been a burden upon my heart

,and upon that of

394 LEGI S LATI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

Government. Their sufferings have never been absent fromour thoughts. I t cannot truthfully be said, even by the

most envenomed of opponents , that we have looked helpless lyon . On the contrary, I fearlessly claim,

and I challengecontradiction, that there has never been a famine when thegeneral mortality has been less , when the distress has beenmore amply or swiftly relieved

,or when Government and

its officers have given themselves with a more whole-hearteddevotion to the saving of l ife and the service of the people .

What the actual mortality may have been it is impossible to te l l with complete accuracy. At a later date theforthcoming census wil l throw useful light upon the problem .

At the same time, from a comparison of the normal death

rate of the famine- stricken districts in British India, wi thwhich alone, of course, I am competent to deal, with the

death- rate throughout the twelve months’ duration of the

drought, we can ascertain that there has been an excessm ortality of or three -quarters of a mill ion persons .

But, out of this total, we also know that cholera and small-poxhave accounted for a recorded mortality of figure swhich are admitted to be be low the mark. Making th i sdeduction , therefore, we arrive at an excess morta l ity of ha lfa mill ion in British India

,more or less attributable to the

famine conditions of the year. To say that the greater pa rtof these have d ied of starvation, or even of destitution , wouldbe an unjustifiable exaggeration since we know that manyother contributary causes have been at work, while thefigures include the deaths of immigrants from Native States ,for which our administration cannot be held responsible .

When , further,it is remembered that this total is not

more than 2 per cent of the entire population in thetracts to which it applies

,it will be obvious that no very

remarkable depopulation has occurred, and it will be

recognised that it is with ample justification that I give theassurance that

,in the entire history of Indian famines,

while none has been more intense,in none have the deaths

been so few.

So far my remarks have been confined almost exclusivelyto what has been done in the recent famine in BritishI ndia. I must add a few words about the Native States ,

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396 LE GI SLATI VE COUNCIL , S IMLA

Kathiawar the numbers on relief never exceeded 1 3 per

cent of the population . In Palanpur they reached but didnot exceed 1 5 per cent in one month alone. In the samemonth (July 1 900) one- third of the aggregate populationof the four distressed districts of Guzerat was on rel ief.The two great States of Baroda and Hyderabad flank the

Bombay territory on the north and east. In Hyderabadand Baroda the numbers on relief never rose to 5 per centof the nominal population ; and yet both States werevisited by drought and famine not less sever ly than the

adjoining districts of the Bombay Presidency. Meanwhi le,

the difference in the standards of relief was further testifiedby the eagerness with which thousands of fugitives stream edacross the border from Native States into British territory

,

where they passed themselves off as British subjects, in the

hOpe of enjoying the superior wages and comforts of ourrel ief works, our poor-houses, and our hospitals.I do not dwell on this point in order to disparage the

efforts , in many cases most praiseworthy, made by NativeStates to relieve their people ; but simply because thedifference between the standard of rel ief, at which we

have by degrees arrived, and the standard of rel iefrecognised as liberal in the best managed Native State, isone of the elementary facts of famine experience. Wemay gladly admit that more has been done for their peopleby the Chiefs and rulers of Rajputana on th is occasion tha nin any other historic famine. There are many brightexamples Of benevolence and humanity. The Maharaja of

Jaipur has extended his princely munificence not only tohis own people

,but to India at large. There is the instance

of the late Maharaja of Kishengarh, who, though sufferingfrom a mortal illness, took the keenest interest in the rel iefarrangements of his State

,and never once alluded to his

own i l l - hea lth. There is also the case of the wife of

Maharaja Pertab Sangh of Jodhpur, who, not content withopening an orphanage , resided there herself in order tosuperintend it. These instances

,and their number m ight

easily be increased,Show the sp irit with wh ich the famine

has been faced in Rajputana by some, at leas t, of its

rulers . A S for the people, they have borne their trials ,

LEGISLA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA 397

as the Indian people always do, with exemplary fortitudeand resignation.

I now pass to the subject of the charitable help whichhas been rendered to us in our long struggle, from so manyquarters

,in so many parts of the world. An impression

appears to prevail that, on the present occasion, this assis tance has been scant and disappointing. I do not sharethese views. Looking to the circumstances in which ourappeal has been made, and even accepting the test of

comparison with the famine of 1 8 96-

7 , I sti ll hold that theamount contributed has been munificent, while its utilitycan scarcely be overrated. I n 1 8 96 7 the total col lectionsamounted to 1 70 lakhs, of which 10 lakhs remained over atthe beginning of the recent famine. In the present yearthe Central Relief Committee has received a sum of closeupon 1 40 lakhs, or not far short of one million sterl ing.

Analysing the subscriptions, I find that I ndia has contributed about the same amount to the fund as in 1 8 9 6

-

7that is to say, about 32 lakhs. If the contributions fromthe European community are deducted, I ndia may be

considered to have contributed at the outside less than one

fifth of the total col lections of 1 40 lakhs. More might havebeen expected from the Native community as a whole

,not

withstanding individual examples of remarkable generosity.

The l ittle Colony of the Straits Settlements, for instance,which has no connection with India beyond that of sentiment

,has given more than the whole of the Punjab. A

careful observation of the figures and proceedings in eachprovince compels m e to say that, in my opinion, NativeInd ia has not yet reached as high a standard of practicalphilanthropy or charity as might reasonably be expected.

Though pr ivate wealth in India is not widely distributed,

its total volume is considerable. I f Englishmen in all partsof the world can be found, as they have been found, twicein three years, willing to contribute enormous sums for therelief of India, on the sole ground that its people are thesuffering fel low subjects of the same Queen , it surelybehoves the more affluent of the Native community not tolag behind inthe succour Of those who are of their own raceand creed.

398 LE GI SLATI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

The collections from abroad have amounted to 10 8

lakhs,as against 1 37 lakhs in 1 8 9 6

-

7 . The United Kingdom’s contribution of 8 8i lakhs compares indifferently withthe contribution of 1 2 3 lakhs in 1 8 96

-7 , but, in the circumstances of the year, it is a noble gift. The City of Glasgowhas been especial ly generous, with a donation of 8} lakhs,and Liverpoo l with 4i , in addition to nearly 1 6 lakhs fromthe rest of Lancashire. Australasia has given nearly 8 lakhsin place of the 2 lakhs sent in 1 8 96 -

7 . The Straits Settlements, Ceylon, and Hong Kong have also been extremely

generous. Even Chinese native officials have col lectedhandsome sums on behalf of the Fund. The liberal donation of Germany, at the instigation of the Emperor

,has

already been publicly acknowledged . Finally,the United

States of America, both through direct contributions to theFund

,and by means of privately distributed gifts of money

and grain, have once more Shown their vivid sympathy withEngland’s mission, and with India

’s need.I pass to the mode in which the Famine Fund has been

distributed. The formation of the Fund was accompaniedby two announcements ; the one, that in the distribution of

the money the four objects of relief recognised in 1 8 96-

7would be adhered to ; the other, that the claims of NativeStates would be fully considered. These principles havebeen faithful ly adhered to by the Central Committee. Unti lthe detailed expenditure accounts of the Local Committeesare received, we cannot accurately state the distributionunder the several headings. But we know approximatelythat

,of 1 37 lakhs allotted by the Central Committee, 1 1 1

lakhs have been for cattle, and seed, and subsistence tocultivators. The allotments to the Native States aggregatenearly 50 lakhs of rupees. The allotments to Rajputanaalone amount to 2 2 lakhs. Measured by the population of

the distressed areas, Rajputana has thus been not lessgenerously treated than the Central Provinces. In the caseof wealthy States l ike Gwalior, Hyderabad , and Baroda, theCentral Committee have restricted their grants to suchamounts as the Political Officers have thought it expedien tto ask for . Speaking generally, the grants made in Nativeterritory have far exceeded the expectations of the rulers

,or

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400 LE GISLA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

brought under my notice. I have heard Of Englishm en

dying at their posts without a murmur. I have seen case s

where the entire organisation of a vast area, and the lives o f

thousands of be ings, rested upon the shoulders of a s ingleindividual labouring on in silence and solitude, while his

bodily strength was fast ebbing away. I have knownof

natives, who, inspired by his example, have thrown themselves with equal ardour into the struggle, and have uncomplainingly laid down their lives for their countrym en.

Particularly must I mention the noble efforts of the Miss ionary Agencies of various Christian denominations. If everthere was an occasion in which their local knowledge and

influence were l ikely to be of value, and in which it was Opento them to vindicate the highest standards of their beneficentcal ling, it was here and strenuously and faithful ly have theyperformed the task .

From this record of the past I wil l now turn for a fewmoments to the future. After the sombre picture that Ihave been compe l led to draw, it is with no small rel ief thatwe may contemplate the existing situation and outlook. The

monsoon was late in coming, but it has l ingered long ; and,except in the eastern parts of the Bombay Deccan , where Ihear of crops withering from the premature cessationof the

rains,of a poor kha r if , and of anxious prospects, the outlook

is everywhere promising. The early autumn crops arealready being harvested, and prices are steadily fall ing backto their accustomed level . A good cotton crop is on theground

,and as the cotton crop of India is worth 1 3

mill ions sterl ing in an average year, its importance to the

agriculturist wi l l be readily understood. Preparat ions forthe winter crops are being actively made, and there is everyexpectation that the sowings in many parts wil l be unusual lylarge

,and will be made in the most favourable circumstances.

A good winter harvest means cash to the farmer,as a good

autumn harvest means cheap and abundant food to thepoorest classes. If we have the good fortune to see ouranticipations real ised

,next y ear should witness the export

trade in agricultural produce again revive , and the importtrade expand with the improvem ent in the purchasing power

of the people.

LE GI S LA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA 40 1

That the famine-smitten tracts wil l at once, or speedily,lose the marks of the ordeal through which they have passed

,

is not to be expected. The rapidity of the recovery willdepend upon many circumstances—upon the vitality and

stout-heartedness of the ti l lers of the soil,upon the degree of

their indebtedness, upon the goodness or badness of the nextfew seasons, upon the extent to which their cattle haveperished, and , not least, upon the liberality, in respect of

revenue remission,of the Government. A S regards the loss

of stock,our latest reports are more encouraging than at one

time we could have foreseen, and justify us in the belief that,if the seasons he propitious, recuperation will be more rapidthan might a t first sight be deemed likely. In Olden times,after a famine such as we have experienced

,the districts

would have been depopulated, and the land would have lainwaste for a generation , for lack of hands to ti l l it. Theremay be isolated tracts in the jungles and mountain fastnessesof Central India and Rajputana, where the approachingcensus will reveal a melancholy decrease of population but

,

treating India as a whole, neither in Native States, norin British territory

,is the wholesale and lasting desolation

which followed the footsteps of a famine a hundred yearsago any longer within the bounds of possibi lity. Thestandard of humanity has risen with the means of combatingthe peril and in proportion as the struggle has been arduous,so are the after-effects mitigated .

I have al luded to the attitude of Government. In SO far

as generosity in respect of advances, of loans, of suspensions ,and, most of all , of remissions, is concerned, the figures thatI have previously given will Show that, on our part, there hasbeen no hanging back . Our first Object has hitherto beento pul l the sufferers through. Our first object now is to startthem againwith reasonable chances in the world . Behindthese two objects lies the further and binding duty of profit

ing by the lessons that the famine has taught. It will notdo for us to sit stil l unti l the next famine comes

,and then

bewail the mysteries of Providence. A famine is a naturalvisitation in its origin but it is, or should be, a very businessl ike p roceeding when once it has started . There are manysubjects into which we shal l require to make careful inquiry,

2 D

402 LEGI SLA TI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

and an investigation into which we have already sugges tedto the Secretary of State. We shall want to compare thevarious rel ief systems and the ir results as practised i n thedifferent provinces ; to see in what respects our codes are

faulty, where they are too rigid, and where they are too laxto stil l further investigate the vexed question of large worksas against small works

,and Of rel ief concentration as aga ins t

relief dispersion. We Shal l have to examine the rival m er itsof relief establishments, and of unconditional gratuitous re l ie fwhen the rains break. We must consider how far suddenand excessive mortality is to be explained or prevented. We

must ascertain the best means of bringing home relief, in the

form of revenue remiss ions and suspensions, with the greates tpromptitude and directness to the people. We must inves tigate and report upon the various public works that havebeen undertaken in the course of the recent famine, and mustprovide for the execution of a continuous programme of p reventive works in the future.In this connection I would remind my hearers that the

last Famine Commission in their Report devoted much attention to the matter. Unfortunately the recent famine cameupon us before their recommendations had had time to bearfruit ; and in the rush and hurry of the overwhelm ingcalamity of the past year, works had often to be improvised

,

so to speak, in a moment , to meet the demands of aparticular area

,whether the work was or was not likely to

be of permanent value. Against th is danger we shall requireto guard by insisting upon the methodical preparation of

district programmes, and upon the formation of provincialbranches, to be charged with this special duty . Ra i lwayearthwork has been pretty well exhausted for the present.More roads exist thancan be properly kept up . But thereare few parts of the country where works for the storage of

water are not practicable . They may not,probably wi l l

not, be directly remunerative. But i f such a work w i l lconduce to greater security of the crops

,and if it can be

maintained at a moderate cost, it is just the sort of workwhich Should be taken up

,or kept in hand, for anemergency .

NO direct programme of relief should be considered completeuntil every possible irrigationor water storage scheme in the

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LEGI S LATI VE COUNCIL, S IMLA

irri gation reservoirs , which m ight prove, onexam ination, to

be im practieable, and which, even if practieab le, would haveto stand over indefinite lyuntil required for purposes of fam inerelief. There are other respects inwhich I think tha t the

Fam ine Grant m ight be turned to better account in carry ingout its original objcct than is at present the cas e ; but I havenot tim e to deal wi th them now.

I must apologise to Council for having detained them so

long . But a fam ine such as we have la tely experienced is

not an every-day or an every-year occurrence. I t eannotbe m et with a s igh, or dism issed with a shudder . It is a

terrible incident, anabiding landmark, in the h is tory of th e

Indian people. As such , its m anagement and its stud yim pose a heavy responsibility upon those of us who a re

charged with the governm ent Of this great dependency . I t

is with the object of demonstrating to the Indian publicthat, in the adm inistrationof the recent fam ine, we have notbeen unworthy of our trus t, and that th is year of stra inand

suffering will not have passed by without our p rofiting byits lessons, that I have m ade this speech.

FORE IGN AFFA I RS

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Mare/l 2 5 , 1 903

THERE is one final subject that is rarely mentioned in thesedebates, and that finds little place in the many utteranceswhich the head of the Government is called upon to makein the course of the year, and yet in a sense it is the mostimportant of all . I al lude to Foreign Affairs ; and it mustbe remembered that in the case of India the phrase includesher relations with the whole of her neighbours ; and thatthis carries with it the politics of the greater part of the

Asiatic Continent. I doubt if even the thoughtful publichas at al l realised the silent but momentous change thatis going on , and that wil l one day have an effect uponIndia that is at present but dimly discerned . I n the olddays, and it may almost be said up to the last fifteen years,the foreign relations of India were practical ly confined to herdealings with Afghanistan , and to the designs or movementsof the great Power beyond and the foreign policy of Indiahad l ittle to do with any other foreign nation . It is truethat we had territories or outposts of influence that broughtus into contact with Persia and Turkey

,and that we had

occasional dealings with the Arabian tribes. Now al l thatis changed ; and events are passing which are graduallydrawing this country

,once so isolated and remote

,into the

vortex of the world’s politics, and that wil l material ly affectits future. The change has been due to two reasons.Firstly

,as our own dominion has expanded

,and our influence

upon our frontier consolidated, we have been brought intomore direct and frequent relations with the countries lying

405

406 EXTRA CT FROM BUDGE T S PEE CH

immediately beyond. For instance , the annexation of

Upper Burm a brought us into contact with an im portantcorner of the Chinese Empire, and created a batch of

frontier and other politica l problems of its own. But the

second reason is much m ore important. Europe has wokenup

,and is beginning to take a revived interest in A s ia.

Russia with hervast te rr itor ies, her great ambitions, and h erunarrested advance, has been the pioneer in this movem ent,and w ith her or after her have come her competitors, r iva ls ,and al l ies. Thus , as al l these foreigners arrive upon the

scene and push forward into the vacant Spots , we are S low lyhaving a Europea n situation recreated in Asia

,with th e

sam e figures upon the s tage. The great European Powe rsare also becoming the great Asiatic Powers. Already wehave Great Britain , Russia, France , Germany, and Turkey ;and then, in place of al l the smaller European kingdoms andprincipalities, we have the Empires and States of the Ea s t,Japan, China, Tibet, Siam, Afghanistan , Persia—only a fewof them strong and robust, the majority containing the seedsof inevitable decay. There lie in these events and in th isrenewed contact or col lision , as the case may be, betweenthe East and the West, omens of the greatest significance tothis country. Europe is So accurately parcelled out betweenthe various States and Powers

,the ba lance of power is

suspended on so fine a thread,and the slightest disturbance

would imperil such wide interests,that short of some serious

and unforeseen convulsion , which every one would wish toavert, great changes are not to be anticipated there. Africais rapidly being overrun by the few European Powers whohave obtained a foothold upon that Continent ; and beforelong its political destinies and territorial grouping wil l havetaken Something like definite shape . But in Asia a greatdeal is still influx and solution

,and there must

,and there

will be, great changes. It wi ll be wel l to realise what aneffect these must have upon India, and how they must addto our responsibi lities and cares. Our Indian domin ionsnow directly touch those of Turkey in many parts of the

Arabian peninsula, those of Russia on the Pamirs, those of

China along the entire border of Turkestan and Yunnan,

those of France on the Upper Mekong. In our dealings

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408 EXTRACT FROIII BUDGE T S PE E CH

strateg ical frontier of the British Em pire. All these a re

circumstances that should give us food for reflection, and

that impose uponus the duty of inces sant watchfulness and

precaution. They require that our forces shal l be in a h ighstate of efli ciency , our defences secure, and our schemes of

policy careful ly worked out and defined . Above al l , th eydem and a fee ling of solidarity and common interest amongthose—and they include every inhabitant of this country ,

from the Raja to the Raiyat—whose interests are wrapp edup in the preservation of the Indian Empire, both for the

sake of India itse lf and for the wider good of mankind .

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Ma re/1 30, 1 904

About Foreign Affairs in their wider application I d onot propose to say much. I spoke last year about the ihcreasing range of our responsibil ities in Asia

,and a good

deal has happened in the interim to point those remarks .

My own view of India’s position is this. She is l ike a fortress with the vas t moat of the sea on two of her faces , andwith mountains for her walls on the remainder. But beyondthose walls

,which are sometim es of by no means insuperable

he ight and admit of being easi ly penetrated,extends a

glacis of varying breadth and dimens ions. We do not wantto occupy it, but we also cannot afford to see it occupiedby our foes. We are quite content to let it remain in the

hands of our allies and friends ; but if rival and unfriendlyinfluences creep up to it, and lodge themselves right underour walls, we are compelled to intervene, because a dangerwould thereby grow up that might one day menace oursecurity. This is the secret of the whole position inArabia

,

Persia, Afghanistan , Tibet, and as far eastwards as Siam .

He would be a short -sighted commander who merelymanned his ramparts in India and did not look out beyondand the whole of our policy during the past five years hasbeen directed towards maintaining our predominant in

fluence and to preventing the expansionof hosti le agencieson this area which I have described. It was for this reason

EXTRA CTFROM BUDGE T S PE E CH 409

that I visited that old field of British energy and influencein the Persian Gulf : and this also is in part the explanationof our movement into Tibet at the present time ; althoughthe attitude of the Tibetan Government, its persistentdisregard of Treaty Obligations

,and its contemptuous

retort to our extreme patience, would in any case havecompe l led a more active vindication of our interests. Ishould have thought that the record that I have quoted onthe North-West Frontier would have saved me from the

charge of a dangerous or impulsive policy on any part ofthe Indian frontier. I have had no desire to push on anywhere

,and the history of the pas t five years has been one,

not of aggression, but of consolidation and restraint . It isenough for me to guard what we have without hankeringfor more. But I would suffer any imputation sooner thanbe an unfaithful Sentinel at my post

,or al low the future

peace of this country to be compromised by encroachmentfrom the outside as to whose meaning there cannot be anyquestion . If the Tibetan Government is wise it wil l realisethat the interests of Indian defence and the friendship of

the Indian Government are entirely compatible with the

continued independence and autonomy of Tibet, so far as

these may be said at present to exist. But it should alsorealise that they are incompatible with the predominanceof any other foreign influence, carrying with it insecurityon our frontier and adding gratuitously to our cares.

FRONT I ER POL ICY

DURBAR AT QUETTA

0! Apri l 1 2, 1 900, the V iceroy held a Durbar in the Sandem anMemorial Hall, Quetta, for the reception of the Ch iefs, S ird arsand other Native gentlem en of Baluchistan. The Durbar was

attended by the Khanof Kalat, the Jam of Las Beyle and ahout

300 Khans and S irdars, and by all the princi pal civil and m ili taryofi cials inQuetta. The V iceroy

’s speech was as follows

I am sorry not to be able to speak to you in your ownlanguage. But my words will presently be translated and

wi ll thus reach your ears. However, though I cannotmyse lf address youin a form that you wil l understand, I feelthat I may claim to know som ething of your history, yourcustoms

,and your country. For many years, before I was

appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to be her representative in India, I had spent much of my time in travellingupon the Indian frontier, and in neighbouring countries .

I have m et most of the tribes,and I know the principa l

chieftains along 1000 miles of that frontier from the Pamirsto Quetta ; and I take a warm interest in these peopleand am attached to their rulers. Years ago, I devotedsome time to travelling through Persia

,a country wi th

which many of you have close relations. On anotheroccasion I stayed in Chitral with Mehtar Nizam -ul-Mulk ,just before he was murdered by his brother

,who is now a

prisoner in British India ; and on the last occasion thatI was in Quetta

,more than five years ago

,I had ridden

down to Chaman by Ghuzni and Kandahar from Kabul ,where I had been for a fortnight as the guest of the Amir.Seven years before that time I was also here with SirRobert Sandem an when the Khojak tunnel had not even

410

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412 DURBAR A T QUE TTA

interest or importance,it is the ru ler who is rightly he ld to

blame. Rulers are invested with a supreme respons ib i lityto their subjects. This may be diffi cult to exercise when

their own position is insecure, and when they are exp osedto political danger or to personal risk. But what ex cuse

can there be for their not taking an active interest in the

we lfare of their people, and showing liberality and enligh tenm ent in administration , when they are secured against anyexternal danger by the protection of the British Power ?The Sirkar gives with generous hand , but he also exp ec tsin return , and this Obligation must be paid .

Secondly,I see present here the Sirdars of the Ba luch

confederacy. Sirdars,you owe to the British Governm ent

the reconciliation of your old disputes and the gene raltranquil l ity which you now enjoy. I know your traditionalloyalty. I remember the help that you rendered in the

Afghan war. But, Sirdars, it is not only in times of cr isisthat you have a duty to Government. We rely upon y ourswords when fighting begins. But peace has its service notless than war ; and I call upon you to perform this service.

I have been Shocked to hear of the too frequent outragesagainst Government in recent years in which Marris and

Brahuis have been engaged . They are a disgrace to the

tribes and a discredit to the Chiefs. I bel ieve that it ispossible for the Sirdars, if they are resolute and united, toprevent these outrages. I am certain that, in many cases,it is possible for them to capture and to punish the criminals.I say to you, therefore, Sirdars, that the Government doesnot give to you your pay and Service for nothing : andthat I expect you to put a stop to these lawless proceedings ,and to purge your tribal honour from this tarnish . WhenI see good service rendered

,I am quick to recognise it ; and

it is with pleasure,therefore

,that I have learned from my

Agent,Mr. Barnes ,

‘ that in giving warning of a robbergang

,Khan Sahib Baha-ud -d inBazai, and in attacking and

dispersing a body of raiders, the Rustamzai Levies of

Nushki, have recently rendered valuable help to Governm ent.I am pleased to acknowledge the conduct of these m en

,

and I hold it up as an example.

1 Afterwards S ir Hugh Barnes, L ieutenant-Governor of Burma.

DURBAR A T QUE TTA 413

Thirdly,there are here present the Sirdars and Khans

of districts under British Administration . You also,Sirdars

and Khans,are mostly in receipt of pay or m aafi allowances

from Government ; and you also have your correspondingduties to perform . There have recently taken place inBritish Baluchistan a number of murderous attacks uponEnglishmen and Europeans, which are sometimes called, ormiscal led

, ghaza . Believe me,Sirdars, that the idea that

any one can earn the favour of Almighty God by kill ingsome one else against whom he bears no grudge, and whohas done him no wrong, simply because he fol lows anotherreligion—which is only another way ofworshipping the sameGod—is one of the stupidest notions that ever entered intothe brain of a human be ing. If we could lift the panic ] :of the future world and see what fate has attended thesewretched murderers, I do not think that there would bemany future g lzaz is on the Pathan border, or in Baluchistan .

However,it is enough for me to deal with the attitude of

Government : and about this I wish you to cherish noil lusions. I am determined, so far as lies in the power ofGovernment

,to put a stop to these abominable crimes. I

sha l l shrink from no punishment, however severe ; I shal lprohibit the carrying of al l arms if I find that to be

necessary ; and I shall hold those responsible who are toblame. The leaders of the people can co-operate withGovernment in two ways. They can throw the whole weightof their influence and authority against the perpetrators ofthese vile outrages ; and they can assist Government tocapture the offenders. I Shall not be slow to reward thosewho render good and faithful service. But I also shall notbe quick to pardon those who are satisfied with doingnothing, and who openly neglect their duty .

Sirdars and Khans, as you are aware, a great famine isprevailing in many parts of India. How great it is

,and

with what efforts the Government of India is endeavouringto cope with it, is shown by the fact that nearly fifty lakhsof persons are being kept alive by the powerful hand of

the Sirkar. We wish none of the people to die ; and wespend the money of Government in giving them work andin saving them from starvation. In Baluchistan you never

414 DURBAR AT QUE TTA

have a famine so terrible as this. But I know that , forthree years past, there has been a deficient ra infall and

cons iderable distress in ce rta in parts of this country, par tienlarly in the Marri and Bugt i Hil ls, and a great morta lityof cattle. Here, too, the Sirkar has not been behindh andin relief. A grant of one and a half lakhs has been m ade

for the construction of roads by those who are in need aquarter of a lakh is being spent in the distribution of

grain among the Marris and Bugt is ; and the Fam ine R elief

Fund has recently made to Baluchistan a special grant of

R S . 10,000 . I hope that these efforts may tide over the

remaining period of scarcity, and that you wil l have goodrains in the forthcoming summer.And now, Your Highness and Sirdars, let me say , in

conclusion , what a pleasure it is to me to inaugurate w i ththis important Durbar the Memorial Hall to my old

friend Sir Robert Sandeman, in which I am now speaking .

S innem an Sahib,as you all cal led and knew him

, has

now been dead for eight years. But his name is not forgotten

,and his work wi l l go on living

,as I hope

,for ever.

For what was S andem an’

s work for which we honourand remember his name ? I t was the building up of the

powerful and peaceful frontier-province of Baluchistan w i ththe good -will and acquiescence of its ruler, i ts Sirdars, andits people. When he first came to Kalat in 1 8 7 5 the

Baluchistan State was a prey to civi l war, the tribes we redisorganised and fighting, Peshin and Sibi were underAfghan Governors, there was no British Administration inthe country, and the passes were either closed to trade orwere infested by marauding gangs. Contrast the presentposition

,when we see a Baluchistan that is pacified and

prosperous from the Arabian Sea to the Registan Desert,

and from the Persian border to the Suleimans and theGomul . I do not say that there are never troubles, or

disorders, or disputes. But there is no civil war . Thereis a growing trade ; justice is dispensed ; property is in

creas ingly safe ; the population is multiplying ; every m an

who does right knows that he is certain of the protectionof the British Raj . This is S ir Robert S andem an

’

s work,

and for this he wil l always be remembered.

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416 EXTRA CTFROJ I B UDGE T SPEE CH

dealt with as it arose, and according to the advice or influ

ences that happened to be uppermost. I do not think tha t

there is in this picture any disparagement of the offi cials whowere responsible for wha t was done. They were dea lingwith a transitional epoch, in which the frontiers were b e ingpushed forward by the pressure of events , without any

policy having been formulated to keep pace wi th them , and

in which there was a tendency to oscil late, according to the

predominant influence of the hour, between advance and

retrogression . It has always seemed to me that a survey of

the whole situation , in the light of our experience, ourpledges

,our armaments, and our general resources, ough t to

be productive of a code of frontier policy which could ,with consistency and without violent interruptions

,be app l ied

to the whole line of our North-Western frontier from the

Pamirs to Baluchistan. Such a code we have endeavouredto evolve. Its main features consist in the withdrawalof our regular troops from advanced positions in tr i balterritory, their concentration in posts upon or near to the

I ndian border, and their replacement in tribal tracts bybodies of tribal levies trained up by British officers to act

as a militia in defence of their own native valleys and hills ;in other words, the substitution of a policy of front ie rgarrisons drawn from the people themselves, for the cos tlyexperiment of large forts and isolated posts thrown forwa rdinto a turbulent and fanatical country. This is the pol icythat we have been engaged in carrying into effect fromChitral on the North to the Gomul Valley on the South. Ido not say that it is a policy unattended with risk. Thereis no frontier pol icy capable of being framed that could bedescribed as absolute ly safe. I have not uttered one boastfulword about it since we began two years ago and I am noteven going to indulge in a murmur of self-congratulationnow. The policy has to justify itself: and that it canon lydo in time. I do not say that it wil l save us from frontierwarfare, or from occasional expeditions, or from chronicanxiety. They are the inevitable heritage of a boundarywith the physical and ethnographical characteristics of theI ndian frontier. All I claim for it is that it is a po l icy of

military concentration as against diffusion, and of tribal con

EXTRACT FROM B UDGE T S PE E CH 417

cil iation inplace of exasperation and I desire that it Shouldbe given a fair chance. I do not at all care by what nameit is called . One of the main errors of the past seems to meto have been that, instead of real ising that there could besuch a thing as a policy upon which al l parties could agree,it has been assumed that there were only two policies—theLawrence policy and the Forward pol icy—and that a manwho was fit to think must be an advocate of one or theother. I n m y view both of these policies have long ago beensuperannuated. I have frequently argued in the House ofCommons and elsewhere that the policy of Lord Lawrenceis dead from the complete change in the situation and fromthe efflux of time : and I think that there is nothing moredangerous or more futile than to summon dead men fromtheir graves

,and to dogmatise as to how they would have

dealt with a situation that they could never have foreseen .

Similarly,as regards the Forward School, the word is one

of those elastic and pliable adjectives which are capable ofas sum ing the most different meanings, from a statesmanlikeprevisionof military and political danger on and beyond thefrontier, to a rash indulgence in mi litary adventure. All Iwould say is

,let us get away from the paralysing influence

of labels. Let our new frontier policy be called by anyname that m en choose. Only let it be based

,not upon

obsolete political formulas, but upon up - to-date commonsense ; and if it approves itself as time goes on, let it become a traditionand endure.

The second reform that I set before myself was the constitution, after I had had time careful ly to examine the wholesituation, of the best form of administration for the frontierdistricts. As hon . members know, these studies led tothe recommendation of a new Frontier Agency to be createdout of the Trans- I ndus D istr icts of the Punjab

,and to be

placed under the direct control of the Government of India.

This proposa l was unanimously accepted by my colleagueshere , and has received the assent of the Secretary of Stateand of His Majesty’s Government at home. The papershave already been printed in the form of an ExtraordinaryGazette

,which wil l Show to the public what were the steps

by which we were led to these conclusions. I need not2 E

418 EXTRA CT FROM BUDGE T SPE E CH

recapitula te them now. We m ay perhaps feel some rea s on

able pleasure at the solutionof a problem which has 00 11100success ive Governments for twenty-five years . But our newprovince wi l l have to be judged not by its prom ise, but b y itsresults . In one respect I Observe a great change in pub lic

opinion for,whereas when I left England the m ajori ty of

those persons whom I had consulted on the desirability of

such a change were hostile to it, and it was doubtful w ha tmight be the reception accorded to it by the Press , I nowobserve with satisfaction that it is everywhere descr ibed as

inevitable, and taken as a matter of course. This is ra therthe way with reforms. They are often vigorously and

successful ly resisted , as this proposal has been ever since the

days of Lord Lytton, who was its first parent. But wh en

they are ultimately carried,every one shakes hands , and

says that the result was a foregone conclusion.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Mare/l 26,1 902

A new Frontier Province has been started upon its

career, and I am very hopeful that it will tend to unity and

continuity of pol icy in respect of the Frontier. That itwil l result in the quicker despatch of business is quitecertain , and has already been demonstrated in connect ionwith recent events in Waziristan. We have fortunatelyhad peace for three years in Chitral

,Dir

,the Khyber

,the

Samana, and the Kurram . The Chitral rel iefs,which now

take place in the autumn, have been conducted withoutthe firing of a single shot. I am presently going up toPeshawar to inspect things myself

, and to see the FrontierKhans and ji rgas who wil l be summoned to meet me inDurbar. Our policy of substituting tribal milit ia for theregular troops in advanced positions on the Frontier isslowly but surely coming into operation . It is now morethan two years since the British garrison was able to leavethe Khyber. The Samana Rifles are about to be entrustedwith some of the Samana posts. The military are on the

eve of being withdrawn from the Kurram,where the Kurram

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420 EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T SPE ECH

who,from the exper ience of past ex peditions , wi th th e ir

shocking d isproportion of cos t to result, distrust that m e thod

of procedure, as strong ly favour a blockade. For m y

own part I regard the two as alternative method s of

coercing a hosti le or rebe l lious tr ibe, and the dist inc tionbetweenthem as one of pol icy rather than of ethics . Of

the two I would certa inly prefer to try the blockade firs t,

both because it is so far less cost ly, and because i t is

attended by so much less loss of l ife and acute sufl'

e r ing .

But when, in the course of a blockade, the enem y pers i s t inm aking a series of savage attacks upon our outpos ts and

convoy s and m en, cutt ing up frequent parties and becom ingpossessed of a large number of long- range rifles , then I am

not going to sit id le and allow these acts to be pursued w ithim punity. Therefore it was that towards the close of las t

yea r we decided, while sti l l maintaining the blockade intact,to initiate a series of retaliatory sa l l ies or repr isa ls uponthose who had provoked them . These reprisa ls were con

ducted with grea t gallantry and endurance by the so ld ierswho were pushed forward from the cordon line. At no t im ewere more than 5 500 men engaged in act ive operations ,be ing split up into smal ler columns, which scoured theval leysof the tribesmen

,inflicting what damage they could , and

conclusively proving the vulnerability of even the heart of

the Mahsud country. These proceedings soon brought thetribe to their knees . The balance of the fine was paid up ,

the captured rifles were surrendered, security was given for

the restitution of flocks and herds seized by the Mahsuds

during the blockade, and for the expulsion of outlaws fromthe country ; the principle of tribal responsibi l ity for futureoffences has been explicitly accepted ; and in these con

d itions the blockade has beenfinally raised , and a state of

peace has been resumed. I said something just now aboutthe relative cost of an expedition of the old - fashioned so rtand a blockade. When I add that the former seldom costsless than a lakh a day

,and when you see that my hon.

mil itary colleague has entered in this Budget an estimatefor our Mahsud proceedings of less than 16 lakhs

,the bulk

of which will have been incurred by the military movements at the end, I think it will be admitted that we chose

EXTRACTFROM B UDGE T SPE E CH 42 1

the more economical course . If there be any one whoargues that th is is a large price to pay for the recovery of

a fine original ly fixed at one lakh of rupees, I would remindh im that the tribe have lost very much more than the fine.They have lost in the forfeited al lowances of fifteen monthsa sum of I i lakhs, in the value of rifles surrendered by them

i lakh, in the value of property destroyed and live- stockcaptured by our troops 2 i lakhs : so that the total loss tothe tribe, the fine included, has been in excess of 5 lakhs.If, therefore, the Government of India has disbursed a netsum of 10 lakhs, or even more, is that, I ask , a small priceto pay for the restoration of peace along the most diffi cultand troubled section of our border ? Whether the peacewil l be lasting or not, I wil l not presume to foretell . TheWaziristan problem is not of my creation, and I can buthandle it to the best of my ability, and endeavour to evolveorder and tranquill ity out of one of the most complex andtroublesome situations that even the North -West Frontierhas ever presented to the Government of India. I wantnothing better than to l ive at peace with these peop le,and

,as far as possible

,to leave them alone. But if they

reject these overtures and persist in a policy of outrage andrapine and disorder

,then I shal l hit back and hit hard.

While these events have been going on, the policy of the

Frontier Militia in Waziristan has necessari ly been somewhatin the a ir, though the South Waziri Mil itia, which includeda good many Mahsuds who stood firm to us even throughthe conflict with their countrymen, covered themselves onm ore than one occasion with considerable credit. Now thatpeace is restored

,the Militia w i l l have a better chance ; and

i t is notable that one of the principal dem ands put forwardby the defeated clansmenat the recent jirga , was that largeropportunities might be afforded to them of enlisting in theBritish service in future .

422 DURBAR A T PE S HA WAR

DURBAR AT PESHA‘VAR

OnApril 26, 1 90 2, the V iceroy held a Durbar inthe Shah iBagh at Peshawar, for the rcceptionof the Chiefs Native gentle

adjoining trans -border tracts . In all som e 3000 persons we re

present, includ ing the Mehtar of ChitraL the Khan of Dir, the

Khanof Nawagai, the Chiefs of the Ma lakand Agency, the Ch iefiof the Khyber, the Chiefs of the Hazara Border, and a large

num ber of Durbar is and Native Ofi cers . The V iceroy addres sed

the Durbar as follows , his speech being a full and com plete sta te

ment of the Frontier policy of his Government

I have com e to the Frontier to speak to the m enof the

Frontier. I want to te l l them with my own lips what is

the policy of Government,and what I am des irous that our

re la tions should be. It is fifteen years since I firs t wentup the Khyber, and nearly eight yea rs since, after visi tingCh itral, I went up for the second time on my way to

Kabul ; and I have followed every stage of Frontier hi sto rythroughout that period. I know the Bri tish side ; I havebeen on the Afghan side ; and I have always tried my bes tto understand the Pathan side. These are the three sidesof the question and a man m ust always look at these threefaces, and must endeavour to bring them into harmony, ifhe wishes to do any good on the Frontier.

Now the great desire of the trans-border tribesman is,I take it, to maintain his religion and his independence,The British Government have not the smallest desire tointerfere with either. Your rel igion is safe from attack atour hands , as every Mohammedan inIndia cantell you. But

there are all sorts of dangerous spirits on the Frontier whoare always trying to stir up rel igious strife ; and we knowof people who preach what is cal led a rel igious war. AllI can say is that, as soonas it becomes a questionof war, al lrel igion in my eyes has gone out of it . I desire

,not war of

any description , but peace. We have had peace now for

four years, and we have al l been the gainers by it. I wantno change, and, if you are wise, you wil l not want it either .

But if war were ever forced upon me on the Frontier, Ishould not be frightened for one instant because people tried

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424 D URBAR A T PE SHA WAR

com es to our hand ing over m oney to you in paym ent for

services , there m us t be som e person or persons to re ceiveit : and they mus t be author ised and responsible, whe ther

they are one man or a j irga of I doubt if th ere

would ever be a Governm ent in I ndia that would trea t you

with one half the generosity that is Shown by the B r i t ishGovernment in respect of these paym ents . Suppos ing th atwe stopped them all to-morrow, where would you be Iknow that whenever we have been fight ing, the firs t th ingthat the tribe presses for, when pea ce is concluded , i s to

get back its allowances : and it has been in m y power

during the 3} years that I have been here as Viceroy , to

restore a good many that had been forfeited or suspended .

The th ird feature in our policy is the extended m ili ta ry

employment that we give you in the Loca l Levies and Mi litia .

We have made great strides in th is respect in recent years .

Our pol icy has been one of l iberality all along the bord e r.Onthe northern part we have the Levies of Swat, and D ir,

and Chitral. Lower down we have the Khyber Rifles , theSamana Rifles, the Kurram Militia, and the \Vaziris tan

Militia. In these corps we open to you a manly and a we l lpa id career for your young men , several thousands of whomare thus provided for . They come in to us, they learndiscipline, they get good wages for the maintenance of

their wives and families,they have something to do instead

of becoming Oudm as lzes and loafers ; and we employ themin their own country

,which they know well

,and for whose

continued independence their service is a guarantee. The

better they behave in the militia, and the more that ex periment is a success, the wider also sha l l we be disposed toopen to them the door of the army itself, where we alreadyhave so many good recruits from the Front ier . I say to

you, Khans and Maliks, that this is a generous policy, andthat you ought to be grateful for it. There are alwayspeople ready to whisper in my ea r that it is a dangerouspolicy, and that it is putting weapons into an enemy

’s hand .

But I say in reply, why should he be an enemy ? What isthere to fight about ? And if I put a knife into the handsof a Pathan

,why should he, more than any one else, stab m e

with it in the back ? The fact is we want some mutual trust

D URBAR A T PE S HA WAR 4:5

in this matter. I have made a big step forward in the

direction Of trusting you . I t is for you to make a return,by shutt ing your ears to the calumnies and the lies of thosewho want, for interested reasons, to have eterna l strife upon

the border, and by fulfi l l ing, as honourable men, your partof an honourable bargain.

There is another consequence of peace, and the strategicpreparations that make for peace ; and this is security. Asyou know, since I have been Viceroy, we have been buildingra ilways to make the Frontier strong

,and to enable us to

support it at any point where it m ay be attacked . We havebuilt the line to Dargai . We have continued the line fromPeshawar to Jum rud . Of course the local mischief-makersd id their best to make you bel ieve that we were going tocarry it on to Dacca, or Maidan , or somewhere else. But asusual they were found to be false prophets. Then I haveOpened the Kohat Pass by friendly arrangement with thetribes ; and finally we have taken the rai lroad fromKushalgarh to Kohat

,and are carrying it on from Kohat

to Thal .1 These railroads are in British territory, and werequired no man’s permission to build them . Primari ly theyare intended to strengthen our position

,and to enable us to

m ove troops without delay in the event of trouble. But Iwi l l tell you why they Should also be welcomed by you .

They are supports to the Tribal Militia Of which I have beenspeaking ; and they wil l enable us to push troops forward ata moment’s notice in reinforcement of the positions whichwe have comm itted

,under British Officers, to their keeping.

They will therefore make the local garrisons feel greaterconfidence in themselves. They wil l give them security intheir loyalty, and will teach them that the hand of the Sirkaris not hidden away in his pocket

,but that it is ready to

spring forward to succour, to strike, or to avenge.Observe, too, the effect that these railways have upon

trade, and through trade upon a good understanding. ThePathan is a curious mixture. H e is a man of war, but he isalso a born trader. I see him conducting his business rightaway in the bazars of Bengal . I have come across him in

This l ine is now com p lete and is being converted to b road gauge, and ex

tended to Parachinar.

426 DURBAR A T PE S HA H’

A R

Burma and Assam . The trade of Swat pours down the

line to Nowshera. Som e day the trade of Afghanis tan will

descend the other Frontier l ines . As people trade together

they get to know ea ch other better, and every m i le of

Frontier rai lroad that we build wi ll turnout inthe long run

to be a link in the cha in of friendship as well as of peace.

There is another respect inwhich youcan help forward

the policy of Government, and at the sa me tim e do good to

yourse lves . Every manonthe Frontier is keen about his

personal sense of honour. He fee ls disgrace if it is lowered

and it is one of the ch ief objects of his l ife to keep it

unstained. We appreciate th is sentiment, and, where

legi timate, we sympath ise with its gratifica tion. But whatI say to youis this. Let your sense of honour be a trueand not a false sense ; let it be measured by just standa rds ;and let it have a worthy and not a selfish or contem p tib leaim . Let the qual ities that go to m ake up your honour be

truth, and fidel ity to your word, and decent and uprightconduct in l ife ; and keep a control upon the pass ions of

blood-spil l ing and revenge. You may res t assured that, aslong as you mainta in and act up to a h igh and properstandard of izsat, we shal l uphold your position, and you

wi l l not be shamed in the eyes of your countrymen .

And now I turn to al l the members of th is Durbar, onwhichever side of the Frontier they reside. I have come toPeshawar on the present occasion to Show my interes t inthe new Frontier Province

,and my sympathy with the work

which I have entrusted to the capable hands of ColonelDeane.

l I se lected him for the post because he knows youall well, and has your confidence, and because his heart isin the task . Needless to say

,when the province was started

al l the false rumours that I spoke about a little while agowere flying about, and a great many foolish things weresaid and believed. It was rumoured that we were goingto be more severe towards the people

,and to press upon

them with a heavy hand. Now that nothing dreadful hashappened, perhaps you have learned to esteem these predictions at their true worth. I can tell you ina sentence why

Now S ir H . Deane , first Ch ief Comm iss ioner of the North -West FrontierProvince.

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428 DURBAR A T PE S HA WAR

expenses and deh ys and let them setfl e thei r difl’

erenoes by

inclination to do z and when they see trouble bre'ing

onto the s ide of law and order , and steadily dis conntenance

treachery and wrong-d oing .

I see no ra sonto doub t that a prosperous futm e an its

this Province. I regard the new administration as already

fim ly established z and as b ng as I am in Ind ig and I

hope for many years afterwards , it will be watchcd b y the

Governm ent of I nd ia with a fond and parenta l eye. But I

repeat tha t your des tinies are mainly in your own hands ,and I look to loca l pride and loca l patr iotism to see that

they are jealous ly gua rded, and tha t the North West

Frontier Province shows itse lf ever more and more de s erving of the interest tha t has secured for it a separa te ex i st

ence and anindependent name.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Mare/i 30, 1 904

l remarked just now that I should have someth ing to

say about Frontier Policy. I have,I think , only spoken

twice about this subject in these debates in six consecutivesess ions. It is perhaps scarcely realised in this country thatthe Foreign Department, which is under the direct charge of

the Viceroy, is the most laborious of al l. But it pursues itspath in a si lence which I should be the last to regret, andwhich is only broken by the storm of criticism that burstsforth when there is an outbreak Of trans- frontier war. I t isnot without some feeling of congratulation that I look backupon five years unmarked by a single expedition on the

entire North-West Frontier,unless the brief military sallies

that were undertaken in order to close the Mahsud WaziriBlockade can be so described . This is the first time thatsuch a claim could be made for a quarter of a century. I nthe petty Operations that have takenplace on a frontier ove r1 200 miles in length only 42 of our men have been kil ledduring that time ; 67 more lost their l ives in the course of

EXTRACT FROM B UDGE T SPE E CH 429

the Mahsud Blockade. But I Should be reluctant to measureresults by lives alone, or even by money alone, although theeconomies that have resulted both from withdrawal of troopsand from absence of fighting have beenvery great. I wouldprefer to look at the spirit of increasing harmony and con

tentm ent among the tribes and at the relations that aregrowing up along the entire border.At the end Of 1 8 9 8 the embers of the Tirah conflagra

tion were only just cooling down. New agreements had not

yet been entered into with the tribes. Large garrisons of

British troops were cantoned in posts far beyond the frontier,at Chitral, at Lundi Kotal, and in the Tochi ; great schemesfor costly fortifications were on foot, and we seemed likelyonce more to tread the vicious circle that has beguiled us sooften before. My Council lors and I set ourse lves not somuch to prevent future war by preparing for it as to producepeace by creating the requisite conditions. Our policy wassummed Up in these principles : withdrawal of British forcesfrom advanced positions, employment of tribal forces in thedefence of tribal country, concentration of British forces inBritish territory behind them as a safeguard and a support

,

improvem ent of communications in the rear. A necessaryconditionof the successful execution of this pol icy was thecreation of a new administration on the Frontier

,special ly

equipped for the purpose, and invested with a more directresponsibility than a local Government of the old type .

Perhaps those who are SO severely denouncing the Governm ent of India as a province -maker just now 1 might casttheir eyes back to the events of three years ago. We wereScarcely less attacked in some quarters for the creation Of

the Frontier Province then . But who would now go backfrom it

,or who would dispute that Frontier affairs are con

ducted under it with infinitely superior despatch, with greatersmoothness, and so far with better results , than under theformer systemLet me now ask hon . members to accompany me on a

brief tour round the North -West Frontier, from Gilgit toBaluchistan

,so that they may see in each case how we

stand . We have withdrawnall regular troops from Gilgit,The allusionis to the proposed partitionof Bengal.

430 EXTRACTFROM BUDGE T SPEE CH

which is exclus ively garrisoned, along wi th its subor d ina te

posts by Kashm ir Im peria l S ervice Troops . If we pursueour way westwards towa rds Ch itral we com e to Mm j,which is the headquarters of a corps of Chitrali irre gular

-s,

or scouts , whom we are tra ining up for the defence aga inst

invas ion of the m any defens ible pos itions in thei r na r rowand rugged ravines . Chitral itself is a point uponwh ich Ilook with some sa tisfaction. Before I m ore out to Ind ia Iwas one of the foremost com batants in the m ovem ent to

reta in that place withi n our po litical and sfrateg icalboundary. We won the day in England, though only bythe accident of Lord Rosebery’s Government being turnedout at the critica l m oment. However, even when I a r rivedhere, I remember being warned that Chitra l was the p ointof danger, that the l ine of communica tion between D i r and

Chitra l was one of extreme tenuity and r is k, and tha t i f theconnect ion gradua l ly faded into nothing no one would be

the worse . I , on the contrary, dec lared my fervent intentionto maintain this connection, as absolutely essential to our

scheme of Frontier defence, and my convictionthat it couldbe done, I will not sa y without risk, but with success.S ince that t ime we have five times marched our re l iefs upand down the D ir Road—quite the most fanatical cornerof the mountain border—without a shot being fired . Ourtroops have been concentrated at the extreme southern endof the Chitral country at Drosh , and the force has beenreduced by one-third : while the posts vacated and a ll outlying posts are now held by levies raised for the purposefrom the Chitralis themselves. The young Mehtar of Chitralhas three times beendown to see me in India, and if anyone were to propose a British withdrawal from Chitra l

,I

know very well from whom the first protest would com e.Further, we have just connected Chitral by telegraph withGilgit. Continuing southwards, I find that in D ir and Swatwe had a garrison in 1 8 9 9 of 3 5 50 m en. I withdrew the

Khar Movable Column in 1 902 , and our troops,who a re

now concentrated at Chakdarra, where is the bridge ove r th eSwat R iver and the starting point of the D ir-Ch itral road

,

at the Malakand and at Dargai, have been reduced by mo rethan one-half, the outly ing posts being held by levies from

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432 EXTRACT FR OM BUDGE T SPEE CH

to this pos ition by running the railway from Koha t to Tha iat the m outh of the Kurram Valley. From this the regula rshave been a ltogether wi thdrawn, and the two batta lions of

the Kurram Mi lit ia, 1400 strong, organised on the sam e

lines as the Khyber R ifles, and com m anded by B ri tish

Ofli cers , are its so le garrison. I n the troubled m ountainregionbetweenthe head of the Kurram and Waziris tanwehave also settled our border disputes by friendly ar range

ment with the Am ir. Thenwe come to Wazi ris tan. Here

we have cleared out, at the second attem pt,the nes t of

murderous outlaws who had created an Alsatia at Gum a tti,near Bannu. We have made agreements with the tr ibes forthe opening up of the turbulent corner between Tha l and

the Tochi,and we have thus been able to proceed at lei sure

with our pol icy of conciliation and concentration in the

Wazi ri country. There we were delayed for a long tim e by

the turbulent contumacy of the Mahsuds ; and the m ilitia

experiment,which we had introduced, also proceeded some

wha t slowly. The blockade, however, vigorously and unre

m ittingly pursued , and fol lowed by a se ries of sharp and

unexpected punitive counter- raids into the Mahsud valleys ,brought the tribe to reason , and matters are now proceed ingso evenly that we have recently raised the North Wazir istin

Militia,which holds the line of the Toch i, to a strength of

1 200 m en, and the South Waziristan Militia, which holdsthe line Of the Gomal, to a strength of 1 4 50 . In 1 8 9 9 the

British garrisons of these two val leys numbered 4000.

Before next cold weather the whole of these will have beenwithdrawn. Waziristan wil l for some years to come he asection of the frontier that will require careful watching.

But the consciousness of the tribes that they are trusted tobear arms in defence of their country, the security of goodemployment and regular pay, the tranquil l ising influence ofimproved communications , and the knowledge that we wantto l ive at peace with them , rather than at war, are allagencies on the right side. The withdrawal of the garrisonsthat I have named has been balanced by the concentrationof the requisite supporting columns at Kohat and Bunnu

,

and the military garrisons in these two districts num b er

4200 and 2 700 respectively. Similarly, the Gomul is

EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T SPEE CH 433

supported from Dera Ismai l Khan with a garrison of 3000.

Thus along the entire stretch of frontier which I have beendescribing the situation is completely revolutionised since1 8 9 9 . If we regard the case from the point of view of

British troops, there are now only 5000 across the adm inistrative border of British India as against but thesupporting garrisons within our border have been increasedfrom to and have been strengthened by railway connections which were not then in existence. Onthetribal side we have called into existence a body of menrepresenting three grades of organisation—Levies over 1000strong

,Border Military Police over 3000,

Border Militia

5 800. The experiment may stil l be said to be,if not in its

infancy at any rate in its childhood, and I wil l not indulgein premature laudation . But five years is a long time onthe Frontier, and every year gained there is worth two elsewhere. This part of India may not be much interested inwhat is passing so far away. But I am speaking to-daythrough this representative assembly to a wider audience,and I am venturing to inform the entire country how itsdefences stand.

I have not much time to pursue my course southwardsand westwards through Baluchistan towards the Persianfrontier. But I may mention in a sentence that we havedone much to consolidate our position there. We havetaken Nuskhi on perpetual lease from the Khan of Kelatwe are constructing the Quetta-Nuskhi Railway, and shallfinish it next year ;

1 we have built up and popularised theNuskhi-Seistan trade route

,and have planted our officers in

Seistan and on the Eastern borders of Persia in sufficientnumber to watch over our interests and to resist hostiledesigns. Finally

,we are consolidating our position in

Mekran.

2 Perhaps,however

,the measure of the frontier

security which we have enjoyed can best be estimatedby the ease and safety with which we have been ableduring the past five years to find troops for serviceelsewhere

,in South Africa

,China, and Somaliland . At

one time our Indian Army was short in the interest of

1 I t was opened to tnfii c in 1905.

3 The al lusionis to the formationof a Levy-corps inPanjgur.2 F

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436 BURMA GAME PRE S E R VA T101V A S S OCIA TION

ever-narrowing patch of forest inKathiawar.‘ I was on the

verge of contributing to thei r s ti l l further reduction 3 yea r

ago myse lf but fortunate ly I found out m y m is take in tim e ,

and was able to adopt a res tra int wh ich I hope that o thers

will fol low. Except in Native Sta tes , the Tera i, and forest

reserves , tigers are undoubted ly diminish ing. This is perhapsnot an unmixed evil. The rh inoceros is all but exterm in

ated save in Assam . Bison are not so numerous or so easy

to obtain as they once were. Elephants have a lready hadto be protected in many parts . Above all, deer, to whichyou particularly al lude in the ease of Burma, are rap idlydwindling. Every man’s hand appea rs to be against them ,

and each yea r thins the herds . Final ly, m any beautiful andinnocent varieties of birds are pursued for the sake of the ir

plumage, which is required to minis ter to the heedles svanityof European fashion.

The causes of this diminution in the wild fauna of Ind iaare in some cases natural and inevitable, in others they are

capable of being arres ted . I n the former class I wouldname the steady increase of population , the widening area

of cultivation, and the improvement in means of comm unication—all of them the sequel of what is popularly term ed

progress in civil isation . Among the artificial and preventab lecauses I would name the great increase in the numbe r of

persons who use firearms, the immense improvement in the

mechanism and range of the weapons themselves, the unchecked depredations of native hunters and poachers

,and

insome cases, I regret to say, a lowering of the standard of

sport, leading to the shooting of immature heads, or to theslaughter of females. The result of al l these agencies

,many

of which are found in operationat the same time, and in thesame place, cannot fail to be a continuous reduction in thewild game of India .

I cannot say that the Government of India have hithertoshown any great boldness in dealing with the matter. Butthere has been

,and stil l is, in my opinion , very good reason

for proceeding cautiously. There are some persons who sayI Th is is the Gir Forest inthe S tate of junagadh inKathiawar . The preser

vation of the fast dwind ling num ber of lions inconsequence of the V iceroy’

s

intervention led to a rapid multiplication of their num bers , and in 1905 the rewere said to be over sixty inexis tence .

B URMA GAME PRE S ER VA TION AS S OCIA TION 437

that wi ld animals are as certainly destined to disappear inIndia as wolves

,for instance, have done in England, and

that it is of no use to try and put back the hands of theclock . I do not attach much value to this plea

,which

seems to me rather pusil lanimous,as well as needlessly

pessimistic. There are others who say that, in a continentso vast as India

,or

,to narrow the il lustration

,in a province

with such extensive forest reserves as Burma, the wild animalsm ay be left to look after themselves. This argument doesnot impress me either ; for the distant jungles are availableonly to the favoured few,

and it is the disappearance of gam efrom the plains and from accessible tracts that it is for themost part in question . I do

,however, attach great value to

the consideration that wild animal l ife should not be undulyfostered at the expense of the occupations or the crops ofthe people. Where depredations are committed upon crops

,

or upon flocks and herds,the cultivator cannot be denied,

within reasonable limits,the means of self protection .

Similarly,it is very important that any restrictions that are

placed upon the destruction of gam e should not be workedin a manner that may be Oppressive or harassing to hisinterests.Hitherto the attempts made by Government to deal with

the question by legislation,or by rules and notifications

based on statute,have been somewhat fitful and lacking in

method . In parts,as I have already mentioned

,elephants

have been very wisely and properly protected . A closeseason has been instituted for certain kinds of game. AnAct has been passed for the preservation of wild birds. AndI observe from one of the enclosures to your memorial thatyour ingenuity has not shrunk from the suggestion that adeer may reasonably be considered a wild bird . Under thisAct the possession or sale during the breeding season of theflesh of certain wild birds in municipal or cantonment areasis forbidden . Then again rules have been issued under theForest Act protecting certain classes of animals in certaintracts .The general effect of these restrictions has been in the

right direction . But I doubt if they have been sufficientlyco-ordinated

,or if they have gone far enough ; and one of

438 BURMA GAME PRE SE R VA TION A S S OCIA TION

m y last acts at S im la, before I had received or ra d your

mem orial, was to invite a te-exam inationof the subje c t wi ththe view of deciding whether we m ight proceed som ewhat

further than we have a lready done. We must bevery eare fulnot to devise any too stereoty ped or Procrustean fo rm of

procedure ; s ince there is probably no m atter in wh ich a

greater variety of conditions and necessi ties preva ils ; and

the rules or preeautions which would be useful inone p lace

might be pos itive ly harm ful in another. Among the sugges

tions which will occur to all ofus as deservi ng of considerationare some greater restriction, by the charge of fees or other

wise , upon the issue of gun licences , the more strict enforcem ent of a close season for certa in anim als , the prohi b itionof the possess ion or sale of flesh during the breed ing seas on,

pena lties upon netting and snaring during the sam e period,restrictions of the facil ities given to strangers to shootunlimited amounts of game, and upon the sale and ex port

of trophies and skins . I dare say that many other ideaswil l occur to us in the d iscussion of the m atter, or m ay be

put forward in the press and elsewhere by those who are

qualified to advise . My own idea would be, if poss ib le, toframe some kind of legislation of a permiss ive and elasticnature, the provisions of which should be applied to the

var ious provinces of India in so far only as they were ada ptedto the local conditions. The question of Native Statessomewhat complicates the matter. But I doubt not thatthe Government would, where required, meet with the wi l l ingcc -Operation of the Chiefs, many of whom are keen and

enthusiastic patrons both of animal life and of sport. Thesubject is not one that can be hastily taken up or quicklydecided , but I have probably said enough to show you thatI personal ly am in close sympathy with your aims ; and Ineed hardly add that, i f the Government of India finds itse lfable, after further study, to proceed with the matter

,an

opportunity wil l be given to those who are interested in eachprovince to record their opinions.

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440 MUT[NY TELE GRAPH MEH ORIAL, DELHI

I was delighted whenMr. Pitm an, thenD irector -Generalof Te legraphs , consulted m e , during m y first year in Ind ia,as to the prop riety of erecting th is m em orial. I enthus ias~

tieally supported the idea, beeause I hold that the brave and

noble deeds of m en ought to be publicly comm em orated in

honour to them se lves and as an exam ple to others . I do

not m eanthat, should the situationrecur—which God forb id—o ther m enwould be drawn to do s im i lar deeds by the

reco llection that their forerunners had been honoured for

doing the like before. For these heroic acts are not

deliberate ly performed. They are done on the spur of themoment, without forethought, by those who are by instinctpatriotic and courageous. But I do say that, whatever inlife or in history lifts humanity above the ordinary leve l,and makes us forget the petty and the squa l id, of whichthere is unfortunately so much in our midst, whatever showshuman character in its higher aspect, namely, as resourceful,unselfish, and daring—that that is worthy of being held upto praise for the sake of posterity ; and that its public commemoration cannot fail to leave its mark upon the minds of

future generations. The bad and low in humanity is snifi

ciently prominent while it exists . Let us, then, bury i t and

put it out of sight. But the honourable and glorious— th islet us seize hold of and identify

,and let it l ive for ever.

My second reflection is this. I have heard it arguedby some that incidents like the Black Hole of Calcutta,the Cawnpore massacre, the defence of the Residency atLucknow, the fighting and siege of Delhi

,in which the

British and Native races of I ndia have been in confl ict,

ought not to be commemorated,but ought, so to speak, to

be slurred over and wrapped up in obl ivion. I ndeed,one

ingenious gentleman wrote a long work to prove that theBlack Hole incident at Calcutta had never taken place,because some people who were not there had in theirwritings not said anything about it. I hold precisely theopposite view about al l these cases. Tragedies and horrorsand disasters do occur in the history of men, and it is uselessto pretend that they do not. I n the history of I ndia theyhave not been wanting ; and , as in the case of the Mutiny,there have been instances where the racial element was

MUTIN Y TELE GRAPH MEMORIAL, DELH I 441

introduced,and where there were deeds of blackness and

shame. But that is no reason for ignoring them. Passover them the sponge of forgiveness ; blot them out withthe finger of mercy and of reconciliation . But do notpretend that they did not take place, and do not, for thesake of a false and mawkish sentiment, forfeit your chanceof honouring that which is worthy of honour. All theseevents are wayside marks in the onward stride of time.God Almighty placed them there ; and if some of thestepping - stones over which the English and the Indianpeople in this country have marched to a better understanding

,and a truer union

,have been sl ippery with hum an

blood,do not ignore or cast them away. Rather let us

wipe them clear of their stains,and preserve them intact for

the teaching of those that come after.I think that this view becomes even more im portant and

true when we rem ember that, in m any of these cases, it wasnot the white men on one side and the Indians on theother. I n the Mutiny

,as is wel l known

,there was no such

general division . I n the Telegraph Department, as elsewhere, there were many of the Native clerks who stoodloyally to their service and their masters in those terribledays. When I was in Lucknow I was delighted to see thememorial which Lord Northbrook, when Viceroy, had setup there to the Native troops who perished in the defenceof fthe Residency . They merited equal honour with thewhite men who fell . Similarly

,in the present case, I learn

that among the subscribers to this memorial have beenmore than 300 Natives of I ndia, at present connected withthe Telegraph Department. This shows that their viewsare identical with those which I have expressed, and thatthey are as proud of the deeds of the Delhi EuropeanTelegraphic Staff of May 1 8 5 7 as any Europeans can be.Should the occasion ever arise

,I doubt not that many of

them,at the risk of l ife

,would be ready to follow the same

example.I have only two further observations to make. Though

this obelisk commemorates in particular the services of the

Delhi signallers, Pilkington and Brendish , and the assistant,Todd

,it also records the names of more than a dozen other

442 MUTI IVY TELEGRAPH MEMORIAL, DE LH I

members of the Telegraph Depa rtment who perished in thedischarge of their duty in other parts of Northern Ind iaduring the Mutiny. I t was a mysterious dispensation of

Providence that had al lowed for the practical completion of

a chain of electric telegraph throughout Northern India justbefore the Mutiny broke out. Where we should have beenwithout it who can tel l ? The wires were constantly cut,and many brave officers were killed. But many others stuckto their posts unceasingly and unfl inch ingly ; the work wasevery whit as important, and not less risky, than that of themilitary ; and in the defeat of the rebe ls, and in the re

establ ishment of British power, the I ndian TelegraphDepartment wil l always have the pride of remembering thatit bore no mean or inconspicuous part.Finally, it gives me great pleasure, as the representative

of our il lustr ious Sovereign, to pin th is medal of the VictorianOrder onto the breast of William Brend ish , the survivor ofthose immortal days. I felt that in his Coronation yearH is Majesty would like to honour this old and faithfu lservant who had helped to save the British Empire in I ndianearly half a century gone by ; and accordingly I wrote to

His Majesty and placed before him the facts of the case .

He sent me this medal in reply, and asked me to confer it,with anexpression of his gracious interest and esteem, uponthe retired veteran who earned fame as a young lad in thoseimperishable scenes that were enacted within a few hundredyards of this very spot forty-five years ago. I now gladlycomply with His Majesty’s behest as regards Brendish ,

and

I also proceed to unveil this Monument.

HOLWELL MONUMENT, CALCUTTA

On Decem ber 1 9 , 1 902 , the V iceroy unvei led the reproductionof the H owell Monum ent, which he had presented to the City of

Calcutta in m em ory of the Europeans who perished on the acth

June 1 756, inthe adjoining prison of old Fort William ,known as

the Black Hole. The original monum ent stood at the north-west

corner of Tank Square, now known as Dalhous ie Square, betweenwhat are now the Custom House and Writers

’

Buildings, and it waserected by Holwell, one of the survivors of the Black Hole, and

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444 1101.WELL MONUMENT; CALCUTTA

It was Mr. Busteed’s writings accordingly that first ca l ledmy attention to this spot, and that induced me to make acareful personal study of the entire question of the site andsurroundings of old Fort Wil l iam . The whole thing is nowso vivid in my mind’s eye that I never pass this way, without the Post Oflice and Custom House and the modernaspect of Writer’s Buildings fading out of my sight, whileinstead of them I see the wal ls and bastions of the old Fortexactly behind the spot where I now stand, with its Easterngate, and the unfinished ravelin in front of the gate, and theditch in front of the ravelin , into which the bodies of thosewho had died in the Black Hole were thrown the nextmorning, and over which Holwel l erected his monument afew years later.

Nearly twenty years ago Mr. Roskell Bayne, of the EastIndian Railway, made a number of diggings and measurem ents that brought to l ight the dimensions of the old Fort,now alm ost entirely covered with modern buildings ; and Iwas fortunate enough when I came here to find a worthysuccessor to him and coadjutor to myself in the person of

Mr. C . R. Wilson,of the Indian Education Department,

who had carried Mr. Bayne’s inquiries a good deal further,cleared up some doubtful points

,corrected some errors

,and

fixed with accuracy the exact site of the Black Hole andother features of the Fort.1 All of these sites I set to workto commemorate while the knowledge was stil l fresh inourminds. Wherever the outer or inner l ine of the curtainand

bastions of old Fort William had not been built over I hadthem traced on the ground with brass lines let into stoneyou will see some of them on the main steps of the Pos tOfl‘i ce—and I caused white marble tablets to be inserted inthe walls of the adjoining buildings with inscriptions statingwhat was the part of the old building that origina l ly stoodthere. I think there are some dozen of these tablets in al l

,

each of which tells its owntale.

1 Mr. C. R . Wi lson, since unfortunately dead, also constructed under LordCurzon’s instructions a beauti ful model inteak wood of old FortWilliam and the

Black Hole, which is exhib ited inthe V ictoria Mem orial Col lectionat Calcuttaand be further wrote an exp lanatory pam phlet, wh ich is on sale there . H is

larger work onthe sam e subject is now being b rought out in the new Records

Series of the Government of India.

HOLWE LL MONUMENT, CALCUTTA 445

I further turned my attention to the site of the BlackHole, which was in the premises of the Post Ofli ce, andcould not be seen from the street, be ing shut off by a greatbrick and plaster gateway. I had this obstruction pulleddown, and an Open iron gate and railings erected in its place .

I had the site of the Black Hole paved with polished blackmarble

,and surrounded with a neat iron railing, and, finally,

I placed a black marble tablet with an inscription above it,explaining the memorable and historic nature of the sitethat lies be low. I do not know if cold-weather visitors toCalcutta, or even the residents of the city itself, have yetfound out the existence of these memorials. But I ventureto think that they are a permanent and valuable additionto the possessions and sights of the Capital of British rule inIndia.

At the same time I proceeded to look into the ques tionof the almost forgotten monument of Holwell . I found anumber of il lustrations and descriptions of it in the writingsof the period , and though these did not in every case precisely tal ly with each other, yet they left no doubt whateveras to the general character of the monument, which consisted of a small pil lar or obe l isk rising from an octagonalpedestal , on the two main faces of which were inscriptionswritten by Holwell, with the names of a number of theslain . Holwell

’

s monument was built of brick covered overwith plaster

,l ike all the monuments of the period in the old

Calcutta cemeteries ; and I expect that it must have beencrumbling when it was taken down in 1 8 2 1 , for I have seena print in which it was represented with a great crackrunning down the side

,from the top to the base, as though

it had beenstruck by l ightning. I determined to reproducethis memorial with as much fidelity as possible in whitemarble, to re-erect it on the same site, and to present it asmy personal gift to the city of Calcutta in memory of anever- to- be -forgotten episode in her history, and in honourof the brave men whose l ife-blood had cemented the foundations of the British Empire in India. This pillar accordingly,which I am about to unveil, is the restoration to Calcutta ofone of its most famous landmarks of the past, with someslight alteration of proportion, since the exact dimensions of

446 HOLWELL MONUMENT, CALCUTTA

Holwell’

s original pil lar were found to be rather stuntedwhen placed in juxtaposition to the tal l buildings by whichit is now surrounded . There is some reason to think, fromthe evidence of old maps, that the ditch in which the bodieswere interred and the earlier monument above them weresituated a few yards to the eastwards of the site of the newmonument : and I had excavations made last summer to see

whether we could discover either the foundations of Holwell’

s

obelisk, or any traces of the burial be low them . The edge o fthe old ditch was clearly found, but nothing more. How

ever, that we are within a few feet of the spot where those1 2 3 corpses were cast on the morning of the 2 1 st of June1 7 56, there can be no shadow of a doubt, and their memoryis now preserved, I hope for ever, within a few yards of th espot where they suffered and laid down their lives.There are

,however

,two very material alterations that I

have made in the external features of the monument .

Holwell’

s inscriptions, written by himself with the memoryof that awful experience stil l fresh in his mind, containe da bitter reference to the personal responsibil ity for th e

tragedy of Siraj -ud-Dowlah, which I think is not whol lyjustified by our ful ler knowledge of the facts, gathered froma great variety of sources, and which I have therefore struckout as calculated to keep alive feelings that we would a ll

wish to see die. Further, though Holwell’

s record containedless than 50 names out of the 1 2 3 who had been sufl

'

ocated

in the Black Hole, I have, by means of careful search intothe records both here and in England, recovered not onlythe Christian names of the whole of these persons

,but also

m ore than 20 fresh names of those who also d ied in the

prison . So that the new monument records the names o fno fewer than 60 of the victims of that terrible night.

In the course of my studies, in which I have been ablyassisted by the labours of Mr. S . C . Hill, of the RecordDepartment, who is engaged in bringing out a separa tework on the subject .

1 I have also recovered the nam es o f

more than 20 other Europeans who, though they d id no tactually die inthe Black Hole, yet were either kil led at an

earlier stage of the S iege, or having come out of the Black1 This work has now appeared , entitled Bengal in 1 75 6-7, 3 vols . , 1905 .

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448 HOLWE LL MON UMENT, CALCUTTA

How few of us ever pause to think about the past, and

our duty to it, in the rush and scurry of our modern l ives .

How few of us who tread the streets of Calcutta from dayto day ever turn a thought to the Calcutta past. And ye t

Calcutta is one great graveyard of memories. Shades of

departed Governors -General hover about the marble hallsand corridors of Government House, where I do my dailywork . Forgotten worthies in ancient costumes haunt theprecincts of this historic square. Strange figures, in guiseof peace or war, pass in and out of the vanished gatewaysof the vanished fort. If we think only of those whose bonesare mingled with the soil underneath our feet, we have butto walk a couple of furlongs from this place to the churchyard 1 where lies the dust of Job Charnock

,of Surgeon

William Hamilton , and of Admiral Watson, the founder,

the extender, and the saviour of the British dominion inBengal . A short drive of two miles wi ll take us to the mostpathetic site in Calcutta, those dismal and decaying ParkStreet Cemeteries where generations of by -gone Engl ishmenand Englishwomen , who struggled and laboured on th is stageof exile for a brief span, l ie unnamed, unremembered , andunknown . But if among these forerunners of our own

, if

among these ancient and , unconscious builders of Empire,

there are any who especially deserve commemoration,surely

it is the martyr band whose fate I recall and whose names Iresuscitate on this site ; and if there be a spot that shouldbe dear to the Englishman in India, it is that be low our feetwhich was stained with the blood and which closed over theremains of the victims of that night of destiny

,the 20th of

June 1 7 56 . It is with these sentiments in my heart thatI have erected this monument, and that I now hand it overto the citizens of Calcutta, to be kept by them in perpetua lremembrance of the past.

1 S t. John’s Church , form erly the Cathedral Church of Calcutta, bui lt andopened inthe tim e ofWarrenHas tings .

I RR IGAT ION

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc/z 2 7, 1 8 99

THE subject of I rrigation is one that appeals very closelyto my concern . We are al l familiar with the aphorism aboutthe service of the statesman who can make two blades of

grass to grow where only one grew before, and in India wedo not need to be reminded of the direct and almost immediate benefit to the agrarian class that results from an increase in the area of cultivation. I shal l not embark uponany discussion of the rival advantages of I rrigation and Rai lways, because such a discussion would not be germ ane tothis debate, and is in reality futile. The Government of

India has never been inclined to balance its duties in theserespects one against the other, and would, I think, he unwiseto do so. Nevertheless the annual al lotment of 7 5 lakhswhich has for some time been made to irrigation might,I think , with advantage be extended ; and I have persuaded Sir J . Westland in his estimate for the forthcomingyear to give me another 10 lakhs for that purpose .

1 I hadasked for more

,and he would have been wil l ing to give m e

more. But a scheme of irrigation is not a project uponwhich you can start quite as expeditiously or as easily asyou can upon a railroad. I n the first place, the best areasfor the purpose have already been util ised. Fresh schemesare likely to be less profitable

,and therefore require more

I I t is oftenignorantly supposed that the annua l grant made by the Governm ent of India for irrigationrepresents the total Indianexpenditure onthat object.I t is only the sum ra ised by loan in each year towards capital expenditure onlarger works .

450 EXTRA CT FROM B UDGE T SPEE CH

consideration , than their predecessors. In the next place,

very careful surveys require to be made, levels have to betaken , a s tafl

'

must be got together, an investigation of existing rights has in al l probability to be undertaken . It is notthe case, therefore, as is sometimes imagined, that as soonas the cheque is drawn, it can at once, so to speak, becashed in terms of tanks and canals. For these reasons ithas been found that we are not in a position in the forthcoming year to spend more than an additional 10 1akhs uponirrigation although in succeeding years, if our finances continue to flourish, I hope that we m ay present to you a moreextended programme.

ADDRESS FROM CHENAB COLONISTS

On Apri l 3, 1 8 99 , Lord Curzonvis ited Lyallpur, the headquarters of the Chenab I rrigation D istrict, already a flourishingtownona site which, till a few years before, had beena desert. In

rep ly to anaddress from the colonists, he spoke as follows

A new Viceroy coming out to India learns many interesting lessons and sees many surprising things. Among them ost novel and gratifying of these is the operationof thatgreat system of I rrigationwhich in England we dim ly knowhas fi l led up immense blanks upon the map of India

,has

m ade the wilderness to blossom like a rose , and has providedsustenance and l ivelihood to millions of hum an workers.What we do not and cannot know there is the sort of

experience that I have been able to derive to-day from avisit to the actual scene of one of these beneficent reclamations, and from a study of the reports and informationpresented to me in connection therewith . The Punjab hasbeen one of the main fie lds of this particular application of

the energies and resources of the Government of Ind ia and

it may interest any of my fel low -countrymen in Englandunder whose eyes these words may subsequently fa l l toknow that at the present time in the Punjab alone we haveconstructed 4 500 miles of main and branch cana ls

,not

including miles of sm al ler d istributaries ; that thetotal area irrigated by these means

,which in 1 8 6 8 amounted

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45: ADDRE S S FROM CH ENAB COLONI S TS

On the land thus reclaimed has been planted a large and

prosperous peasant population with allotments of from 2 0

to 30 acres each, upon which they enjoy perpetual andheritable rights of occupancy. Other portions of the landhave been bestowed as rewards upon pensioners of the

Native Army, and upon yeoman grantees, or have been soldor leased to capitalists. There is be l ieved to be a populationof over persons now, in a district which six yearsago was almost without an inhabitant. Where at that timeemigrants could with difliculty be found for what appearedto be a precarious venture, there is now almost a rush of

would-be settlers ; and great care is required in sifting the

numerous applications for grants. I have only to look aboutme in order to note the air of contentment and affluencethat everywhere prevails. If ever there was a case in whichhas been realised the ambition of statesmen as described byour English poet

To scatter plenty o’er a sm iling land,

And read their h istory ina nation’s eyes .

it would seem to be in th is favoured corner of the Provinceof the Punjab.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Ma rc}: 28 , 1 900

A suggestion that is frequently made to me, I admit asa rule from the outside of I ndia, where I am afraid thata good deal of ignorance of the actual position prevai ls

,

is that the obvious method to stop famines is to introduceI rrigation. Some of these writers seem to plume themselvesupon the originality of the idea, and to be unaware thatsuch a thing as irrigation has ever been heard of in India

,

or has been so much as attempted here. They do not

seem to realise that irrigation has been go ing on in I ndia

for quite a considerable number of years, that about 1 9millions of acres in India are already under irrigation, andthat upon the works so undertaken has been spent acapital outlay of no less than 2 5§ millions sterling. Worthy

EXTRACTFROM B UDGE T SPE E CH 453

people write me letters, based upon the hypothesis thatany Indian river which ultimate ly discharges its watersinto the sea is real ly so much agricultural wealth goneastray, which somehow or other the Government of I ndiaought to have got hold of at an earlier stage, and turnedinto crops and gardens. Now I have had a very carefulestimate made out for me of the extent of f resh ground inthe whole of I ndia which we are likely to be able to bringunder cultivation , either by new irrigation projects, or byextensions of existing systems. Under the head of Pro

ductive works,z'

.e. works which may be expected to yielda net revenue that will more than cover the interest onthe capital outlay

, the estimated increment is about 3&mil lion acres, and the estimated outlay between 8 and 9m i ll ions sterling. Under the head of Protective works, tie.

works which wi ll not pay,and which, inasm uch as they

constitute a permanent financial burden on the State, canonly be undertaken in exceptional cases, and then as a ruledo very little towards the prevention of famine, we contemplate spending about 10 lakhs a year, and shall probablyin this way about double the area of acres which iscovered by that character of work at the present time. I tseems therefore that the total practicable increase to theirrigable area of India under both heads wil l not amount tomuch more than acres. This increase will , of

course,be of value in its addition to the total food-supply of

the country,in the employment of labour thereby given, and

in its efl'

ect upon prices in time of famine But I am afraidthat it cannot be expected to secure immunity from droughtto districts now liable to famine

,or to help directly their

sufl'

ering inhabitants. I ndeed,when a desert track is

brought under cultivation,a stimulus is given to the growth

of population,and more mouths have in time to be fed.

The fact remains that the majority of the irrigation worksthat were most feasible, or most urgently required as protective measures against famine, have now been carried out,and that there is not in irrigation that prospect of quiteindefinite expansion with which the popular idea sometimescredits it. At the same time

,I am so much in ag reement

with the general proposition, which has 1d

454 EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T SPE E CH

deal of support from many quarters in the course of the

present debate , that irrigation should be encouraged, bothbecause of the extension thereby given to the growth of

food- supplies in this country,and because , in the case of

what are known as productive works, of the extraordinari ly

remunerative character of the capital outlay, that I haveinaugurated

,since I came to India

,a definite and , as I hope ,

a permanent extension (so long as we can find the worksto undertake) of our Irrigation programme. I n my p re

decessor’s time, the annual I rrigation grant am ounted to 7 5

lakhs . Last year I persuaded Sir James Westland to increase this ; and in the financial year just expired we havespent 90 lakhs , some of it being directly applied to the

provision of labour in famine districts ; while, during theforthcom ing year

,in spite of the general curtailment of our

programme owing to famine, I have prevailed upon Mr .Dawkins to fix the Irrigation grant at 1 00 lakhs, or 1 croreof rupees. I am hopeful that generosity in this respect wil lnot be a misplaced virtue, either in the direct returns thatit wi l l bring in

,or in its general effect upon the prosperity

of the country. For the reasons that I have named , I doubtwhether irrigation can continue to do as much inthe futureas it has done in the past

,owing to the gradual exhaustion

of the majority of the big schemes . Stil l, even if our sphereof action is less grandiose and spacious than in bygonedays, I believe that, for a long time to come, and certain lyduring my day , we sha l l find m ore than enough to occupyour funds with smaller and less ambitious designs .

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc/1 2 7, 1 90 1

I spoke last year of the limitations attending a too

ambitious I rrigation programme,and of the fie lds of investiga

tion and activity sti l l open to us. During the last two yearsI have persuaded my financia l col league to ra ise the annualgrant to one crore instead of the three-quarters of a croreto which it was confined when I came out to India . It isnot alway s possible to spend this sum ,

for considerable time

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Resolution to which I refer. Anyhow I would beg him

to give us a little time. I t is not for the Finance Department to usurp the function of the Engineers. As soon as

these have given us their reports, we are ready to set to

work. The extra charge of the operations which we haveordered wil l be debited to the Famine Insurance Grant, andmy hope is that its outcome may be a sustained pol icy of

protective even if non - productive hydraul ic works for a

num ber of years to come.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marci} 29, 1 905

Next I turn to I rrigation . I t is five years since I lastalluded at any length to this subject in a Budget Deba te.

I then discussed the possibil ities of irrigational expansionthat seemed to lie before us in I ndia, and speaking uponthe authority of my expert advisers, I indicated the limits ,physical rather than financial

,that appeared to exist to

such expansion; and answered the popular misapprehensionthat because India is a land of great rivers and heavy rains,it is therefore possible to capture al l that surplus water, andto util ise it either for the extension of cultivation or for the

prevention of famine. After that cam e the Famine of 1 900 ;and as a sequel to the Famine it seemed to me that th ismatter

,so vital to the future of India

,should be re-examined

by the very highest authorities whom we could find , visitingevery part of the country

,examining into local conditions

,

programmes,and needs, approaching the matter from the

point of view of protection against famine rather than of

remunerative investment of State funds, and presenting uswith an authoritative pronouncement upon the capabilitiesfor further irrigation of the whole of British India

,and of

the extent of the obligation both in State irrigation andin the encouragement of private enterprise which Government might legitimately assume. That was the genesisof the Commission presided over by Sir Colin ScottMoncriefl

'

which was appointed in the autumn of 1 90 1 ,

EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T SPE E CH 457

and which, after an investigation that extended over twocold weathers , final ly reported in April 1 903.

I wonder how many of the hon. members whom I amnow addressing

,and stil l more how many of the outside

public, have read their Report. To me the first part of

it, which relates to general considerations, is infinitely moreinteresting than a novel

,for it deals not with the hypo

thetical problems of human character, but with the positiveagencies that affect the growth or decl ine of hum an life ;and it bases conclusions dramatic in their sweep uponprem ises of scientific precision . By slow but sure degreesever since

,we have been assimilating and taking action

upon that Report ; and our final views and orders upon itwil l shortly see the light.As this is the last occasion upon which I shal l ever speak

at any length upon this subject in India, let me summarisethe situation as it now stands. There are two classes of

I rrigation in this country,State I rrigation, z

'

.e. works constructed or maintained by the State, and Private I rrigation,conducted by communities or individuals, largely by meansof wel ls. I am here only concerned with the former. I

need not before an Indian audience expatiate upon thedistinction, so famil iar in our Reports and Budget Statements , between Major and Minor works, Productive andProtective works. Major works are either Productive

,in

which case we find the m oney for them out of surplusrevenue or from loans

,or Protective

,in which case we pro

vide for them from the annual Famine Grant of 1 1} crores ;the distinction between Productive and Protective being thatthe former are expected to prove rem unerative, though theyhave not always been so

,while the latter are not expected

to be remunerative at al l . I n other words, Productiveworks are, or may be, protective also ; but protective worksare not expected to be productive. Minor works are thosewhich we undertake entirely out of the revenue of the

year. Now let me say what our outlay upon al l theseworks up ti l l the present hour has been , and what theproperty thus created M The Government of I ndiahave spent in all Al 3 1 m i l l ions sterling uponState Irrigationw above classes. With it

458 EXTRACT FROM B UDGE T SPE E CH

they have dug nearly miles of canals and dis tr ibutaries, they have irrigated an area of 2 1 4} million acres , outof a total irrigated area in British I ndia of about 47 m i l l ionacres, and they derive from it a net revenue of

per annum or a percentage of net revenue on capital outlayof approximately 7 per cent. If we capitalise the ne trevenue at 2 5 years

’ purchase,we obtain a total of 6 7 4}

mil lions sterl ing or considerably more than double the

capital outlay. These figures are an indication of whathas already been done . Next, what are we going to door what are we capable of doing In my first year in I ndiaI went to see the Chenab Canal in the Punjab

,which had

been finished a few years earlier. At that time it irrigatedacres, it now irrigates at that time it

had cost 1% millions sterling, there have now been spent uponit 2 mill ions ; at that time it supported a population of

persons,the population is now over

and this huge aggregate is difl'

used over an expanse,now

waving with corn and grain,that but a few years ago was

a forsaken waste.l Since then we have completed theJhelum Canal

,which already irrigates acres

,and

wil l irrigate mil l ion . Everywhere these lands, once wasteand desolate

,are being given out to colonisation ; and the

Punjab Province,if it lost the doubtful prest ige of the

Frontier with its disturbing problems and its warringtribes, has gained instead the solid asset of a contentedand peaceful peasantry that wil l yearly swell its resourcesand enhance its importance. Thenyou have heard of thefresh obligations which we have since undertaken in thesame quarter ; 5} mil lions sterling have just been sanctionedfor the group of canals known as the Upper Chenab

,the

Upper Jhelum , and the Lower Bari Doab. Before anotherdecade has elapsed more acres will have beenadded to the irrigated area

,with a proportionate increase

in the population, and with an es timated return of 10 percent on the capital outlay. So much for the near future .

Now let me look a little further ahead,and come to the

recommendations of the I rrigationCommission. They haveadvised an additional expenditure of 44 crores or nearly

1 Com pare p. 450.

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are the considerations that must always differentiate irrigationwork from rai lway work in India, and that militate againstthe same rate of speed in the former. And then, whenwehave done al l this, where shall we stand We shal l havedone much, we shal l have done what no other nation or

country has done before. But the surplus water from th e

snows of the Himalayas and from the opened doors of heavenwi l l sti ll spill its unused and unusable abundance into theArabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal . The calculations showthat of the total average rainfall of India, as much as 35 percent, and a much larger proportion of the surface flow ,

amounting to 8 7 per cent, is carried away by rivers to the sea.

The programme that I have sketched will at the most utiliseonly zi per cent of this surface flow

,and the remainder wi l l

sti l l continue its aimless and unarres ted descent to the ocean.

Why is this ? The answer is very simple, and to any one

who has any knowledge of the meteorological or geographica lfeatures of this continent very clear. Rain does not alwaysfa l l in India in the greatest volume where it is most needed .

What Cherrapunji could easi ly spare Rajputana cannot foral l the wealth of Croesus obtain. Neither does rain fall al lthrough the year in India. I t descends in great abundance ,within narrowly defined periods of time

,and then it is often

very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to store it. Providence does not tell us when a year of famine is impending,and we cannot go on holding up the water for a droughtthat may never come. It would be bad economy even if

it were not a physical impossibi lity. Som etimes where wateris most plentiful there is no use for it, because of the sterileor forbidding or unsuitable nature of the soil. Sometimesit flows down inblind superfluity through a country alreadyintersected with canals. Sometimes it meanders in riotousplenty through alluvial plains where storage is im possible .

Sometimes again the cost of storage is so tremendous asto be absolutely prohibitive. These are some

,though by

no means all , of the reasons which place an inexpugnablebarrier to the realisation of academic dreams. Facts of

this sort we may deprecate, but cannot ignore ; and thetime will never come when we can harness all that wealthof misspent and futile power, and convert it to the use of

EXTRA CT FROM BUDGE T SPEE CH 46 1

man . What we can do, the Commission have told us ; whatwe mean to do I have endeavoured imperfectly to sketch outin these remarks. Restricted as is the programme, whenmeasured against the prodigious resources of nature, it is yetthe maximum programme open to human agency and tofinite powers, and it is one that may we l l appeal either tothe enthusiasm of the individual, or to the organised abil ityof the State. We are about to embark upon it with theconsciousness that we are not mere ly converting the gifts of

Providence to the service of man, but that we are labouringto reduce human sufl

'

ering and in times of calamity to rescueand sustain mill ions of human l ives.

M IL ITARY ADM I NISTRATION

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marci: 28 , 1 900

I PASS to the question of Military Expenditure. The princ ipal military incident of the past year has of course beenthe campaign in South Africa

,to which we have lent a force

of rather over 8000 British officers and men from India, aswell as some 3000 natives for non -combatant services. Now,

Imyself should have been glad if the British Government hadseen their way to employ some of our gallant native regiments

,infantry

,and perhaps stil l more cavalry, as well and

at an early stage in the war, I made the ofl'

er, on behalf of

the Government of I ndia,to send a large force. I should

have beenwill ing to send men . I believe that, had

the cfl'

er been accepted,it would have provoked an outburst

of the heartiest satisfaction in th is country,where the mani

festations of loyalty have been so widespread, and ,

in m y

opinion , so conspicuously genuine . You must not imaginefor a moment that the Home Government were indifferentto the ofl

'

er, or were unconscious of the great display of

patriotism in India that would have more than justified itsacceptance. They were as we l l aware of these facts

,and as

grateful for the sp irit displayed, as has been Her Majestythe Queen -Empress

,who

, throughout the war, has not ceasedto press upon m e her desire that I should lose no oppor

tunity of testify ing her admirat ion for the devoted loyalty of

the I ndian Princes, the Indian army, and the Ind ian people.

Nor did the refusal of the ofl'

er invo lve the slightest sluruponthe Native arm y. I t was refused for more reasons thanone . I t was thought undesirable to import any racial

462

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responsibilities, and, if my colleagues and I are convincedthat the military protection of India against the perils by

which she may be menaced absolutely require that this orthat expenditure should be incurred, we shal l not fl inch fromundertaking it. My greates t ambition is to have a peacefultime in I ndia, and to devote all my energies to the work of

administrative and material development, in which there are

so many reforms that cry aloud to be undertaken . I see nopresent reason why those aspirations should be interruptedor destroyed. But I do not wish or mean to place myse lfin a position in which later on , should the peri l come, publicopinion shall be able to turn round upon me and say, We

trusted you we would have given you what you asked forthe legitimate defence of India. But you neither foresawthe future, nor gauged the present ; and yours is theresponsibility of failure

,if failure there be.

”

I say, then , that I see no chance of a reduction in themilitary estimates for some time to come. There are manyrespects in which we can save, or in which expenditure canbe overhauled

,scrutinised, and cut down. I n the present

and following year, we shal l make a very considerable savingin consequence of the Frontier Policy which has been iaaugurated during the past twelve months, and in the wi thdrawal of regular troops serving beyond our administrativefrontier. There are many such fields of possible reduction .

But the sum total of these econom ics is small in relation tothe heavy items of expenditure that cannot possibly be

escaped. Take te -armament alone . Sir E. Col len 1 has toldus in his Memorandum that the cost of re-arming the Nativearmy and volunteers in India with a magazine rifle wi l lamount to 1% crores by itself, and yet who would urge for amoment that the expenditure should not be undertaken, orshould be unduly delayed ? If we are spending over 1 2

crores in two years,as I have remarked inanearlier part of

my speech, in saving 50 millions of people from the peril ofdeath by starvation , shall we grudge the crores that may berequired to save 300 mil lions of people from the perilsalmost worse than death—of disorder

,and anarchy

,and

chaos, that might ensue were the British arms on or beyond1 Mi li tary Member of the Governor-General’s Counci l, 1896- 1901 .

EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T S PEE CH 465

the frontiers of India at any time to experience a seriousdisaster Let not any one carry away the idea that becausefor a few months, or evenfor a year, we have been able tospare 8000 of our British troops for Africa, the Britishgarrison in India can be permanently reduced by thatamount. There can be no more complete or foolish il lusion.

Because a man lends for a night the watchdog that guardshis house to a neighbour who is being attacked by robbers,does it, therefore, follow that his own house wil l be able toget on in future without protection There is always somerisk in denuding India of any considerable portion of her

garrison . That risk is greater or less according to the cond itions of the time, and the attitude of neighbouring powers .I t was present uponthe present occasion

,and the late Com

mander- in-Chief and I , in deciding to lend to Her Majesty’s

Government a certain number of troops for South Africaand here let me remark in passing that the papers have beenwrong in Speaking of the demands or orders of Her Majesty’sGovernment

, seeing that the latter have never done, andcould not do, more than ask us to lend what we might bewil l ing to spare—took upon ourselves to run that risk . Butbecause we are likely to surmount it successfully on thisoccasion

,would it be statesmanship to make the risk

permanentI wonder if those persons who employ this curious argu

ment would have said that, if we had been able to accept the

offers of the various native Princes who so loyal ly p rofl'

ered

their personal services to the campaign , it was a proof thatIndia could get on permanently without those Chiefs ; or,supposing we had sent or native troops toSouth Africa, that the native army ought, therefore, in future,to be reduced by that number. Let no one, therefore, betaken inby this sort of argument. These are not days whenthe military strength of any empire is likely to be reduced .

They are not days when the military strength of the IndianEmpire can with safety be reduced. If Lord Dufl

'

erincouldhold fourteen years ago that the present armed strength of

India,which was raised by him to its present total , was

necessary for the preservation of order inthis great country,for the fulfilment of our engaged ) :

“he protection

2 H

466 EXTRACTFROM BUDGE T S PEE CH

of our boundaries, will any sensible man be found to tel l m e

that anyth ing has occurred since, whether it be in the

experience of warfare in South Africa, or in the events th atwe hear of from day to day in Central Asia and on the

borders of Afghanistan , to prove that we cannow fulfi l ourobl igations with less No, there are two great duties of

Imperial statesmanship in India. The first is to make all

these mil lions of people,if possible

,happier

,more contented,

more prosperous. The second is to keep them and thei rproperty safe. We are not going

,for the sake of the one

duty , to neglect the other. We would prefer to dischargeour responsibility—and it is no light one—in respectof both.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc/z 2 7, 1 90 1

There is one heading of the estimates upon which Idesire to say a word. I al lude to the Military Estimates.They have been introduced in a statement and have beenexplained to-day in a Speech by the Hon. Milita ry Member,enumerating the very considerable reforms and additionswhich we have already undertaken

,or are about to under

take, and summarising in a concise manner the principalmeasures of improvement that have beencarried out in theIndian Army during the sixteen years with which, inone oranother capacity—c ulminating in the highest—Sir E. Collenhas been connected with the military administrat ion of the

Government of I ndia. He is now retiring from our servicewith a record of long and honourable work

,such as few

administrators can point to, and that has left an enduringmark upon the personnel, the organisation , and the equipment of the Army in India. May I be allowed to con

gratulate him upon the record which he has so modestlycompiled , and also upon the very substantial addition thathe has been able to make to it during the past two yearsI am sure that he wil l be wil ling to make the reciprocalacknowledgment that, although his proposals have neverbeen more searchingly investigated than during the many

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468 EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T S PE E CH

most modern guns,a very substantial addition of oflice rs ,

the creation of an organised transport corps instead of the

fumbling units which have hitherto been a substitute for it,the proper armament of our coast defences, the building of

l ight railways with which to strengthen our frontier posts,the establishment of factories with which to turn out our

own military material. I am far from saying that the l is tof necessary improvements is exhausted . Year by year thediscussion has to be resumed in the light of fresh experienceand of demonstrated needs. But at least no one can saythat

,while the whole world has been busy with military

reform, we in India have stood sti l l . I remember lastautumn reading in the leading organof the English pressan article about the Indian A rmy. I t was one of thoserather sensational letters which

, from the cover of anonymity,fl ing broadcast the accents of denunciation and doom . Inever blame the writers of these productions because theirpurpose is almost always honest

,even where their knowledge

is imperfect ; and because their invective, though sometimesexaggerated, very often calls attention to positive blots .

This particular writer declared that our armaments in I nd iawere hopelessly inadequate, our personnel insufficient, ourequipment obsolete and absurd . How far these opinions a recorrect must be judged in the light of the information con

tained in the present Budget and in that of last year. Butwhen the writer went on to say that nothing was being done ,or

,if being done , was being done so s lowly and so incom

pletely as to be l ittle better thanabsolute inaction, and thatthe Government of India was not in the least likely to takethe necessary steps, he revealed an ignorance which was

profound,and

,if he possessed any opportunity of learning

the facts,culpable .

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc}: 26, 1 90 2

Sir E . Elles inhis Memorandum has givenanaccountof the steady advance that is being made in the work of

rendering our Indian Army, both European and Native,a

Mi litary Mem ber of the Governor-Genera l’s Counci l, 190 1 - 1 905 .

EXTRA CT FROM BUDGE T SPE E CH 469

more efficient machine. There are some who contend thatits numbers are too smal l for the gigantic task with whichthey might one day be confronted. There are others whoargue that they are more than sufficient for everyday needs.Both parties will admit the cardinal importance of makingthe existing army as fit for its task as the application of thelatest results, whether of military invention or of experiencein the field, render possible ; and the p resent Commanderin-Chief and the Military Member have addressed themselves to this object with a business- l ike energy that findsits reflection in many notable reforms already achieved orin course of execution. The te-armament

,both of infantry

and cavalry, and of our batteries of artil lery, which is beingpursued with as much rapidity as the supply of weaponsadmits of, the reorganisation of the Madras Army by a boldinfusion of the fighting blood of more northern races

,the

creation of a transport system with an existence other thanon paper, the construction of l ight frontier rai lways, theendeavour to render India self - providing in respect of

armam ents and ammunition,large measures of administra

tive decentralisation,the reform of our horse-breeding es tab

lishm ents , the ventilation and lighting of our barracks byelectricity, the settlement of the Cantonments difficulty bythe legislation which has passed this Council ; and, aboveall , the addition of a large number of officers to the IndianStaff Corps—for there can be no doubt that for a long timeour regiments have been sadly under-ofli cered , and that ithas been found well nigh impossible to reconcile thestandards of regimental efficiency with the numerous cal lsthat are made upon the officers for service on the frontier

,

for non-military service in fighting famine and plague,and for

service inother parts of the Empire (where the authoritiesseem to fancy the Indianofficer more than they do any one

else)—all these plans and projects I say, which have taken ,or are taking, shape, mark a policy of sustained and steadfast advance. That we have been assisted in carrying themout by the handsome savings that have accrued to us fromthe absence of our troops at the Imperial expense in SouthAfrica and China is wel l known . But we have had our setback inthe extra charge that seems likely to be imposed

470 EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T SPEE CH

upon us in connection with the proposals of His Majes ty’

sGovernment to raise the scale of pay of the British sold ie r.

We had not anticipated,and we can hardly be expected to

welcome,this charge

,and we have placed our views upon it

before His Majesty’s Government.‘

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc}: 30, 1 904

I t seems a natural transition from the objects at whichwe aim in our Frontier and Foreign Pol icy to the means thatwe possess for securing them ,

and I pass therefore to thequestion of our Military Estimates. The mil itary expend i

ture is going up. Year after year I have foretold it at thistable. But it is not going up at so high a rate as in foreigncountries : and it is not going up at a higher rate than ournecessities demand. I am well aware of the cry that isalways raised against mil itary expenditure anywhere, and Iyield to no man in my desire to secure to the peacefulmill ions their due share in the improving prosperity of the

country. We are giving it to them in no small measure.

But their tranquil enjoym ent of what we give is in itselfdependent upon the guarantees that we canprovide for its

uninterrupted continuance, and he would be a faithless

guardian of the interests of the people who shut his eyesto what is passing without in the contented contem plationof what is going on within. The matter could not havebeen better put than it was in the terse and effectiveremarks of the Hon . Sir E. Elles. We are fortunate inpossessing as Commander- in-Chief the first so ldier in the

British Army.

2 He comes to us here with his unriva l ledexperience and energy. He is addressing himself to the

problem of providing India with the army that she needs,

I The protest of the Governm ent of Ind ia was ineffectual . The m atte r was

referred to the arb itration of the Lord Chief Jus tice who decided tha t the

Governm ent of Ind ia must accept the charge. They were thus subjected to

annual charge of uponthe Ind ianrevenues, for anobject not requiredinIndia itself, and certain to be followed , sooner or later, by a demand for anincrease of pay inthe Native Army .

Lord Kitchener.

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We live in days when even the strong man cannot leave hiscastle undefended ; and when our international rivals are

c losing in around us with intentions which he who runsmay read. I am also glad to have been instrumenta l inrelieving the hardships and reducing the risks of the B r iti shsoldier’s life in India by providing an electric -

punkahinstallation inal l our largest barracks, the cost of whi ch willfigure in our Budgets for some years to come.

EXTRACT FROM BUDGET SPEECH

Marc}: 2 9, 1 905

Before I conclude I may perhaps be expected to s ay aword about the Military Estimates of the year. We havehad the famil iar attacks upon them in this debate . One

hon . member spoke of the expenditure as inordina te and

alarming. It is inordinate in the sense that it is b eyondthe ordinary. For now that we have ample means, w e are

uti lising some of them, which in ordinary years we m ightnot have been able to do, not merely to relieve the burd enof the people, but to secure them from the possible futurehorrors of war. There is nothing to alarm in the inc rea se.

The situation would be much more alarm ing, if, with a r ivalPower building railways towards the Afghan fron ti e r, wewere to sit sti l l and do nothing. It was not by so reg a rd ingmilitary expenditure and equipment that our all ies in the

Far East have won those great victories that have e x to r tedthe admiration of the world. They saw the danger imp end ing,and they set themselves steadily to prepare for i t—w ithwhat results we all know. The lessonof the Russo-J a p aneseWar is surely the most supreme vindicationof prep a ra t ionfor war as contrasted with unreflecting confidenc e , t h a tmodern times have ever seen. The Commander- in-Ch ief

has presented us with a scheme,which is th e r ipe

product not only of his own great experience, but of

years of discussion and anticipation in Ind ia itse lf, and

whose sole object is so to organise our forces in pe a ce ,

as to place the largest possible body of m en, w ith th e

least dislocation, in the field in time of war. Until

EXTRACT FROM BUDGE T S PE ECH 473

universal peace reigns,which will not be in our day, the best

custod ian of his own house wil l stil l be the strong manarmed and the Government of I ndia, assured that they havethe means, and reposing confidence in the abi lity of theirmilitary advisers, have accepted the scheme submitted tothem ,

not without careful scrutiny of its features and details,but in the conviction that the heavy charge enta iled will berepaid in the increased security that wi l l be enjoyed by thecountry.

As regards the view which has been expressed in thisdebate that the expenditure should be provided for by loan,I join my financia l colleague in dissenting from thatopinion. Reference has been made to Engl ish practice.No one would have denounced such a proposal

,under

existing conditions,more strongly than Mr. Gladstone. I do

not say that a military loan is everywhere unjustifiable.Were we on the brink of war, or were it the case that largemilitary expenditure could only be met by incurring adeficit , or by imposing additional taxation which it wasconsidered essential to avoid, then there might be a goodcase for a military loan . But with a full exchequer, andwith a simultaneous reduction of taxation, I feel sure thatevery financier of repute would pronounce such a proposal tobe without excuse. Moreover, it should be remembered thatin England the National Debt is being steadily diminishedby processes which are not adopted here : and thata military loan is there obliged to run the gauntlet of

Parliament. The Government of India is sometimes tauntedwith its irresponsibility. Might it not be a serious thingif you encouraged that Government to shift on to futuregenerations a burden which it was capable of bearingin its own time ? Might you not aggravate the veryirresponsibility which is sometimes deplored

MOHAMMEDANS

ALIGARH COLLEGE

ON Apri l 23, 1 90 1 , the V iceroy visited the Mohamm edanAngloOr ienta l College at A ligarh, and addressed a large gathering of the

students as follows

Since I have been in India I have had a most earnestdes ire to visit this College, and to see with my own eyes thework—a work as I think of sovereign importance—that isbeing carried on within its wal ls. This desire was stimulatedby the acquaintance that I was fortunate enough to makewith your late and first Principal, Mr. Theodore Beck , duringmy first summer inSimla. Mr. Beck was a remarkable m an.

He gave up a life and career in England,and devoted him

self to the service of the Mohammedans of India, and to the

making of the fortunes of this place. There burned withinthat fragile body—for when I saw h im the seeds of his earlydeath had, I suspect, already been sown—the fire of an

ardent enthusiasm,for which in his own student days in

England he had been notorious among his friends . But

experience had tempered it with a sobriety of judgment, anda width of view, which, coupled with his high moral charactermust have supplied an inestimable example to his pupi ls inthis Col lege . As I followed his body to its grave among theHimalayan deodars

,I felt that I was paying such small

tribute of respect as lay in my power to one who had bothbeen a faithful friend to the Mohammedans of India, and abenefactor of the commonweal . I afterwards had the goodfortune to make the acquaintance of your present Principal

,

Mr. Morison, upon whom you have passed so high a eulogy,and who is so singularly qualified to carry on the work that

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476 AL IGARH COLLE GE

questions. I t wil l be much better for you that you shouldread the ideas which have been common to the m anyspeeches to which I have referred, in language tha t hasfrequently been a model of expression, than that I sh oulddress them up again with an inferior sauce for your con

sumption this afternoon .

I should like,however

,for a moment to contemplate the

work that is being carried on here as a branch of the largerproblems with which those who are responsible for thefuture of this great and bewildering country are faced. If

the British dominion in India were exterminated to-morrow,

and if all visible traces of it were to be wiped off the face ofthe earth

,I think that its noblest monument and its proudest

epitaph, would be the policy that it has adopted in res pectof Education . When I speak of policy I am not using thephrase in its narrow or administrative application—a spherein which we have made many mistakes—but in the broadestsense. We have truly endeavoured to fl ing wide open thegates of the temple of knowledge, and to draw the multitudesin . We have sought to make education, not the perquisiteor prerogative of a few, but the cheap possess ion of the many.

History does not,I think , record any similarly liberal pol icy

on the part of a Government differing inorigin,in language,

and in thought from the governed . I n my judgment it hasnot only been an enlightened policy, it has also been awise one ; and I do not believe that you wil l ever have aViceroy or a Lieutenant-Governor who will desire to closeby one inch the opened door, or to drive out a single humanbeing who has entered in. If this be the character, and , asI also contend

,the permanence of the great movement that

I am speaking of, how overwhelmingly important it is thatno section of the community should fail to p rofit by theadvantage which it offers. We have just crossed the threshold 0f the twentieth century. Whatever else it m ay bringforth, it is certain to be a century of great intellectualactivity ; of far- reaching scientific discovery ; of probablyunparalleled invention . To be without education in thetwentieth century will be as though a knight in the feudalages had been stripped of his helmet and spear and coat ofm ail . It will be a condition of serviceable existence

,the

ALIGARH COLLE GE 477

sole means for the majority of holding their own in a worldof intel lectual upheaval and competition . That is why it

must be so gratifying to any ruler of India to see theMohammedans of this country

,Sunnis and Shias alike

,exert

ing themselves not to be left at the starting-post while al ltheir many rivals are pressing forward in the race. Theycan run

,too

,if only they wil l learnhow they knew it once

in the great days when Mohammedan rulers dispensedjustice in their marble audience hal ls, and when Mohammedanphilosophers, and jurists, and historians, wrote learned works.But the old running is now out of date a new and a swifterstyle has come in, and you must go to the seminaries, whereare the professors of the modern art

,to teach you the supple

ness of l imb and fleetness of foot that are required for theraces of the future. I hold

,therefore, that Sir Syed Ahmed,

and those who worked with him to found this place,showed

not only patriotism in the best sense of the term, but also aprofound political insight ; for they were seeking to providetheir cc - religionists in India with the conditions that wil lalone enable them to recover any portion of their lostascendency ; and if I were a Mohammedan prince or manof wealth in India to-day, I would not waste five minutesin thinking how best I could benefit my countrymen andfellow-fol lowers of the Prophet in this country . I wouldconcentrate my attention upon educationand uponeducat ionalone. That these are your own conclusions is evident fromthe frank and m anly admissions of the address which hasjust been read . You say in it that only by the assimilationof Western thought and culture can the Mohammedans of

Ind ia hope to recover any portion of their former sway.

You are quite right Adhere to your own religion,which

has in it the ingredients of great nobility and of profoundtruth

,and make it the basis of your instruction, for educa

tion without a rel igious bas is is, though boys at school andat the University are often too young to see it, l ike buildinga house without foundations. But, cons istently with theseprinciples

,press forward till you pluck the fruit of the tree of

knowledge, which once grew best in Easterngardens, but hasnow shifted its habitat to the West.I am aware that the friends of this College have formu

478 ALIGARH COLLE GE

lated even higher ambitions than are embraced by yourpresent character and scope . Mr. Beck spoke and wrote tome

,with that enthusiasm of which I have already spoken,

of

his desire to expand this institution,which is already a

res idential Col lege, into a residential University, with rea lprofessors, real lecturers, a l iving curriculum,

and a definiteaim. I may mention, too, that the project had reached theears of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, and that in one of

the first letters that she wrote to me, after my arriva l inIndia

,she inquired most sympathetical ly about it. I bel ieve

that you have not yet, owing to financial and other impediments

,been able to travel far uponthis pathway, and, indeed,

that there are some who doubt the policy of a sectarianinstitution at all . Upon this I am not cal led upon to pronounce an opinion . But one admission I do not shrink frommaking, namely, that you wil l never get from a University,consisting of little but an examining Board or Boards, thatlofty ideal of education, that sustained purpose, or that spiri tof personal devotion that are associated with the historicUniversities of England, and that were, I bel ieve, in somemeasure also produced by the ancient Universities of Islam .

And now, before I conclude, suffer me to say a fewwords to the younger members of my audience. I am st i l lsufficiently near to my own College days to feel an intenseinterest in those who are passing through the same expe rience. I t is a period of high hopes and sunny aspirations.All the world is before us, and we are ready to confront itwith a smile on our faces, and anunwrinkled brow

,s ince we

have not learnt of its disappointments and sorrows. Day

after day, as our study extends, the horizon of knowledgeexpands before us, and we feel as those mariners of the old

world must have done who sailed out into unknown seas,

and before whose wondering eyes, as each day dawned, newislands or fresh promontories rose continual ly into view.

But it is not learning only that we are acquiring. We tas tethe pleasure of personal friendship, we feel the spur of

honourable emulation, and we kindle the local patriotism orespr i t dc corps , out of which, as we grow older, springs thatwider conception of public duty which makes us proud to becitizens of our country, and anxious to play some part

,

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NAT IONAL DEV ELOPMENT

CONVOCATION OF CALCUTTA UN IVERS ITY

Februa ry 1 5 , 1 902

T1113 and the following speech were delivered by Lord Curzoninhis capacity, not as head of the Governm ent, but as Chancellorof the Calcutta University, inwhich capacity he presided onsevenoccas ions at the annual Convocationand addressed the students .

I see before me a number of young men who have justtaken the ir degrees, and who are about to go out into theworld, some to serve Government, some to practise the

law,some to be teachers, some to be journalists, some to

follow other professional pursuits, some perhaps—but I hopenot many—to do nothing at all . Yearly from the differentIndian Universities a similar stream of the youth of thecountry pours forth, and is absorbed in the great whirlpoolof l ife . How will they fare there, what fortune awaits them ,

wil l they rise to the surface by their character or theirabilities

,or wil l they get sucked under and submerged ?

Are the chances in their favour,or are there dangerous

eddies and currents which are liable to draw them downIf the latter be the case, can the Chancel lor of an IndianUniversity

,who

,to a certain extent

,is in the position of

the master-navigator,under an obl igation to study the chart

and to be familiar with the movement of the winds andtides—can he ofl

'

er them any friendly warning or counselwhich may ass ist them in the ordea l with which they areconfronted ? If I assume this prerogative on the presentoccasion

,pray be l ieve that it is not from any confidence in

my ownpower to act as a prophet or a guide,but rather

from the intense interest that one who has just passed h is

480

CON VOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY 48 1

second youth—for I think that youth may be said to consistof two parts of twenty years each—cannot fail to take inthose who are just passing the first.It is an Indian audience that I am addressing, and it is

therefore of Indiancharacter, surroundings, and temptationsthat I propose to speak. Just as there are difl

'

erent stormcharts for different seas, so are there features inherentin physical and climatic surroundings, and characteristicsassociated with nationality or temperament, that differentiatethe population of one country from that of another

,and

that suggests varieties of precept or admonition . For themoment I am an Englishman addressing Indians. I f Iwere an Indian addressing Englishmen I daresay I mighthave a number of remarks to make that would be equal lypertinent

,though they might not be identical. Nothing in

e ither case is easier than for a speaker to flatter his audience.I think that I could without difficulty construct a catalogueof the I ndian virtues, for I knew them both by contact andby repute. You might applaud, but you would not go awayany the wiser ; while I should have gained nothing betterthan your ephemeral cheers. This is not what I want todo. I do not propose to-day to hold up a mirror to yourmerits. Let us accept them and put them in the background. I want rather to see the dangers to which in theseveral professions that I have named you are liable

,and

to put you on your guard against what seems to m e to bethe temptations and the weaknesses that lie athwart yourfuture careers.A good many of you, as I have said, wil l probably enter,

and I daresay that sti l l more aspire to enter, the service of

Government. I do not say that this is not an honourableambition . Indeed, if it is synonymous with a desire toserve your country, it is the most honourable of all whereas,if it signifies no more than a desire to earn a comfortablebil let

,and there contentedly to rust, it is the most despicable.

I will assume, however—as I think that I reasonably may—that those of you who propose to adopt this career desireto do so with the fullest intention of justifying your selectionand of rendering public service. What are the chief perilsagainst which you have to be on your guard ? I think

2 I

482 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UN I VE RS ITY

that they are two in number. The first of these i s the

mechanical performance of duty, the doing a th ing faithfully and diligently perhaps, but unintel ligently, and therefore stupidly, just as a mechanical dril l in a workship wi l lgo on throughout the day

,so long as the steam is in the

boiler, punching an endless rotation of holes. This is adanger to which the Indian with his excel lent memory , hismastery of rules and precedents, and his natural application ,is peculiarly liable. He becomes an admirable automaton

,

a flawless machine. But when something happens thatis not provided for by the regulations

,or that defies all

precedent,he is apt to find himself astray. He has not

been taught to practise self- rel iance, and therefore he is ata loss

,and he turns to others for the guidance which ought

to spring from himself. This is a fault against which youought to struggle unceasingly

, for there is no malady thatgrows so quickly as dependence upon others. Accuracy andfidel ity may constitute a good subordinate

,but by them

selves they wil l never make a good administrator, and theywill never carry you out of the ranks that follow into theranks that lead.

The second danger that I would ask you to shun is thecorollary of the first. You must not on ly learn to be selfreliant

,but you must be thorough. You must do your work

for the work’s own sake, not for the grade, or the promotion ,or the pension , or the pay. No man was ever a success inthe world whose heart was not inhis undertaking. Earnestness

,sincerity, devotion to duty, carry a m an quick ly to

the front, while his comrade of perhaps superior mentalaccomplishments, but with deficient character, is left stumbling behind . Do not imagine for one m om ent that there isany desire on the part of the English governors of thiscountry to keep native character and native abil ity in thebackground . I assert emphatically

,after more than three

years’ experience of Indian administration,that wherever it

is forthcoming it receives unhesitating encouragement andprompt reward . An Indian who not only possesses therequisite attainments, but who has energy, a strong sense ofduty, and who runs straight, must come to the front. He isindispensable to us in our administration . For

,inaddition

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484 CON VOCA TION OF CA LCUTTA UNI VERS I TY

The first temptation that you should avoid is that of lett ingwords be your masters instead of being m asters of yourwords. I n a law-court the facts are the first thing ; the lawis the second and the eloquence of the barrister or pleaderupon the facts and the law is the third. Do not let yourattention to the third subject obscure the importance of thefirst and second, and most of al l the first . Words are

required to express the facts, and to elucidate or to applythe law. But when they become the mere vehicle of prolixdissertation , they are both a weaknes s and a nuisance.The second danger of the law-courts is the familiar forensicfoible of over-subtlety, or, as it is commonly called, hairsplitting. We know what people mean when they say ,

That is a lawyer’s argument and, although the taunt m ay

often be undeserved, there must be something in it toexplain its popular acceptance . Try, therefore, to avoidthat refining, and refining, and refining, which concentratesits entire attention upon a point—often only a pin -pointand which forgets that what convinces a judge on the be nchor a jury in the box is not the adroitnes s that juggles wi thminutia , but the broad handling of a case in its largeraspects.I turn to those young men who are going to be teachers

of others. I pray them to recognise the gravity and theresponsibil ity of their choice. Rightly viewed

,theirs is

the foremost of sciences, the noblest of professions,the

most intel lectual of arts. Some wise m an said that hewould sooner write the songs of a people than make itslaws. He might have added that it is a prouder task toteach a people than to govern them . Moses is honoured bythe world beyond David , Plato beyond Pericles, Aristotlebeyond Alexander. Not that al l teaching is great or al lteachers famous. Far from it. Much teaching is drudgery ,

and many teachers are obscure. But inevery case the workis important, and the workman should be serious. Thefirst thing I would have you remember

,therefore

,is that you

are not entering upon an easy or an idle profession. I t isthe most responsible of all .When you have real ised this guiding principle

,the next

thing to bear in mind is that the teacher should profit by

CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY 485

his own previous experience as a student. He should notinfl ict upon his pupils the mistakes or the shortcomingsby which his own education has suffered. For instance,if he has been artificial ly crammed himself, he should notproceed to revenge himself by artificially cramming others.Rather should he spare them a similar calamity. The greatfault of ed ucation as pursued in this country is, as we allknow, that knowledge is cultivated by the memory insteadof by the mind, and that aids to the memory are mistakenfor implements of the mind. This is al l wrong. Books canno more be studied through keys than out-of-door gamescan be acquired through books. Knowledge is a verydifferent thing from learning by rote, and in the same wayeducation is a very different thing from instruction . Makeyour pupils

,therefore

,understand the mean ing of books,

instead of committing to memory the sentences and lines.Teach them what the Roman Empire did for the world, inpreference to the names and dates of the Caesars. Explainto them the meaning of government and administrationand law

,instead of making them repeat the names of battles

or the populations of towns. Educate them to reason andto understand reasoning

,in preference to learning by heart

the first three books of Euclid.

Remember, too, that knowledge is not a collection of

neatly assorted facts l ike the specimens in glass cases ina museum . The pupil whose mind you merely stock in thisfashion will no more learnwhat knowledge is than a mancan hope to speak a foreign language by poring over adictionary. What you have to do is not to stuff the

mind of your pupil with the mere thoughts of others,

excel lent as they may be , but to teach him to use his own.

One correct generalisation drawn with his own brain is

worth a l ibrary ful l of second - hand knowledge. If the

object of al l teaching is the application to life of soundprinciples of thought and conduct, it is better for the

ordinary man to be able to make one such successfulapplication

,than to have the bril liancy of a Macaulay, or

the memory of a Mezzofanti.Next I turn to those among you who are going to enter

the honourable profession of journalism . I know someth ing

486 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UN I VE RS I TY

of journalism,and I am acquainted both with its privileges

and its snares. In India I have made the closest s tudy of

the Native press,since I have been in the country, partly

because it tel ls me to some extent what the educatedminority are thinking and saying, partly because I oftenlearn from it things that I should otherwise never hear of atall . I am not, therefore, an ignorant or a prejudiced witness.Onthe contrary, I think that native journal ism in India issteadily advancing, and that it is gaining in sobriety andwisdom . But I am not here to-day to discuss merits. Ihave undertaken the more venturesome task of pointing outweaknesses and errors.The first of these that I would ask you young men to

avoid is the insidious tendency to exaggeration . If I wereasked to sum up in a single word the most notable characteristic of the East physical

,intel lectual, and moral as

compared with the West, the word exaggeration , orextravagance,

” is the one that I should employ. It isparticularly patent on the surface of the Native press. If itis desired to point out that a public man is a deservingperson , it is a common form to say that he deserves a statueof gold . If he has done something that is objected to

,he

is depicted in almost Mephistophel iancolours. This sort ofexaggeration is not only foolish in itself

,for it weakens the

force of writing ; but it is often unfair as an interpretationof public sentiment. There is nothing more dam aging tonational reputation than a marked discrepancy betweenwords and acts. If, for instance, a great Indian dies and

is extolled in glowing language by the Na tive press for hisservices and his virtues, and a subscription list is thenopened to commemorate them—and if the response to thisappeal turns out to be utterly inadequate— the reflection issuggested, either that the press has beenextravagant in itslaudations, or that the national character prefers words todeeds. Ineither case a bad impression is produced .

Then , again , do not impute the worst motives . Try toassum e the best. If a thing has been done that youdisapprove of, or that is not clear, do not jump to the conclusionthat there is something sinister in the background . Assai lthe Government if you please—Governments

,I suppose

, are

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488 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY

the world, and it is an increasing force in the lives and

ideals of m en. Founded upon race, and often cemented bylanguage and re l igion , it makes smal l nations grea t, andgreat nations greater . It teaches men how to live, and, inemergencies, it teaches them how

.

to die. But, for its fullreal isation, a spirit of unity, and not of disintegration

,is

required. There must be a sacrifice of the smaller to the

larger interest, and a subordination of the unit to the

system. In India it should not be a question of India forthe Hindus, or India for the Musulmans, or, descending to

minor fractions, of Bengal for the Bengalis, or the Deccanfor the Mahratta Brahmans. That would be a retrogradeand a dissolvent process. Neither can it be India for the

Indians alone. The last two centuries during which the

British have been in this country cannot be wiped out.They have profoundly affected the whole structure of

national thought and existence. They have quickened the

atrophied ve ins of the East with the life-blood of the West.They have modified old ideals and have created new ones.

And not by easternwindows only,Whendaylight com es, com es inthe light

Infront the sunclim bs slow, how slowly ,

But westward, look, the land is b right

Out of this intermingling of the East and the Wes t, anew patriotism , and a more refined and cosmopolitan senseof nationality are emerging. It is one inwhich the Englishman may share with the Indian

,for he has helped to create

it, and in which the Indian may share with the Englishman,

since it is their common glory. When an Englishman saysthat he is proud of India, it is not of battlefields and sieges

,

nor of exploits in the Council Chamber or at the desk thathe is principally thinking. He sees the rising standardsof intel ligence, of moral conduct, of comfort and prosperity,among the native peoples

,and he rejoices in their advance

ment. Similarly,when an Indiansays that he is proud of

India, it would be absurd for him to banish from his m indal l that has been, and is being, done for the resuscitation of

his country by the alien race to whom have been committedits destinies. Both are t i llers in the same field

,and both

are concerned in the harvest. From their joint labours it

CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY 489

is that this new and composite patriotism is springing intol ife. I t is Asian

,for its roots are embedded in the tradi

tions and the aspirations of an Eastern people ; and it isEuropean

,because it is aglow with the il lumination of the

West. In it are summed up all the best hopes for thefuture of this country, both for your race and for mine. Weare ordained to walk here in the same track together formany a long day to come. You cannot do without us.We should be impotent without you . Let the Englishmanand the Indian accept the consecration of a union that isso mysterious as to have in it something of the divine,and let our common ideal be a united country and ahappier people .

CONVOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNIVERS ITY

February 1 1 , 1 905

I do not propose to address you to-day upon purelyeducational topics. I have often infl icted them upon previousConvocations. I would l ike to turn aside for half an hourfrom those dusty fields

,and to talk to you about something

which is even more personal to the undergraduate body,namely, yourselves and the work that lies before you . The

majority of you are about to do what I remember so wel ldoing myself

,though it is now rather a long time ago,

namely, to gather up the advantages of such education as

you have received ,and with this bundle on your back to

s tart forth on the big road which we call l ife. What wil l itmean to you, and what are its lessons ?I do not pretend to know what lies in the mind of young

India, or even of that small section of it which I am nowaddressing. D ifference of race carries with it differenceof ideas . The currents of the East and West may flowbetween the same banks, as I bel ieve it is their destiny todo for long generations to come. But they never absolutelycommingle and I dare say when I try to put myself in yourplace and to see what is in your minds I altogether fai l tosucceed. I am confident sometimes that it is so when Ihave observed the obscure meanings attached by Indian

490 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY

commentators to what has seemed to me to be sim ple andtrue. Conversely, I am quite sure that the Englishmanoftenfails to understand what the Asiatic mind has been pondering over

,and is led perhaps by exaggeration of language

into thinking that there was corresponding extravagance of

thought,whereas there may have been none at all . These

are the dangers common to al l of us who walk to and fro on

the misty arch that spans the gulf between East and Wes t.

But there are certain ideals which are the common proper tyof all humanity irrespective of country or race. These a re

of universal application , and among this class there are som e

that are peculiarly applicable to the Indian situationand theIndian character. I n the contemplation of these we are on

common ground,and it is to them that I wish to ca l l your

attention this afternoon .

I place in the front rank of these principles truthfulness .

The truth is not merely the opposite of a lie. A dumb manwould find it difficult to tel l a lie, but he might be guilty of

untruth every day of his life. There are scores of peoplewho pride themselves on never tel l ing a falsehood, but whoare yet habitually false—false to others, and, what is worse,false to themselves. Untruthfulness consists in saying ordoing anything that gives an erroneous impression either ofone’s owncharacter

,or of other people’s conduct

,or of the

facts and incidents of l ife. We all succumb to this. I t isthe most subt le of temptations. Men who make speeches,men who plead cases, m enwho write articles in the newspapers, men who are engaged inbusiness, even the ordinarytalker at a dinner - table, each of us for the sake of somepetty advantage or m omentary triumph is tempted to transgress. The degree of non- truth is so slight that i t does notseem to amount to untruth . We sa lve our conscience bythinking that it was a pardonable exaggeration. But thehabit grows . Deviation from truth sl ides by im perceptibledegrees into falsehood and the man who begins by creditinghimself with a ferti le imagination merges by imperceptibledegrees into a fin ished liar. But an evencommoner form of

untruth is the unspokenuntruth—the doing someth ing whichconscience condemns as not quite straight

, but for which the

reason is always finding something as an excuse . Those

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492 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VER S I TY

or write things which the speaker or writer does not be l ieve,or which are more than he bel ieves , for the sake of colouringthe picture or producing an effect . It is quite a com monthing to see the most extravagant account of ordina ryoccurrences, or the most fanciful motives attributed to

persons. Invention and imputation flourish in an unusualdegree . There is a thing which we cal l in English a m are ’

s

nest,” by which we mean a pure figment of the imagination,

something so preposterous as to be unthinkable. Yet Iknow no country where mare’s-nests are more prolific thanhere. Some ridiculous concoction is publicly be lieved unti lit is official ly denied. Very often a whole fabric of hypothesis is built out of nothing at al l . Worthy people are

extolled as heroes. Political opponents are branded as

malefactors. Immoderate adjectives are flung about as

though they had no significance. The writer no doubt didnot mean to lie. But the habit of exaggeration has laid suchfirm hold of him that he is l ike a man who has taken too

much drink, and who sees two things where there is onlyone

,or something where there is nothing. As he writes in

hyperbole, so he tends to think in hyperbole, and he ends bybecoming blind to the truth.

There are two particularly insidious manifestations of

this tendency against which you ought to be onyour guard.

The first is flattery,and the second is vituperation . Flattery

is much more than compliment inan extravagant form . Itis often a deliberate attempt to deceive

,to get something

out of some one else by playing upon the commonest foibleof human nature. We all l ike to be praised

,and the majori ty

like to be flattered. A commonplace man enjoys beingtold that he is a great m an

, a fluent speaker that he is anorator, a petty agitator that he is a leader of m en. The

vice is actually encouraged by that which is one of the mostattractive traits of Indian character

,namely

,its warmth of

heart. A man has a natural inclination to please,so he

glides into flattery ; and flattery is only a few steps removedfrom sycophancy, which is a dangerous form of untruth .

Flattery may be either honest or dishonest. Whichever itbe, you should avoid it. If it is the former

,it is neverthe

less false ; if it is the latter, it is vile.

CON VOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY 493

But I think that in India the danger of the oppositeextreme is greater still . I speak of slander and vilificationof those with whom you do not happen to agree. I do notwish to be tempted this afternoon into anything that mightbe thought to have a political hearing ; for it would not beproper to this Convocation . I wil l on ly say

,therefore, that

to many true friends of India, among whom I count myself,the most distressing symptom of the day is the degree towhich abuse is entering into public controversy in thiscountry. It is a bad thing for any State if difference of

opinioncannot exist without innuendo and persecution,and

if the vocabulary of the nation is trained to invective.

Authority will never be won by those who daily preach thatauthority exists only to be reviled . National happinesscannot spring from a root of bitterness, and national existence cannot grow in an atmosphere of strife. I would liketo urge al l you young men

,when you go forth into the

world,to avoid this most dangerous of all temptations.

Respect your opponents and do not calumniate them . Believein the good intentions of others rather than the bad,and remember that self-government, to which you aspire,means not only the privilege of assisting to govern the

community to which you be long, but the preliminary capacityof governing yourselves.Therefore I come back to my original point. Do not

exaggerate ; do not flatter ; do not slander do not imputebut turn naturally to truth as the magnet fl ies to the pole.

It is better to be believed by one human be ing for respectof the truth than to be applauded for successful falsehood bya thousand. By truth you wil l mount upwards as individualsand as a nation . Inproportion as you depart from it youwill stagnate or recede .

Then my second word of advice is this. Try to form an

independent judgment. The curse of our day is the dependence onothers for thought and decision of every description ,and the m ultipl icationof machines for rel ieving a m anof thenecessity of independent opinion. The lowest and comm onestof these m achines is what schoolboys call a key, that is, abook inwhich they are saved the trouble of thinking forthemselves by finding the work done for them by somebody

494 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VERS I TY

else . The h ighest form is the article in the daily newspape ror the magazine wh ich rel ieves you from thinking about thepolitics or events of the day by supplying you wi th the

thoughts of another.Advance in civi lisation multiplies these instruments of

se lfish convenience. For an anna or less a man canpurchasehis opinions just as he purchases his food or his clothi ng .

Of course books and the press do much more. They s preadknowledge and stimulate intel ligence, and without them weshould sink back into brute beasts. I am only speaking of

their ques tionable side. For the paradox is also a truth,

that while they encourage intellectual activity they a re

also sometimes an indirect incentive to intel lectual torpor.Of course this is truer of newspapers

,which represent

ephemeral form of literature, than it is of books,which are

often immortal. We all of us get into the habit of readingour favourite journal, and cherish the be l ief that we are

thinking while we are real ly only browsing on the thoughtsof others. Sometimes our anonymous mentor is a very wiseman

,and we do not go far astray ; sometimes he is the

reverse,and we err in his company.

But the great danger of second - hand thought is notmerely that it is not original, but that its tendency is to beone - sided, and therefore unfair. The common instinct of

mankind is to take a side. It is the survival of the old eraof combat, when each man had to fight for himself and hisfamily or clan. From youth upwards we find ourselvestaking a side in the rivalries of school and col lege l ife

,and

in many ways these rivalries develop the keener instincts andthe finer side of human nature. But the mind ought onlyto take a side as the result of a mental process. If we haveexamined the two sides of a case, and are convinced that theone is right and the other wrong, or that one is more rightthan the other, by al l means adopt and adhere to it ; but tomake your decision and to shape your conduct simply beca usea writer in a book or a newspaper has said it, whether it beright or wrong, is not thought, but very often an abnegationof thought. I t is putting the authority of the mind incommission and setting up some other authority

,of which

you perhaps know nothing, in the judgment-seat. So I say

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496 CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS I TY

practice. But I sometimes think that if fewer reso lutionswere passed and a little more resolution was shownresolution to grapple with the facts of life, to toil and labourfor your country instead of merely shouting for it—the

progress of I ndia would be more rapid. Eloquence on the

platform is very like soda-water in a bottle. After the co rkhas been removed for a little time all the sparkle has gone.

Moreover,eloquence no more regenerates nations than soda

water gives fibre and strength to the constitution .

Now in I ndia there are two sets of people, the re ticentand the eloquent. I daresay you know to which clas s thepeople in this part of the country belong. I am sometimes lost in admiration at the faci lity with which theyspeak in a foreign language, and I envy the accomplishm ent.All I say to you is, do not presume upon this talent. Do

not bel ieve that the man who can make a speech is necessarilya statesman ; do not let your fluency run away withyour powers of thought. Above all, do not think thatspeech is ever a substitute for action . The man who inhis vil lage or his town devotes himself to the interests ofh is fel low-countrymen, and by example and by effort improves their lot, is a greater benefactor than the hero of

a hundred platforms.There is a further piece of advice that I should l ike to

give you . Strive to the best of your abi l ity to create ahealthy public opinion in your surroundings. Public opinionin India cannot for a long time be the opinion of thepublic

,that is of the masses, because they are uneducated

and have no opinion in political matters at al l . I n thesecircumstances public opinion tends to be the opinion of the

educated minority . But if it is to have weight it must beco-ordinated with the necessities and interests and desiresof the community, who are perhaps hard ly capable of

formulating an opinion of their own . Nothing can be

more unfortunate than a divorce or gulf between the two .

I f what is cal led public Opinion is merely the opinion of aclass

,however genuine

,it can never have the weight of the

Opinion of the masses, because, l ike al l class feel ings, it isnecessar ily interested . Of course in India it is very difficultto create or to give utterance to a publ ic Opinion that is

CON VOCA TION OF CALCUTTA UNI VE RS ITY 497

really representative,because there are so many different

classes whose interests do not always coincide for instance,the English and the Indians

,the Hindus and the Moham

m edans , the ofli cials and the non-officials , the agriculturistsand the industrialists . But I think that the great workthat lies before educated India in the near future is thecreation of a public opinion that shall be as far as possiblerepresentative of al l the interests that lie outs ide of Govemment. If we take the Native elem ent alone, it would bean immense advantage to Government to have a publicopinion that was representative of Native sentiment general ly,not of one section or fraction of it. For public opinion isboth a stimulus to Government and a check. I t encouragesenergy and it prevents mistakes. But if it is to have thisvivifying and steadying influence

,then it must be public and

not sectional, temperate and not violent, suggestive and notmerely hostile. Surely this must be patent to al l . We haveall of us frequently seen a manufactured publ ic opinion inIndia, which was barren and ineffective because it merelyrepresented the partisan views of a clique, and was l ittlemore than noise and foam. I n my view

, the real work thatl ies before Indian patriots is the suppression of the sect ionaland the elevation of the national in the l ife of the people.

And I think that any educated young man can contributeto that end by the exercise of personal influence and balanceof judgment. It is always a bad symptom when there isone public Opinion that is vocal and noisy

,and another

that is subdued and si lent. For the former assumes a

prerogative that it does not deserve,while the latter does

not exert the influence to which it is entitled. The truecriteria of a public opinion that is to have weight are thatit should be representative of many interests , that it shouldsee two or more sides instead of only one, and that itshould treat Government as a power to be influenced, notas an enemy to be abused. Some day I hope that thiswil l come ; and there is not one amongst you who cannotcontribute to that consummation .

The last question that I put to myse lf and to you is this—What scope is there for youin the life of your countryIn my Opinion there is much. When I hear it said that

2 K

498 CON VOCATION OF CALCUTTA UNI VERS I TY

I ndia is a conquered nation and that I ndians are condem nedto be hewers of wood and drawers of water , I smile at the

extravagance, but I am also pained at the imp utat ion.

When I see High Court Judges—some of them in this

ha l l—Ministers of Native States wielding immense powers,

h igh executive and judicial ofli cers in our own service,leaders of thought and ornaments of the Bar, profes sorsand men of science, poets and novel ists , the nob i lity of

birth and the nobility of learning, I do not say that everyIndian corporal carries a Field Marshal’s baton in hi s knapsack, for the prizes come to few, but I say that none needcomplain that the doors are shut. To al l of you who

have the ambition to rise I would say—Use your studentdays to study the history and circumstances of your race.

Study its l iterature and the literature of Europe , and

particularly of the country whose fate is bound up wi thyour own . Compare the two see what are their lessons ortheir warnings. Then equip yourselves with a genuine and

manly love for your own people. I do not mean the per

fervid nationalism of the platform, but the self-sacrificingardour of the true patriot. Make a careful diagnos is

, not

only of how you can get on yourse lves, but how you can

help your countrymen to prosper. Avoid the tyranny of

faction and the poison of racial bitterness. Do not armyourse lves against phantasms, but fight against the realenemies to the welfare of your people, which are backwardness

,and ignorance, and antiquated social prescript ions.

Look for your ideals not in the air of heaven but in thel ives and duties of men . Learn that the true salvation of

India will not come from without, but must be createdwithin. I t wi ll not be given you by enactments of the

British Parliament or of any Parliament at al l. I t wil l notbe won by political controversy, and most certainly it wil lnot be won by rhetoric. I t will be achieved by theincrease of the moral and social advance of your peoplethemselves, deserving that which they claim,

and by theirdeserts making stronger the case for more. To you al ltherefore I say, Look up, not down . Look forward , notbackward. Look to your own country first and foremost

,

and do not waste time in whistl ing for the moon. Be true

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PERS I AN GU LF

DURBAR AT SHARGAH

IN November 1 903 Lord Curzon paid an official visi t to the

PersianGulf, escorted by thevessels of the East India Squadron,under the command of R ear-Adm iral G. Atkinson-Wi lles . I t was

the firs t occasion onwh ich any Viceroy of India, during his termof oflice, hadvisited these outlying scenes of British influence andtrade. After halting for a day at Muscat, the Gulf was entered,and on Novem ber 2 r a Durbar was held on the A rgonaut at

Shargah, for the Chiefs of the Arab Coast who are in Trea tyrelations with the British Governm ent. The Chiefs having beenformally presented, the V iceroy addressed them as follows

I have come here as the representative in the grea tEmpire of I ndia of the British authority which you andyour fathers and forefathers have known and dealt with formore than a hundred years ; and my object is to show you,that though you live at some distance from the shores of

India,you are not forgotten by the Government

,but that

they adhere to the pol icy of guardianship and protectionwhich has given you peace and guaranteed your rights forthe best part of a century ; and that the first Viceroy of

I ndia who has ever visited these waters does not quit themwithout seeking the opportunity of meeting you in person

,

and of renewing the assurances and engagements by whichwe have been so long united .

Chiefs, your fathers and grandfathers before you havedoubtless told you of the h istory of the past.1 You knowthat a hundred years ago there were constant trouble andfighting in the Gulf almost every man was a marauder or

I For a detailed account of this history, as also for Musca t, reference may bemade to the chapter on the PersianGulf, invol. ii. of Lord Garzon’s Pcrsr'a ,pub lished in1892 .

DURBAR A T SHARGAH 501

a pirate ; kidnapping and slave-trading flourished ; fightingand bloodshed went on without stint or respite ; no shipcould put out to sea without fear of attack ; the pearlfishery was a scene of annual conflict ; and security of tradeor peace there was none. Then it was that the BritishGovernment intervened and said that, inthe interests of its

ownsubjects and traders, and of its legitimate influence inthe seas that wash the Indian coasts, this state of affairsmust not continue. British flotillas appeared in thesewaters. British forces occupied the forts and towns on thecoast that we see from th is deck. The struggle was severewhile it lasted

,but it was not long sustained. I n 1 8 20 the

first general Treaty was signed between the British Govemment and the Chiefs ; and of these or similar agreementsthere have been in al l no fewer than eight. I n 1 8 39 theMaritime Truce was concluded, and was renewed from timeto time until the year 1 8 53, when it was succeeded by theTreaty of Perpetual Peace that has lasted ever since.

Under that Treaty it was provided that there should be a

complete cessation of hostilities at sea between the subjectsof the signatory Chiefs, and a perfect maritime truce —touse the words that were employed for everm ore thatin the event of aggressions on any one by sea, the injuredparties should not retaliate, but should refer the matter tothe British Resident in the Persian Gulf ; and that the

British Government should watch over the peace of the Gulfand ensure at al l times

'

the observance of the Treaty.

Chiefs, that Treaty has not, of course, prevented occasionaltrouble and conflict ; it has sometimes been neg lected or

infringed ; but on the whole it has wel l deserved its name ;and under it has grown up a condition of affairs so peacefuland secure that the oldest among you can only remember asa dim story the events of the past, while the younger havenever seen warfare or bloodshed on the seas. I t is noweleven years since the last disturbance of the peace occurred .

Chiefs, out of the re lations that were thus created, andwhich by your own consent constituted the British Govem

ment the guardian of inter - tribal peace, there grew uppolitical ties between the Government of I ndia and yourselves

,whereby the British Government became your overlords

502 DURBAR A T S HARGAH

and protectors, and you have relations with no other Power.Every one of the States known as the Trucial States hasbound itself, as you know, not to enter into any ag reem entor correspondence with any other Power, not to admit theagent of any other Government, and not to part with anyportion of its territories. These engagements are bindingon every one of you, and you have faithfully adhered to

them . They are also binding in their reciprocal effect uponthe British Government, and as long as they are faithfullyobserved by the Chiefs there is no fear that any one e lse w i l lbe al lowed to tamper with your rights or liberties .

l

Sometimes I think that the record of the past is indanger of being forgotten, and there are persons who ask

Why should Great Britain continue to exercise these powers ?The history of your States and of your families, and the

present condition of the Gulf, are the answer . We werehere before any other Power, in modern times, had shownits face in these waters. We found strife and we havecreated order. I t was our commerce as wel l as your secur itythat was threatened and called for protection . At everyport along these coasts the subjects of the King of Englandstil l reside and trade. The great Empire of I ndia

,which it

is our duty to defend, l ies almost at your gates. We savedyoufrom extinction at the hands of your neighbours. Weopened these seas to the ships of all nations, and enabledtheir flags to fly in peace. We have not seized or held yourterritory. We have not destroyed your independence

,but

have preserved it. We are not now going to throw awaythis century of costly and triumphant enterprise ; we shal lnot wipe out the most unse lfish page in history . The peaceof these waters must stil l be maintained ; your independencewill continue to be upheld and the influence of the BritishGovernment must remain supreme.

There is one respect in which the Chiefs themselves canavert any renewal of trouble in the future. The BritishGovernment have no desire to interfere

,and have never

interfered, in your internal affairs, provided that the Chiefsgovern their territories with justice, and respect the rights

I The Treaties and Agreem ents are printed inA itch ison’

s and Herts let’s

Collections ofTreaties .

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504 ADDRE S S FROM BRI TI S H RE S IDENTS A T B US H I RE

A Viceroy of I ndia coming to Bushire in the yea r 1 90 3,though he be the first occupant of that pos ition to vis itthese waters during his term of Ofli ce, is irres is t i b lyreminded of his precursors a century gone by. H e is,

indeed, the logical as well as the historical successor of

Sir John Malcolm ,who came here more than once just a

hundred years ago ; and he is the latest link in an unbrokensequence of political ofli cers who have been deputed from

India to represent British and Indian polit ical interes ts , and

to protect their corresponding commercial interests, in thisneighbourhood since the appointment of the first politicalagent as far back as 1 8 1 2 . Even then British interests hadbeen represented here for as much as half a century ; sinceit was in 1 763 that the Eas t India Company first opened afactory at Bushire. At that time one vessel a yea r fromIndia was sufl‘icient to accommodate the whole of Britishtrade. In 1 902 , 1 36 steamers entered this port, and of

these 1 33 were British. I n the last twenty years the

imports have increased from 1 3 5 lakhs, of which 1 1 7} werefrom Great Britain and India

,to zo l i lakhs in 1 90 1 , of

which 1 5 23 lakhs were British and Indian . I n the sam e

period the imports of tea from India have risen from avalueof R s .6 to a value of close upon 10 lakhs. Thesefigures do not leave much doubt as to where the preponderance of trade lies.This history of 140 years is without a paral lel in the

connection of any other foreign nation with these coasts ;under it have grown up connections with the local Governments and peoples of close friendships and confidence it is achapter of history upon which we have every right to lookback with pride ; and it imposes upon us obligations whichit is impossible that we should overlook

,and which no

Government, either of Great Britain or I ndia, is l ikely to

ignore.

Bushire is the headquarters of this long-standingconnection . From here the British Resident exerts thatmild control over the waters of the Gulf, and over thetribes upon its opposite shore

,the results of which I have

e njoyed so m any opportunities of observing during m y

p resent cruise . From this place the principal caravan

ADDRE S S FROM BR I TI SH RE S IDENTS A T B USH IRE 505

route str ikes into the interior of Persia, tapping its chiefcities in succession, and ultimately reaching the capital ;here the wires of the I ndo - European telegraph, which intheir earlier stages have brought Persia into connectionwith Europe , which have done so much to strengthenthe authority of the Shah in his own dominions, and whichcarry the vast majority of the messages from India toEngland, dip into the sea ; here is the residence of thePersian ofli cial who is charged with the Governorship of

the Persian Gulf ports by his Government, and with whomour relations are invariably those of the friendl iest nature ;and under these combined auspices—the British bringingthe bulk of the trade and policing the maritime highway,and the Persians gradually consolidating an authoritywhich, though once precarious, is now assured—this placehas grown from a small fishing vil lage into a flourishingtown of inhabitants ; it has become the residenceof foreign Consuls and Consular ofli cers ; the leadingmercant i le communities who trade in Southern Persia andTurkey have their offices and representatives here ; thereis seldom a day in which steamers are not lying off theport ; and Bushire has acquired a name which it is safeto say is known in every part of the world.

This development is the more remarkable because, asyou have pointed out, no one could contend that trade isconducted here under favourable conditions on thecontrary there are few

, if any, of the cond1t1ons thatnaturally mark out a place as an emporium or channelof commerce. Bushire can hardly be said, even by the

wildest stretch of imagination,to possess a harbour.

Landing is difficult and often impracticable. The traderoute that penetrates into the interior is one of the mostdifficult in Asia ; and inland you do not find za peopleenjoying great wealth or a high standard of comfort orcivil isation , but instead you encounter tribes leading anomadic form of existence ; and even when you cometo the settled parts of the country and the larger cities ,the purchasing power of the people does not appear to begreat. The fact that a large and flourishing trade hasgrown up in spite of these drawbacks is an irrefutable proof

506 ADDRE S S FROM BRI TI SH RE S IDE NTS AT BUS H IRE

of the dependence of Persia upon outs ide supply for m anyof the necessities and most of the luxuries of l ife . S inceI first visited Bushire fourteen years ago 1 I have alwaysindulged the hope that, as time passed on, progres s wouldbe made in al l these directions, and I agree wi th you

in thinking that the Persian Government could em barkupon no more remunerative form of expenditure than the

improvement both of the maritime and the inland approa chesto this place.

During the time in which I have fi l led my present officein India I have done my best to facil itate the progressof trade, and to ensure the adequate protection of Bri tishinterests in the Gulf and in the adjoining provinces andterritories. His Majesty’s Government at home have also

been warmly interested in the matter. The result of theseefforts has been that we have gradually deve loped the

Nushki - Seistan trade - route,which is now a recogn ised

channel of commerce to Eastern Persia. We haveappointed a Consul in Seistan , and are about to extendthe telegraph thither.

"z We now have Indian ofl‘icers

res iding as Consul at Kerman, and as Vice - Consul atBunder Abbas , where we are about to build a consularresidence ; we have connected Muscat by cable with Jask,and we hope for further telegraphic extensions in theinterests of trade.” We have established a political agentat Bahrein : and we now have a Consul at Moham m era

and a Vice-Consul at Ahwaz. The Karun trade- route hasmade substantial progress

,and has been supplemented by

the newly opened road, with caravanserais and bridges,through the Bakhtiari country to Ispahan . A British Consulhas also been appointed to Shiraz. We have improved andaccelerated the mail service to all the Gulf ports. BritishIndia steamers now call at Koweit as wel l . During the

same period British medical ofli cers have been lent by

1 Vz'

a'c Cap. XXI I . ofvol. 11. of Lord Curson’s Per s ia .

9 This has been done from the sides both of British Ba luchis tan andPers ianBaluchistan.

3 The a llus ionwas to a proposed extensionof the cab le (a ) from Muscat to

the is land of Henjam , where the British possess an old telegraph sta tion, abandoued over ten years ago, and (6) from Henjam to Bunder Abbas. Both

extensions have since beencarried out.

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PLAGUE

MEETING OF VOLUNTARY PLAGUE WORKE RS,POONA

ON November 1 1 , 1 8 99, the V iceroy attended a meeting of

voluntary plague workers, numbering about 500 or 600, which washeld in the Council Hall at Poona, and thus addressed the gathering :

I t is a source of great pleasure to me, in th is beautifulhall

,which I now see for the first time, to have received the

words of sympathy and appreciative welcom e that have justfal len from the lips of Mr. Padamjee, who, I understand, hasbeen for many years one of your most leading and rep te

sentative citizens. In one respect I cordially endorse whathe has said. I am glad to be able to congratulate you, onthis the occasion of my first visit to Poona, upon be ttertimes. There can be no doubt that you have suffered cruel lyand long. Poona

,during the past year, has, I am afraid,

been like a city lying in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The city has been largely deserted by its population, andfear and apprehension have natural ly enough entered intothe hearts of the people. Pestilence has not spared the

home of the European any more than it has that of theNative, and in striking it in cases which are known to us alli t has taken away the clearly beloved

,the fair

,and the young.

There was another very pathetic case which I came acrossinmy tour of inspection this morning, when I learned of thed eath of a worthy Mohammedan citizen of this place, Jafli rYusuf, who contracted the plague in the very hospital wh ich,largely by his own munificence and activity

,had been called

into be ing. At the same time, the extent to which the508

MEE TING OF VOLUNTAR Y PLAGUE WORKE RS 509

native population have suffered is shown by the fact thatthey have lost, I be l ieve, a total of more than of

their inhabitants in this city. I n these circumstances greatcredit is

,I think

,due to that brave band who never lost

heart in the deepest hour of adversity, but who, with unwavering courage, and with the pures t self-sacrifice, havecontinued to wage the battle against the foul fiend that wasencamped in your midst. It is to meet this gallant band of

fighters, and to congratulate them, now that their victorymay be said to have been well-nigh won , that I have comehere this afternoon ; and warm, I can assure you, are thefee l ings of respect with which, on behalf of the Governmentof I ndia, I recognise their devotion and warm also thethanks which I tender to them for the work that they havedone. As the Chairman of the Municipal Commissionershimse lf indicated in his remarks, you have had an untiringand chivalrous commander in your Governor,1 and a doublecompliment can perhaps not be better paid than by sayingthat the soldiers have not been unworthy of their captain .

I t is quite certain that, but for voluntary effort—and Iunderstand from what you, sir, tell me, that the majority of

those whom I am addressing are volunteer workers—the

state of Poona would have been much worse than it has been .

Of course the Government here, as elsewhere, has its ownorganisation, and the ofl‘icers of that organisation, both civi land military, have distinguished themselves by their ubiquitousand unsparing zeal . But there are strains which no officialmechanism in the world, however perfect, is adequate tomeet,without the supplement of some extraneous help. Sucha crisis does occur when you have a great epidemic breakingout in a populous city. Then you require not merely thetrained energy of the official, but also the quiet and moresubtle influence and co-Operation of popular residents in theplace, who wil l go to and fro, and in and out, among the

people, and who are none the worse off if their local knowledge is also tinctured with a little of the enthusiasm of the

amateur. You have had al l these advantages in this place,and you have had , further, the assistance of a body of nursesas unselfish and devoted as in any country

,or in any period

Lord Sandhurs t.

5 10 ME E TING OF VOLUNTAR Y PLAGUE WORKER S

of the wor ld’s hi story, have ever given them selves to the

alleviationof the sorrows of the ir fe l low-creatures.

What the future of plague may be none of us ean say

we can but struggle onand do our bes t. Whether a cure

for the pes tilence is ever likely to be discovered it would be

rash for any one of us, and particularly for one l ike m y self,who is a layman, to predict. At present, by taking each

case as soon as you can, by removing the patient from an

infected house or quarter into the nearest hospital, and bysurrounding him there with the conditions under which heis certa in of pure air, and sound treatment, and of stimula tingsustenance, you endeavour, and I be l ieve that in a constantlyincreasing percentage of cases you manage, to pul l him

But there are many prophylactics against the plague,which can, and which in my Opinion ought as widely as

poss ible, to be employed . I say frankly on this occasionand I do not care how widely my words may be sp readthat in my judgment inoculation is by far the wisest sys temof prophylactics that you can adopt. I do not say so

because I have the medica l or the chemical knowledge wh ichwould enable me to pronounce with authority upon the con

stituent proportions, or upon the scientific results , of the

serum. But I say so because, as a thinking humanbe ing,with the power of using my eyes and my ears

,I cannot fa i l

to be conscious of its demonstrable efl'

ects . If I find, as I

do,that out of a hundred plague seizures among uninocu

lated persons, the average of those who die is somethingabout 70 to 80 per cent, and if I find that in a corresponding number of seizures among inoculated persons the proportions are entirely reversed , and that it is 70 to 8 0 per

cent, if not more, who are saved—and these are calculationswhich have been furnished to m e from more than oneresponsible quarter— then I say that figures of that kindcannot but carry conviction to my mind : and I altogetherfail to see how, in the face of them ,

it is poss ible for any one

to argue that inoculation is not a wise and necessary precaution . It is al l very wel l to say that it is not infal l ible.

No one, so far as I know, claims that it is. I ts efl'

ects are

apt to be obliterated in the passage of time. I t acts

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5 1 2 xIIEE TING OF VOLUNTA R Y PLA GUE WORKE R S

reason, and to win by persuas ion that wh ich y ou cannotextort by force.

But you may say to me (if I may turnan Eng lis h p roverbinto terms that will be familiar to yourse lves ) that a seer of

example is worth a maund of precept. I quite ag ree withthat philosophy

,and I may inform youthat I have car ried

it out in my own person. Knowing that I was like ly to

spend many agreeable hours in visiting plague hospita ls in

th is part of India, I practised my own precept, and I andmy whole party were inoculated before we left Sim la . Ihave had no cause to regret it ; and I cordial ly com m endthe example to others who may be placed in a s im i larposition.

It now only remains for me to bid you farewe ll. Myvisits to Bombay and Poona have, I think, enabled m e to

real ise better than the study of newspapers or the read ingof official reports how genuine have been the sufferings of

the people, and how heroic the efforts that have been m adeto al leviate them . I have also seen that, here at Poona, ase lsewhere in the world, the dark cloud has its si lver l ining,and that the co-operation against human sufl

'

er ing and diseasein which you have all been engaged has done a great dealto draw tighter the cords of harmony and fel low-feel ing thatshould unite, and which I believe at the present juncturemore than at any previous time do unite, al l sections in thiscity. I shall go back to my work at headquarters encouragedand fortified by what I have seen , and I hope that the knowledge, l ittle though it may be, that I have secured , will enableme the better to cope with any future emergency, should sucharise. I wil l only add that, in such a case, I earnestly hopethat the city of Poona may not again be one of the victim s.

PLANTERS

D INNER G IVEN BY PLANTERS AT SILCHAR

(ASSAM )

ON November 8 , 1 90 1 , the V iceroy was entertained at dinner at

S i lchar in Assam , by the planters of Cachar, and responded as

follows to the toast of h is health

The hospitality of the planter, ofwhich I am the recipientthis evening, is one of those time-honoured Indian traditionswhich are as unbroken as the rising and setting of the sun .

Men may come and men may go, prices m ay rise or pricesmay fall, but l ike the poet

’s brook,” the generous instincts

of the planter go on for ever. Indeed, I be l ieve that hisincl ination to entertain his friends is enhanced, instead of

being diminished, by the fact that he is engaged in theproduction of an article which, excellent as it is in its ownplace, is not wholly adapted to be the !staple of such afestivity as this. Tea is never out of his thoughts in thedaytime. Upon it he flourishes or pines. But, by anadmirable law of reaction , when the evening comes onhe invites his guests to dinner and he gives them somethingelse.I have now had the honour of be ing entertained by the

planters of Tezpore and Silchar. I have similarly been theguest of the Companies that extract oil at Margherita and

crush gold at Kolar. I have also been addressed by manyChambers of Commerce since I have been in this country.

There are one or two words that I should l ike to sayabout the position of communities such as these inI ndia. It is a position unlike that of the majority of

us. The bulk of Englishmen here be long either to the2 1.

5 14 DINNER GI VEN B Y PLANTE RS A T S ILCHA R

Army or to some branch of the Public Service. We are

brought to I ndia by a beneficent Government, are sus ta inedby the same agency, and, after serving it for the s tipulatedterm of years, we retire, graceful ly or otherwise as thecase may be. But the tea planters of Assam and the

South of India, l ike the teak cutters of Burma , or the

indigo-planters of Behar, or partners in the other indus trialconcerns which I have named, come here with differentobjects, and they work under a different system . Pr im ari ly

,

no doubt, they come to m ake a livelihood for themselves orto earn dividends for their shareholders. But secondarily,it cannot be forgotten that

,if they take some money out of

the country, they also bring a great deal in ; where nativecapita l, except perhaps in the case of the Parsis of Bom bay,is so very timid and unventuresome, they produce and

invest the rupees without which the country canneve r bedeveloped, they employ and pay many hundreds of thousandsof native workmen, and thereby raise the scale of wages,and they exploit the resources of parts of the countrywhi ch would otherwise remain sterile or forgotten . They

are ,therefore, bearing their share in the great work of

development,which in every sphere of activity, industr ial,

material,and moral, is required in order to enable a country

to put forth its best and to realise its ful l measure of

productivity or advancement.Now,

there is an old-fashioned idea that these independentpioneers of progress have nothing to do with Government,and that Government has no interest or concern in them .

Sometimes,in the past, these ideas have bred feelings of

estrangement and even of hostil ity between the two parties.

Planters and others have been disposed to look uponGovernment and its ways with suspicion and Governmenthas perhaps retaliated by looking upon them with a coldand inconsiderate eye. That is not at all my view of ourrelative positions. I look upon all Englishmen in thiscountry (and if any Scotchmen or I rishmen are present, praydo not let them think that I am excluding them) as engagedin different branches of the same great undertaking. Herewe are all fellow-countrymen , comrades, and friends. The

fact that some of us earn our livel ihood or discharge

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5 16 DINNE R GI VEN B y PLAN TE RS A T S ILCHA R

closeness of interest that must necessarily prevai l betweenyourse lves and the State.

As regards the present position of your fortune s , theGovernment is conscious of the hard times through which inmany places the planters have been and stil l are pa ss ing.While the revi sed Act is coming into operation, wha t weneed more than anything else is a period of dil igent andpeaceful adaptation to the circumstances of the new situa tion.

We feel that we may reasonably cal l upon the plante rs toassist the Government in the execution of the law and inthe fulfi lment of its provisions ; and I doubt not that weshall receive from them individual ly, as well as from theirrepresentative organisations, the ungrudging support towhich we are entitled.

As I drove in here yesterday I had the honour of

be ing escorted by a detachment of the Surma Va l leyLight Horse. I was reminded by it of the part that somemembers of that force have recently played upon a widerfie ld than Assam. From the Surma Valley Light Horsecame quite a number of recruits for that gal lant contingentwhich Colonel Lumsden took out to South Africa

, and of

which I had the honour to be the honorary Colone l, thesolitary military distinction that I have ever so far attained .

I daresay that some of them are here to - night. A few,

alas, have been left behind never to return, including thebrave Major Showers

,who was once your commandant here.

His name , and that of the others who fel l with h im,w i l l

appear upon a brass tablet, which Lumsden’s Horse have

kindly allowed me as their honorary Colonel to order forerection in the Cathedral at Calcutta. I hope that it maybe completed and placed in s i te in the forthcoming coldweather. Whenyou go down there

,do not fail to drop in

to the Cathedral in order to see this record of the valour ofyour old friends. It wil l be a perpetual memorial, not merelyof the wonderful movement that ran like a thril l through thewhole heart of the Empire some two years ago

,but also

of the individual contribution that was made to it by the

patriotism of Sylhet and Silchar.

QU EEN V ICTOR I A MEMOR I AL

PUBLIC MEETING , CALCUTTA

UPON the death of QueenV ictoria, a public meeting, convenedby the Sheriff of Calcutta, was held at the TownHall, onFebruary 6, 1 90 1 , to express deep sorrow at the death of the QueenEm press, to convey anexpressionof loyalty and allegiance to the

King on h is access ion to the throne, and to determ ine the m ost

appropriate form of National Memorial that should be raised in

the m etropolis of India to perpetuate the m emory of the lateSovereign. The V iceroy presided, and Opened the proceedingswith the following speech

We are m et to-day upon a great and solemn occasion .

For we are assembled to express, in the language, not ofexaggeration or of compliment, but of simple truth, thefee l ings that l ie deep in the hearts of al l of us. They arefee l ings of a threefold character, of sorrow at the death of

our beloved Queen, of loyalty to her successor the newKing-Emperor Edward VI I ., and of our desire to commemorate the name and virtues of the deceased Sovereignby some enduring monument that shall hand down tolater ages a visible memorial of our veneration and of herwonderful and glorious reign. I accept, therefore, with amournful pride the honour which has been conferred uponme of presiding upon this historic occasion , and I willproceed to deal with the first resolution which has beencommitted to my care.I have already had occasion to speak elsewhere of the

character and life of the late Queen ,l and I need not noweither repeat what I then said, or encroach upon the groundof subsequent speakers. We all fee l the same about her,

1 Speech inthe Legislative Counci l onFebruary 1 , not reproduced here.

5 l7

5 18 PUBLIC MEE TING, CALCUTTA

whether we are Europeans or Indians. Our hearts are

swelling with gratitude that we were fortunate enough tolive under such a Sovereign, with an answering love for

the great love that she bore to al l of us alike, and witheagerness to preserve her memory imperishable for all t ime.I n India I venture to assert that there are special

reasons why we should feel strongly, and act independently,and of our own initiative, in the matter. Queen Victorialoved India, as no other monarch, certainly no othermonarch from another land

,has done. The fifteen Governors

General who served her, and of whom I shall always fee l ita sad honour to have been the last, could one and al ltestify to her abounding regard for this country. She w roteregularly to each of them with her own hand, during the

more than sixty years of her reign, words of wise counseland of tender sympathy for the people whom she hadcharged them to rule. As we know, she learned theIndian language when already advanced in years . Shewas never unattended by Indian servants, and we haveread that they were entrusted with the last sorrowful officeof watching over her body after death. I n her two Jub i leeprocessions she claimed that the I ndian Princes, and the

pick of her Indian soldiers,should ride in her train . There

are many of those Princes who could testify to the inte restshe showed in them

,to the gracious welcome which she

always extended to them when in England, and to the

messages of congratulation or sympathy which they ofte nreceived from her own hand. But it was not to the rich o r

the titled alone that she was gracious. She was equal ly amother to the humble and the poor, Hindu and Mohammedan

,man and woman

,the orphan and the widow

,th e

outcast and the destitute. She spoke to them all in simp lelanguage that came straight from her heart and wentstraight to theirs. And these are the reasons why all Ind iais in mourning to-day

,and why I claim that there a re

special grounds for which we should meet together, with noloss of time, to determine what we shal l do to perpe tuatethis precious memory and this beneficent reign.

I t is not without much anxious forethought and

deliberation that I venture to put before this meeting, and

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549 PUBLIC ME E TING, CALCUTTA

generosity of the people. Therefore it is that I haveventured to com e forward and, in consultation with anumber of exper ienced and representative gentlem en, bothEuropean and I ndian , have formulated the scheme whichhas appeared in the Press. I dare to think that the con

soptiou is a not ignoble one, and that it wil l not be

unworthy of the great Sovereign whom we des ire to com

memorate, of all the princes who are emulous to do her

honour, and of this wonderful country which has felt forher a loyalty aroused by no other human being. Pos terityis apt to forget in whose honour charities were origina l lyfounded, or endowments named. Some day in the futurethe endowment itself is converted to another purpose , andthe design of the original contributors is forgotten. Who,

for instance, when Queen Anne’s Bounty is annual ly d i str i

buted in England to augment the incomes of the sm allerclergy, spares a thought for poor Queen Anne ? On theother hand, it is different with a concrete memorial. Itremains a visible and speaking monument to the individua l,or the period , that is so commemorated. I venture to say

that more good has been done in arousing public interes tin the Navy in England, and in developing the les son of

patriotism in young Engl ishmen, by the spectacle of the

heroic figure of Nelson standing on the summit of the greatcolumn inTrafalgar Square than would have been the casehad the nation founded a hundred training ships

,or endowed

a score of naval hospitals in his honour. But I can giveyou an even higher authority, namely, the authority of H er

Majesty the Queen herself. When her husband,the Prince

Consort, died in 1 86 1 , and a large sum was raised bypublic subscription for the foundation of a NationalMemorial to the deceased Prince, the Queen herself wasasked what form she would prefer the memorial to take .

I wi ll read to you the terms of her reply. She wrote a s

follows to the Lord Mayor of London

It would be more in accordance with the feelings of the

Queen, and she believes wi th those of the country in general,that the monument should be directly personal to its object .

After giving the subject her m aturest consideration, H er Majes tyhad com e to the conclusion that nothing would be m ore

PUBL IC ME E TING, CALCUTTA 52 1

appropriate, provided it was on a scale of sufficient grandeur,thana personal memorial to be erected inHyde Park.

These were the Queen’s own words ; and this was the

origin of that noble Albert Memorial, which no one evergoes to London without seeing

,which is one of the glories

of the metropolis,and which wil l perpetuate to hundreds

of thousands of persons who wil l never have heard of the

Albert Orphan Asylum,or the Albert Medals, or the Albert

Institute, the memory of the beloved and virtuous Consortof the British Queen .

And so I ask why should we not do for the Queen herself inthe capita l of India what she asked to have done forher husband in the capital of Great Britain ? Shal l we notbe carrying out what we are justified in saying would havebeen in accordance with her own sentiments Let us ,therefore, have a building, stately, spacious, monumental,and grand, to which every newcomer in Calcutta wil l turn,to which all the resident population, European and Native,wi l l flock , where all classes wi l l learn the lessons of history,and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the pastand where father shal l say to son and mother to daughterThis Statue and this great Hal l were erected in the

memory of the greatest and best Sovereign whom Indiahas ever known . She lived far away over the seas , buther heart was with her subjects in India

,both of her own

race, and of al l others. She loved them both the sam e.I n her time

,and before it, great men lived, and great deeds

were done. Here are their memorials. This is her monument. Gentlemen , a nation that is not aware that it hashad a past, will never care to possess a future and I bel ievethat, if we raise such a building as has been sketched, andsurround it with an exquisite garden, we shal l most truly, inthe words of Shakespeare, find a tongue in the trees , and asermon in the sculptured stones, that will proclaim to latergenerations the glory of an unequal led epoch, and the beautyof a spotless name.I must add that I would be the last person to desire that

the erection of a National Memorial here should stand intheway of the dedication of funds

,should it be so desired, to

local objects elsewhere. We do not want to coerce, or to

52: PUBLIC ME E TING, CALCUTTA

dictate to anybody. A donor is entitled to a free cho ice of

the object for which he contr ibutes. There may be a strongdesire expressed in different parts of I ndia for a provinciallocal memorial

,quite independently of ours. This seem s to

me quite natural . I do not see why any Pres idency orProvince should not please itse lf. They have their localstandpoint and interests. They may want their mem orial,whatever form it may take, al l to themselves. There mustbe no jealousy in the matter. At the mouth of the grave all

petty feel ings must be extinguished ; and charity wh ich, asour great Christian Apostle has told us,

“ envieth not,vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up, must quarrelwith nobody, but must be permitted to seek and find its

own outlet. Even in such cases , however, I hope tha t thelocal Committees may decide to transmit to us a certai nproportion of their funds, so that they may have their share

in the monument of the nation . But I really think that Imay go further and may put it to these various com munities whether

,except in cases where there is an ob vious

opening for local commemoration, they wil l not be ac tingwise ly and reasonably incontr ibuting to the Central Fund.And I say so for two reasons : partly because I want everyone—all the Princes, and al l the Provinces, and all the

States—to have their part and portion in this Nationa lMemorial , and partly because if they respond to the appealon at al l the scale that seems to me not unl ikely

,it is

possible that not merely may we have funds for the erection,

and equipment, and endowment of this building, but wemay have a balance that may appropriately be dedicated tosome object of national charity or beneficence . What itshould be I cannot now say. I ndeed, it would be prematureto discuss an object before we have collected the money.

But I make these observations in order to indicate thatphilanthropy is by no means excluded from our purview,

and that the wider the response to our appeal, the m orelikely we are able to supplement the Victoria Hall by someobject that may gratify those who have a charitable or m oralpurpose at heart .

Now, may I just say one word about the selection o f

Calcutta as a site ? I t is quite true that Calcutta is not

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524 PUBLIC I‘II E E TING, CALCUTTA

its name, wil l probably require the keen personal interes tof the Viceroy for a number of years to come. I th ink th atthe making of the co l lection wil l thereby be a good dealfacilitated. This interest I am quite prepared ,

and I am

sure that my successors will equally be prepared, to g ive to

it. But I doubt very much whether we could do it as well,

or at all, at a distance.

I am glad to be able to say that I think the prospectsof a remarkable, and indeed unexampled , response to ourappea l, are encouraging. Since the schem e which I venturedto propound has been put forward, it has m et with a mostgratifying support at the hands of al l the representativeorgans of the Press, both European and Native, inCa lcutta.

I am very grateful to them for their discriminating and

reasoned support. I t has been communicated to the

Governors and Lieutenant-Govem ors of the Provinces of

British India, who are about to hold meetings at wh ich itsmerits wi l l be discussed. I t has excited the warm sym pathyof the mercanti le community in Calcutta, who have comeforward with their accustomed liberal ity , and to whosecontributions I shal l presently refer. And

,finally, i t has

appealed to the enthusiastic devotion, and the bound lessgenerosity, of the Princes of I ndia, who have lost in theQueen a Sovereign whom they al l worshipped, a motherwhom they revered, and who, I prophesy, will be found tovie with each other in their desire to contribute to theimmortal ity of her name. One of these Princes is with usto-day—His Highness the Maharaja S cind ia of Gwal ior,who, if I may say so before his face, has , at a comparative lyearly age, displayed exceptional capacities, and has alreadytestified, with a splendid and princely munificence, his loy a ltyto the Brit ish Crown. I t is in keeping with the generousinstincts of His H ighness that he should have sent m e atelegram, as soon as he heard of the institution of this fund

,

offering me the regal donation of t o lakhs. From theMaharaja of Kashmir I have had the splendid ofl

'

er of 1 5lakhs. The Maharaja of Jaipur has expressed a desire toincrease his magnificent endowment of the Famine Trust byanother four lakhs and to give five lakhs in addition to theMemorial Fund . From the Mysore Durbar I have received

PUBLI C MEE TING, CALCUTTA 53 5

the prel iminary offer, to be increased, should the neces sityarise, of one lakh. Now these offers have placed m e in aposition of some little embarrassment. For, while theytestify to the noble instincts of their donors, they may yetbe held to set a standard to which others may find itdifficult to conform, and they may result in our receiving asum large ly in excess of our maximum ambitions. I have

,

therefore, decided to leave the matter in this way. It is tooearly at present to form any idea either of the sum that thisNational Memorial will cost, or of the extent of the contributions that are l ikely to be offered . I do not want atthe start to stint the liberality of any man. But if, a l ittlelater

,we find that we are receiving sums in excess of those

which we can properly spend, then I think that it wil l be areasonable thing to fix a maximum , perhaps of one lakh of

rupees, beyond which we should not be will ing to profit bythe generosity of any individual donor, and to which weshould l imit our acceptance of the larger offers that hadbeen made. There is a sort of emulation in giving for anoble object ; and it rests, I think, with those of us whoare responsible for the management of this fund not toal low these instincts, however praiseworthy or honourable,to place too severe a strainupon the income of an individualor the revenues of a State.And now I pass from the contributions of the Princes

to those of the publ ic at large. Here I rejoice to saythat already the offers that have reached m e have beensplendid in their scale of munificence. Although thefund has not yet been opened for more than two days

,

I am able to announce subscriptions amounting to over2g lakhs.I think

,therefore, that I may fairly claim that we have

launched the ship under good auspices, and that she issail ing with a fair wind behind her.I have now dealt with all the topics that fal l under

the motion assigned to me, and I wil l on ly, in conclusion,urge you, in accepting it, to give the rein to a generositythat shall be worthy of the revered and illustrious memorywhich we desire to honour, of Bengal and Calcutta, thecapital Pres idency and the capital city of this country, and

526 PUBLIC H EB TING, CALCUTTA

lasfl y of lndia itselfi the m ighties t and the mos t loyal

dependency of the British Crown.

AS IATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL

OnFebruary 1 6, rgo r, a special m eeting of the Asiatic Societyof Bengal was held at the Dalhous ie Institute, Calcutta, a t whichthe V iceroy explained at length h is schem e for the proposed

I do not think it necessary to say much about the

general quest ion of the proposed Memoria l Hall to QueenVictoria inCalcutta. A good dea l of the doubt or m is conceptionthat at first exis ted arose from ignorance of the real

nature of the plan. This has been in the main d iss i pated

by the publication of the full text of the original Mem o

randum ,and of the proceedings at our m eeting of Feb ruary

6 in the Calcutta Town Hall. There only rema in a few

points in th is connection upon which som eth ing m ay be

added. I t is quite clear, and, as I have before sa id , verynatural and proper , that different parts of India and difl

'

erent

localities should institute their own memorials, although itis not always easy to determine what they shall be. Thequestion before us, and before me in particular, was whetherthere should be a National Memorial as well . My view wasthat this was an occasion on which India would des ire notmerely to express its deep devotion to the late Queen’smemory, but also to demonstrate to the world, in somestriking manner, the truth of that Imperial un ity which wasso largely the creation of her personality and reign. Hadeach province been left exclusively to erect its own mem or ial,and had no effort been made to concentrate the publicsentiment in some grander conception

,we should doub tless

have had , as we shal l have, a number of excellent funds, andinstitutions, and buildings. They would have representedthe fee l ings and the generosity of the individual province orlocality, but they would not have condensed or typified the

emotions of the nation . Visitors to I ndia, and posterity ingeneral , would hear or know little about this fund or thattrust

,however considerable the origi nal endowment sub

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528 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY GP BENGAL

th is i s the result. I have devoted much anx ious though t toa cons iderationof the num erous sugges tions that have b eenmade. I have read m any scores , if not hundreds , of these,and have beenstruck by the fact that, m eritorious as m anyof them are , no two are identical. In other words, there is

no sort of national unanim ity on the subject. For the

present I am disposed to th ink—if there be such a surp lus—that we shal l find it d iflicult to fix upon a better object towhich to devote it than the I ndian People’s Fam ine Trus t,which was inaugurated by tha t splendid donation from the

Maharaja of Jaipur last year. Fam ine is the one great

ca lamity that is capable of attacking the whole country . Its

re l ief is the one grea t charitable boon that wi l l affect notisolated units , or even hundreds of thousands, but m illions .

Moreover, the objects of the Famine Relief Trust are outs ideof, and do not confl ict with, the proper sphere of Governm entduty. These, however, are only my own ideas, and I givethem for wha t they may be worth.

As regards Technical Education , I have not a word tosay against an object in itse lf so admirable. I t is in m anyways the need of the future in India. But I have th is tosay about it at the present stage. The interest upon nofund that might be accumulated could possibly provide for

more than the education of an infinitesimal minority perannum among the youths of India. The principles uponwhich they are to be trained , and the Openings that m ightbe found for their professional abil ities and attainments , arenot yet determined

,and even in England, after fifteen years

of struggle and discussion, are stil l in a fluid state. Final ly,

I hardly think it fair to connect the desire to commemoratethe Queen ’s name with a task that has no definite association with her memory, and that is so pre-eminently the d utyof the Government and of the community in combinationas that of providing for the education of a particular sectionof the population . Some people talk and write as thoughtechnical instruction were going to solve the Indian agrarianproblem

,and to convert mil l ions of needy peasants into

flourishing artisans. Long after every one in this room has

mouldered into dust the economic problem will confront therulers of I ndia. It is not to be solved by a batch of Inst i

A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL 529

tutes or a cluster of Polytechnics. They wil l scarcely p roduce a ripple in the great ocean of social and industrialforces. I ndeed

,if they were to fail , or to remain empty, as

might conceivably be the case at this stage of our evolution,and as has been the case with some of the premature experiments already made

,where would the memory and honour

of Queen Victoria be ? Technical education is a problemthat must be met by the patient and combined efforts of theSupreme Government, the local Governments, Municipalities, D istrict Boards, Chambers of Commerce, mercantilefirms, and philanthropic and enterprising m en. Let us allgive to it that attention

,but do not let us use the Queen ’s

name to absolve us from our legitimate responsibil ities.I t seems to me, therefore, that if we succeed in raising a

great National Fund,which is partly devoted to the building

of the Victoria Hal l and partly to the sti l l further endowment of the Famine Trust

,we shall, at the same time, have

erected an impressive and enduring memorial to the nameof Queen Victoria

, and shall have consecrated the feelingsaroused by her death to the service of the people ina mannerthat wil l beneficial ly affect the largest number. I n the meantime, however, I have no desire to pronounce with finalityupon the secondary or utilitarian object ; and

,while our

funds are accumulating,I shal l be very glad to profit by the

advice that will doubtless continue to reach me from manyinfluential quarters.

Next I come to the question whether, presuming an alllnd ianmemorial to be desirable, it was for the Viceroy toplace himself at the head of the movement. I must leavethis delicate question to be decided by the voice of others,not by my own. Perhaps

,after all, the result wi ll be the

most conclusive answer. All I would say at this moment isthat, if the position of the Viceroy is to be what, in myopinion , it ought to be, the opportunity of fusing and givingexpression to the aspirations of the entire community is onethat he should be proud to seize ; and that, if in somequarters it be said that he should have left the movementto ferment and to come to a head as best it could, I suspectthat

,had this advice been followed, it would have been said

ina good many other quarters that he had signally failed2 M

530 AS IA TI C S OCIE TY OI"BENGAL

to realise the unique opportunities of his pos ition, and had

allowed a golden occas ion to slip by ofvindica ting the loy a ltyand the devotion of the I ndianEmpire to the Bri ti sh throne.

I pass to another of the preliminary questions which it

has been desirable to discuss . It appears to have b een

thought in some quarters that the scheme for a V ictor ia

Hall in Calcutta has been snatched up, so to s peak, in

precipitate haste, and foisted almost without cons idera tionupon the notice of the public. Th is is far from havingbeen the case . This scheme was not for the firs t tim e

conce ived and matured during the fortnight that elap s edbetween the death of Her Majesty the Queen and the

Town Hal l Meeting. On the contrary, it has rare ly b eenout of my mind during the two yea rs in which I have beenin India. I had been collecting informat ion

,consulting

individuals, working out al l the possible ramifications of

the prOposal, long before the Queen was smitten by herlast fata l il lness. I had of course no idea at that time of

proposing such a building as a permanent memorial to theQueen, because so marvel lous was her vital ity that such anidea as her early decease had never entered into our m inds .

But I had hoped , before leaving India, to carry the ideainto execution as a fulfi lment of what I regard as a greatimper ia l duty, viz. the handing down to posterity of whatthe past has fa iled to provide for us, that is , a standingrecord of our wonderful h is tory ,

a visible monument of Indianglories, and an illustration, more eloquent than any spokenaddress or printed page , of the lessons of public patr iotism

and civic duty. I had even gone so far as to ta lk overthis schem e with friends, to prepare designs for a bui ld ing,and to think of where it might be placed . Then cam e thedeath of the Queen ; and then it was that

,not merely in

my own mind, but in that of the representat ive personswhom I consulted , the idea took shape that we were alreadyin possess ion of the germ of a great imperial mem orial,worthy of Queen Victoria and worthy of India . I t was ,therefore, no suddenor inchoate project that was subm ittedto the Ca lcutta Meeting. On the contrary

, how com p leteit was the in form ation that I sha l l presently place be foreyou wil l enable you to judge.

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532 AS IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

unfr iendly suspicions and that all I ndia may leg itim a te ly beas ked to co-operate in a movement wh ich, if its help b e g iven,may eas i ly be endowed with a truly cosmopolitan cha racter,which wil l have a most practical as we l l as a sentim ental

side, and will contain not trash but treasures.The building wil l be ca l led the Victoria Mem oria l H all.

I t wi l l therefore, I think, he befitting that a centra l ha ll or acentral space should be devoted to the mementoes of Her

Majesty the Queen . Whether or not the statue of the

Queen that has already been executed shall be erected ins ideor outside this building, is a matter that will rema in overfor subsequent decision . Probably it wil l rema in outs ide.

A separate representation of Her Majesty might perha ps beplaced inside the hall . Around it might be g roupedmemorials of her re ign. It might be possible to secureautograph letters from her to the various Governors-Generaland Viceroys who have had the honour to serve her . I atany rate shal l be prepared to contr ibute, as the last. Someother personal rel ics we may be so fortunate as to secure.

Upon the walls of this hall might be inscribed in le tters ofgold upon marble or upon bronze, both in English and in

the different vernaculars, the famous Proclamation of 1 8 58 ,and such other messages as the Queen has

,at various

times, addressed to the I ndian people. I f the originals areprocurable, they might be placed in glass cases be low. TheEmperor Asoka has spoken to posterity for 2 200 yearsthrough his inscriptions on rock and on stone. Why s houldnot Queen Victoria do the same ?I have, on a previous occasion, observed that the

Memorial Hall would be devoted to the commemorationof notable events and remarkable men

,both Indian and

European , in the history of this country. I wil l nowproceed to indicate the character of the incidents and the

personality of the individuals who may perhaps be heldworthy of this honour, and the manner in which it may beconferred. At the beginning it is almost necessary to drawa line which shall be the starting point of our historicalprocession . I may say at once that the idea is not to

convert this hall into an archaeological museum,or to

compete with the various institutions of that character that

A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL 533

already exist in different parts of the country. I conceiveit to be impracticable in a single building to convey asynopsis of all I ndian history from the time of the Aryanimmigration to the days of electric tramways and motorcars. I have not the slightest desire to accumulate hereBuddhistic sculptures, or implements of the bronze andstone ages. They will find their home more fitly in the

imperial and provincial museums. Similarly,I do not think

that we can include representations of the legendary andquasi-mythological epochs of Indian history, the period, infact, of the epics. Anything that dates from those days canonly be a copy of originals existing elsewhere, or can havewhat is in the main an antiquarian rather thana historicalinterest . I n practice it will

,I think

,be found that the

earliest date from which it wil l be possible to accumulateany sort of original record

,wil l be the foundation of the

Moghul dynasty. We may begin with Baber, and from thenwe may continue to the present date. Throughout theworld progres s seems to have taken a definite leap forwardat about the same epoch ; and the situation wil l be muchthe same as though in England we began to make acol lection with the Tudors

,in Russia with Ivan the Terrible

,

in France with Francis I in Germany with Charles V . , inTurkey with Solyman the Magnificent, in Persia with the

S efavi dynasty, in Japanwith Iyeyasu .

I wil l first take Indian history. It ought , I think, to bepossible to obtain some records of every period and everydynasty from the Moghuls to the present day. These recordswould take the form of paintings, enamels, sculptures, manuscripts, and personal rel ics and be longings. I have heardof there be ing offered for sale in India in recent years thehead-dress of Akbar and the armour of Jehangi r. Passingto the Mahratta ascendency, we should procure portraits ofSivaj i and the leading Mahratta princes, generals, andstatesmen . Then

,if we turn to the Sikhs, we should have

similar memorials of the leading Gurus, from Nanak to GuruGovind

,of Maharajas Ranj it Singh, Sher Singh, and Golab

Singh of Jummu and Kashmir. All of these are, I be l ieve,procurable. From Rajputana we should col lect memorialsof Rana Pertab of Mewar, Raja Man Singh, and Siwai Jai

534 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGA L

Singh, the astronomer of Jaipur, and Maha raja J aswant

Singh of Jodhpur. From Gwalior we should d es ire to

comm emorate Mahadaji Rao Sc india and Dow let Rao

S cind ia ; from Bhopal the Nawab Sikandra Begum ; fromHyderabad Asaf Jah, the first Nizam. For m y own pa rt Ishould not hes itate for a moment to include those who havefought against the British, provided that their mem or ies are

not sullied with dishonour or crime. I would not admi t so

much as the fringe of the pag rz'

of a rufii an like the NanaSah ib. But I would gladly include memorials o f H y der

Ali and Tippu Sultan of Mysore. There is , I be l ieve , avery interesting picture of the death of Tippuat S e ringapatam in the palace of the Nawab of Mursh idabad . If we

come to more modern times, I have already col lected , wi ththe aid of those gentlemen who have been good enough to

advise me,a list of the names of eminent Indian sta te sm en,

writers,poets

,administrators

,judges

,religious reform ers and

phi lanthropists who might be entitled to commem orationin such a Valhal la. I wil l mention a few typical namesalone z—Om ichund ,

the great Bengal banker in the days ofLord Clive, Ali Verdi Khan , Raja Naba Kissen, Mir Jafar,Chaitanya

,the founder of Vishnuism , Dwarkanath Tagore,

Ram Mohun Roy, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj , whodied in England

,Keshub Chunder Sen, whose portrait is in

the Town Hall , Rajendra Lal Mitra, the antiquarian, RajaKrishna Chandra ,

Sir Syed Ahmed,the founder of the

Aligarh College, Pundit I shwar Chandra V idayasagar , thesocial reformer and philanthropist . To these might be addedthe more eminent of the Nawabs Nazim of Bengal , and of

the Talukdars of Oudh. I n the memorandum previouslyissued were mentioned the names of wel l -known state sm enor public characters

,such as Sir D inkar Rao

,S ir Madhava

Rao,Sir Salar Jung

,Sir Jam setji Jeejheebhoy .

I now pass to British history . Here we shal l endeavourto secure portraits, or busts, or mementoes—and where theoriginals are not forthcoming

,reproductions may perhaps

be available—of the long line of distinguished m en whohave made the British Empire in India. They will fal l intoseveral categories ; the pioneers of commerce and empiresuch as Sir T . Roe

,Job Charnock, Sir Josiah Ch i ld ;

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536 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

dominion in India,and tha t seem to me to be enti tled

to the honour of grateful commemoration at the h ands of

posterity.

And now, having specified the type of person whom itis proposed to honour, let me pass on to the methods bywhich it may be done. One or more of the galleries of the

Victoria Hall will doubtless be devoted to sculpture . H erewill be collected the life- size figures, or the busts and meda ll ions

,of great men . A large number of these mem orials

,

as I shall show presently, are already in existence ,and w i l l,

it is hoped, be available for our purpose. I shal l indica temethods by which others may be procured . Cases wi l l arisein the future in which a desire to commemorate som e

eminent person may not justify, either in the scape of the

services rendered or in the extent of the money subscribed,

the crowning honour of a statue on the maidan . The bustsof such persons wil l appropriately be placed in the sculpturegal lery of the Victoria Hal l.A second gallery or gal leries will be devoted to paint ings

,

engravings,prints, and pictorial representations in genera l,

both of persons and of scenes. Here wil l be hung or iginalpictures and likenesses, or where these are not procurable,copies of such. There are stil l scattered about in Ca l cuttaand Bengal

,and I daresay in other parts of India

,quite a

number of oil paintings,dating from the end of the eighteenth

century and the beginning of the last, commemorative of

interesting persons and events. Now and then these findtheir way into the auction - room . More commonly theyrot into decay. I t is possible, in mezzotints and stipple and

l ine engravings, to recover almost a continuous history of

Anglo- Indian worthies, battles, sieges, landscapes, bui ld ings,forts, and scenes during the last two hundred years.While speaking of pictorial representation

,it has been

suggested to me that around the open corridors of the innercourts and quadrangles of the building m ight be depictedfrescoes of memorable incidents or events . Fresco- paint i ngis an art in which the Indian craftsman once exce lle d .

Witness the pictured caves of Ajunta,the painted wal ls and

ceilings of Fatehpur Sikri , the decorated pavil ions of Ag raand Delhi, the bril liant sum mer-house of Tippuat Seringa

A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL 537

patam . This art is not extinct in India,and is being fostered

and revivified in Institutes and Schools of Art. I do notsee why great historic scenes

,such as the three battles of

Panipat or the battles of Plassey, Sobraon , Assaye, Miani ;the self - immolation of Rani Pudm ine and the women of

Chitor, the Rahtor Queen closing the city gates against herhusband when he returned defeated, the first audience of

British factors with the Great Moghul,the relief of the

Residency at Lucknow,the Proclamation of the Queen at

Al lahabad in 1 8 5 8 , the Delhi Durbar of 1 8 7 7 , should not bethus commemorated. Precautions would have to be takenfor the proper conservation of the frescoes during the rains.If pigments were found to be anunsuitable medium, howeverapplied, recourse might be had to mosaics. Should moredurable memorials stil l be preferred, it might be decided tofix bronze or copper plates in panels on the inner walls,containing inscriptions or bas- rel iefs

,dedicated to memorable

scenes.In the centre of the gal leries that are occupied by paint

ings, or in adjoining rooms, I suggest that there should beplaced stands and cases

,with glass l ids

,containing the

correspondence and handwriting,the personal rel ics and

trophies and belongings of great men . I t ought to be

possible to procure autograph letters of al l the GovernorsGeneral and Viceroys of India

,and of the majority of those

whose names have already been mentioned . Miniatures,articles of costume

,objects that belonged in lifetime to the

deceased, and that recal l his personality or his career—al l of

these wil l fitly appear in such a collection. I may mentionas an il lustration the objects that are exhibited in the King’sLibrary at the British Museum,

in the Bodleian Library atOxford, and inmany kindred institutions.A wider extension of the same principle may be applied

to the commemoration of historical events . I should l ike toexhibit the originals

,or where these cannot be procured

copies, of Treaties, and S anads , and Charters. I fancy thatthe original Charter of Queen Elizabeth of 3 rst December1 600 to the merchants of the East I ndia Company is nolonger extant

,and that the earliest surviving grant is that

of Charles I I . in 166 1 . Excellent facsimiles have been made

538 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

inEngland of several of these docum ents . I t m ay h e no ted

in pass ing that the copy of Magna Charta which is ex hi b i ted

in the Br itish Museum is not the original, but only a rep ro

duction. The oldes t extant MS ., which is itse lf not the

original, is kept under lock and key in a fire-proof sa fe e lse

where. A great many original docum ents are, however , inthe possess ion of the Government of India, or of the India

Office at home ; and a se lection of the more interes ting or

im portant m ight be made from these . As regards earlier

Indian history we may perhaps be so fortunate as to com e

into possession , or may be favoured with the loan, of Or iental

manuscripts of which there are stil l a grea t many in th iscountry

,though

,from lack of care and of means for collect

ing them,the majority have either perished or are fas t leaving

the country.

From documents or manuscripts it is a natural trans iti onto m aps and plans, both Native and European. It shouldnot be difficult to collect, either in original or in dup licate,a complete set of all the maps of Calcutta from the beginningof the eighteenth century to the present day . Similar plansshould be procurable of Fort St. George at Madras and of

Bombay, and of many other factories, cities, and fortsthroughout the country. There is no means of studyinglocal history and topography to compare with that of m aps,and I should hope that we might acquire and exhibit afirst- rate col lection .

Side by side with maps I should be inclined to p lacenewspapers. We could not hope to make any com pletecollection . That is the function of a library or of a muse um .

But a careful selectionof some of the rarer or more inte resting specimens might throw valuable sidelights upon the p as t.Coins might also be very properly included. Here we m ightmake an exception and penetrate even further back thanthe Moghul days . A microcosm of the history of Indiathrough all the ages might be cons tructed from a classifiedexhibit of the different coins that have been current inIndia, Bactrian , I ndo - Bactrian

,Hindu

,Afghan , Moghul ,

and finally British,including a specimen of every co in

that has been struck in India during the Queen’sreign . From the contents of a few cases we might gra s p

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54° A S IA TIC S OCI E TY OF BENGAL

col lect pictures of leading Princes and Chiefs. We m igh tcommemorate notable events in their dynas ties and lives .

They m ight be wil ling in some cases to present us from

thei r armouries with duplicates of the large collections thatare there conta ined. Spears, and batt le- ax es , and swords ,

shields and horse- trappings and coats of m ails—these are the

abundant relics,in India and elsewhere, of an age of ch ivalry .

Where gifts are not found possible, the Chiefs might b eprepared, as is so often done by the Royal Family, by noblem en, and by rich col lectors in England, to al low a portiono f

their col lections to appear on temporary loan, the lende rbe ing of course put to no expense, and his possessions b eingreturned to him at the termination of such period as he

himself des ired.

Whatever be our success as regards native arms , I e nterta in no doubt of be ing able to amass a first- rate collectionof

British specimens. I would propose to devote one galleryto a chronological i l lustration of the history of British Arm sin this country. I would present in cases a complete collection of British uniforms from the days of the earliest sep oysof the Company to modern times. From the various arsenalsit will be a matter of ease to collect specimens of the

muskets, carbines, and rifles, the powder-flasks and pis tols,the swords and lances

,the cannon and guns of the var ious

phases of military fashion in this country. An enclosedverandah in the fort at Lahore is so packed at present w ithSikh trophies that everything cannot be got inside. Elsewhere military trophies are lying scattered about unhonouredand unknown. In the same gallery I would place a com

plete col lection of British medals that have been granted forservice in this country and on its borders ; and here too

I should hOpe will repose the tattered regimental banne rsthat tel l the ta le of glory won

,and pass on an inspiration to

successors.Another very proper adjunct of the Victoria Hall would

be a col lection of models. There are many objects of

immense historic interest which we either cannot procure,

because they have vanished,or could not introduce into our

gal leries because of their size and unsuitability. These m a y

very fitly be represented by models. Such models m igh t,

A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL 541

for instance, be made of the ships that have brought Europeanmerchants and adventurers to India, from the vessel in whichVasco da Gama first cast anchor in the harbour of CalicutonMay 20, 149 8 , to the pioneer sloops, a century later, ofCaptain James Lancaster and Sir Henry Middleton

,and

from them to the four-masted sai ling ships that stil l l ift theirspars against the sunset on the Hugli

,and the ocean liners

whose smoking funnels bear the colours of the British Indiaand the P . and O. Nor need models be confined to ships.Nothing brings home more closely the stories of battlefields ;and sieges, and assaults than wel l - designed models. Thestorming of Chitor or Gwalior, of Bhurtpore or Seringapatam ,

becomes a d ifl'

erent thing to all of us when we have theactual scene reproduced in miniature before our eyes . Ishal l certainly have placed in the gallery a model of oldFort Will iam in Calcutta, of which I am at present engagedin identifying and demarcating the outl ines. I rememberwhen at Oxford seeing in the Bodleian Library a whitemarble model of the Calcutta Cathedral according to theoriginal and uncompleted des ign . But why it should reposeat Oxford instead of Calcutta I do not know.

I have now dealt to the best ofmy abil itywith the principaltegories of objects that appear to be suitable for inclusion

in the Victoria Hall. Perhaps my hearers will be incl inedto agree with the friend who, after I had unbosomed myselfto him onthe matter, exclaimed, Why, the danger is that

youwill have, not too little, but too much !” I will now

proceed to point out the sources from which these andsimilar objects may be procured.

Two main channels of collection I have already indicated ,namely, gift and loan . Many persons who would not bewilling to part with cherished possessions might consent tolend them and, as in the Bethnal Green and other museums,we might perhaps hope for a succession of such favours.Nevertheless, for the bulk of our exhibits we must lookto gift or purchase. Fortunately we already possess theadmi rable nucleus of such a col lection as I have describedin this place. Who can doubt that the fine m a rble statueof WarrenHastings byWestm acott, which is now efl

'

ectuallyconcealed from public view in the southern portico of

542 A S IA TI C S OCI E TY OF BENGA L

the Town Hall—a building which is itse lf condem nedmust find its way to the Victoria Hall ? The same m ay be

said of Bacon ’s great marble figure of Lord Cornwa l l is onthe ground floor of the same building, a masterpiece tha t isnow strangely out of place amid dusty records and scr i bbl ingclerks. If the Town Hall be, as alleged, condemned ,

the reare other portraits and busts that might very well be transferred to the new building. There are the pictures of H e r

Majesty Queen Victoria herself and the Prince Co nsort,which I be l ieve that she presented to the Town of Ca lcutta .

There are portraits of Lords Clive and Lake now hang ing on

dark corners of the staircase, of Dr. Duff,and Dwarkana th

Tagore. There are busts of James Prinsep and the Dukeof Wellington . I n the High Court are two pictures o f S ir

Elijah Im pey , one by Kettle, the other by Zofl'

any . Perhapsthe learned Judges might spare us one. The A siatic Soc iety,whom I am addressing to-night, in their plethora of treasures ,possess no less than one bust and three pictures of thei rfounder, Sir William Jones. They might like to diffuse h isfame. Similarly, they own portraits of four GovernorsGeneral

,WarrenHastings, Lord Cornwall is, Lord Wel lesley,

and Lord Minto, which are now only seen by a few score ofpersons, and which they might be will ing to place on loanfor the edificationof a larger public.I m ay next turn to the bu i ld ing in which I am now

speaking, and wh ich was orig ina l ly erected w ith very m uchthe sam e object, namely, a National Valhalla, as the newball which we are about to raise. I do not think that anyone will cla im that it has quite succeeded in vind icating its

initial cla im . Lord Dalhous ie’

s statue,which I see opposite

m e,origina l ly belonged to Governm ent House, and was

surrendered by S ir JohnLawrence to this bu ild ing,afte r its

complet ion in 1 8 66 . Separate funds were raised for thecommem orationof Have lock and Nicholson

, and resulted inthe busts of those two great men that we see before us .Chantrey

’

s beaut iful sta tue of Lord Hastings, wh ich stands

in the entrance by wh ich we all came in,has noth ing to do

with th is build ing at all, for the portico in wh ich it was

placed was ra ised inLord Am herst’s t im e to hold the s tatue ,and the Dalhousie Institute was subsequent ly tacked on

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544 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

country,in record- rooms, in offices, and in cutcherries , wi ll

be found a plentiful mine of documentary richness . Fromthe Imperial Library, and from the Fore ign Ofli ce here , wemay be able to make a substantial contribution . App ea lsin the newspapers wil l doubtless bring to our knowledge the

ex istence of many objects at present lost to the public view.

I n England I should make similar appeals. The Ind iaOffice might be wil ling to restore to us some of the objectsbelonging to the old East India Company which are in

their possession, or to present us with copies or duplica tes .

I would myself undertake to write to the families , or

descendants , or living representatives of the remarkable m enwhom we may desire to commemorate. Learned Socie tiesmight be willing to contribute something to us from the irabundance. Finally, there is perpetual ly passing throughthe hands of the London dealers and auctioneers a s treamof interesting memorials of the Anglo- Indian past

, wh ichattract no notice, because they do not belong to celebratedcol lections

,or because their owners are not known to fam e,

but upon which a careful watch might be kept by expertsappointed for the purpose. I entertain no shadow of adoubt that, within ten years of the date upon whi ch thedoors of the Victoria Hall are opened, there wil l, unles sthere be some grave and inexplicable relapse in publ icinterest or in competent supervision in the interim , be

col lected thereinan exh ibition that wil l be the pride of al lIndia, and that will attract visitors to this place from allparts of the world. I should add that

,if sufficient m eans

are forthcoming, I would certainly propose adequate ly toendow the bui lding, so that a sum may be annua lly avai lablefor adding to the contents, and maintaining them at a highstandard of excellence.

I have now, I trust, said enough to show both what theVictoria Hall wi ll be , and what it wil l not be. I t wi l l notbe a museum of antiquities

,fil led with undeciphered in

scrip tions and bronze idols and crumbling stones. I t wi l lnot be an industrial museum , stocked with samples of grains,and timbers, and manufactures. I t wil l not be an artmuseum , crowded with metal-ware of every description , w ithmusl ins

,and kinkobs , and silks, with pottery, and lacquer

A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL 545

ware, and Kashmir shawls. I t wil l not be a geologica l, orethnographical , or anthropological, or architectural museum .

All these objects are served by existing institutions and Ido not want to compete with or to denude any such fabric.The central idea of the Victoria Hall is that it should be aH istorical Museum , a National Gallery, and that alone, andthat it should exist, not for the advertisement of the present,but for the commemoration of that which is honourable andglorious in the past. Neither is it proposed to constitutethe Victoria Hall, even while reta ining its character as aHistorical Gallery, a museum representative of all countries.We could not possibly collect the materials : many of themwould not survive the Indian climate, and the result wouldbe an indescribable medley, which would merely confuseinstead of informing and stimulating the senses . I t is , Ithink

,essential that the art

,the science, the l iterature, the

history, the men, the events which are therein commemoratedmust be those of India, and of Great Britain in I ndia, alone.

That is the whole pith and marrow of the idea, and Iventure to think that it would be most unwise to departfrom it.I must remove another misconception. Inquiries have

been addressed to me as to whether there might not beincorporated with this building a magnificent ImperialLibrary

,where there should be col lected all the notable

works,in whatever language, that have been written about

India,or that have been composed in the Indian vernaculars.

The authors of these inquiries are perhaps unaware thatI have already provided for this object. For nearly two

years negotiations have been proceeding for the acquisitionof the Metcalfe Hal l and its l ibrary by the Government.They are now on the verge of a happy termination . Wepropose to renovate and redecorate that handsome building ;to transfer to it the whole of the Imperial Library at presentdeposited in the Home Department of the Government of

India ; and to present it with an endowment sufficient toenable it, within no very lengthy space of time, to become areally representative col lection of the literature that I havementioned. We have obtained, through the good ofl‘ices of

the Home Government,the services of a most competent

2 N

546 A S IA TIC S OCIE TY OF BENGAL

Librarian from the British Museum, and I hope , befo re Ileave India

,to have converted the Metca lfe Ha ll into a

miniature edition of the Library and Reading Room in thatgreat institution , a place which shall be the haven of Ind ianand Anglo- I ndian scholars, and the nursery of wr iters and

students .

‘ There is obviously, therefore, no need for add inga Library to the Victoria Hall.There is, however, one feature that might, I think , not

improperly be included in the building. Like m ost

structures of a similar character in Europe, i t shouldprobably possess a really fine hall , distinct from the ball

that is especially dedicated to the Queen . Such a hall

might be used for the Chapters of the Indian Orders , for agreat durbar, or for any other ceremonial function . An

organ might be placed at one end for concerts and choral

performances. Upon occasions it might supply a m eetingground for the public, much in the same way as the

Banqueting Hall is used at Madras. As time passes on,benefactors might adorn this Hall with pictures or frescoes ,and with the statues of princes and great men. I m ay add

that in the future I hope that the leading Chiefs m ay be

seen at Calcutta more frequently than in the past. I havefor some time been in negotiation for the purchase of

Hastings House, the old country residence of WarrenHastings, at A l ipore ; and if this transaction be satisfactorily concluded, I propose to util ise the house, which isa fine building, quite apart from its historical associations,for the occasional entertainment of the Princes

,who a re

always so lavish in the ir hospita l ity to the Viceroy,as the

guests of the Government of India inCalcutta.

2

A few deta i ls only rema in to be noticed . I t is too earlyas yet to speak about the style of a building

,when the

money has not yet been subscribed with which it is to beraised . That will have to be sett led , as wil l most of the

other points that I have raised,by a representative Com

The work was com p leted in 1902, and the new Imperia l Library was

opened by the V iceroy onJanuary 30, 1 903.

2 The purchase was concluded, and a num ber of IndianPrinces and i llustriousguests (such as the Prim e Minister of Nepa l, the H eir-Appa rent of Afghanis tan,and the Tashi Lama of Tibet) were subsequently enterta ined as S tate gues ts inthe renovated Has tings House.

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TEM PERANCE

ARMY TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION, S IMLA

A MEETING of the Arm y Tem perance Association: was held at S im la

onJune 6, 1 90 1 . The V iceroy pres ided, and thus addressed the

m eeting

I am glad to see so many officers and so ldiers p res ent

here to-day,because, after all, the subject on which I am

about to speak is one connected exclusively with the Arm y.

At the same time,I am glad to see such a large atte ndance

of the outside publ ic, both because it shows an interes t inthe Army

,and also because Temperance is a matter inwhich,

independently of the particular profess ion to which we belong,we all of us ought to feel an interest. I propose to addre s

this audience in as plain and simple language as I can

command . There may be some , perhaps, who will say tha tI have no right to address you at all. In the first place

,

I am a civilian speaking to soldiers who may be supposedto know their own business much better than any outs ide rcan teach them . Secondly, I am a non -absta iner speakingonbehalf of a society whose mainprinciple is that of tota labstinence. And yet, on both points, I think that I have agood answer to give . Under the law which regulates the

Government of this country, the supreme authority ove r theArmy in India is vested in the Governor-General in Counci land the Governor-General in Council is, as you know , the

rather imposing name that is given to a small number of

distinguished gentlemen , over whose proceedings and de

l iberations,I,as Viceroy, have the honour to preside . I

conceive, therefore, that there is no one, except perh apsthe Commander - in- Chief, who has a greater right to be

548

ARM Y TEMPERANCE A S S OCIA TION, S IMLA 549

interested in the reputation and honour of the Army—andbe lieve me, its reputation is bound up in its sobriety—thanthe head of the Government. Everything that concerns itsm oral character

,its discipline, and that which is the result

of these two, name ly, its efficiency, must be avital interestto those who are connected with the administration of thisgreat country ; and I would not give much for a Viceroywho, because he was not a soldier himself, therefore dismissed the Army

,or the welfare of the Army

,as beneath his

concern .

On the second point, as to whether a non-abstainer hasany right to advocate temperance, I have even less hesitationin pronouncing. Temperance, in the strict meaning of theterm, he is the very man best qualified to advocate, sincehe is only preaching what he endeavours to practise. Butwhere then

,you may say, does total abstinence come in , and

how can he get up and speak on behalf of a society whichurges its members to take the pledge ? Wel l, I think thatI can answer that too. Why does the Army TemperanceAssociation urge its members, or, at any rate, the bulkof its members, to sign the pledge of total abstinence ? Itis because it knows very wel l that for the class of man towhom it appeals total abstinence is the only road, or, atany rate

,the shortes t and straightest road, to temperance.

This is true of the young so ldier fresh out from home,

ignorant of the life and the temptations of this country,whom the Association endeavours to capture before he hasyielded to pernicious example, and has gone astray. I t istrue of the confirmed toper who can only be converted tosobriety by a violent physical and moral wrench. I t is useless to take the drunkard and ask him to go back by easystages of moderate drinking to se lf-discipl ine and self-control .He is powerless to do it. A man cannot suddenly beginto do in moderation that which he is accustomed to do inexcess. If he is to be wrested from his bad habits, itcan only be by a determination to put the evi l thing fromhim

,not

,so to speak , in pints or in driblets, but altogether.

That is why the pledge is a necessary thing for him. And,

thirdly,there is the man of high character, himse lf either

free from temptation or having conquered it, who feels that

550 ARM Y TEMPE RANCE AS SOCIATION . S IMLA

he can better set an example to his comrades by taking the

pledge himself. For all these classes total abstinence is the

best, and for some the only available prescription ; and so

it is that a man who does not practise it himself, becausein the conditions of his l ife he has not found the need , m ay

yet with perfect consistency stand up and plead its cause

to his fellow-countrymen .

Before I turn to the question of dr inking in the A rm y,I should like to say one word about the pos ition of the

British soldier in I ndia. I daresay that there are som esoldiers who think that the conditions of the ir l ife are

imperfectly understood by civilians, and that insuffic ientallowance is made for their circumstances and surround ings .

I do not think that this is at all widely the case. I rea l iseas ful ly as it is possible to do that the British sold ier doesnot always have a good time of it in this country. H e is in

a climate very d ifl'

erent from that to which he is accus tom ed ,

and, in the plains in summer, exceedingly trying. H e isoften in a very confined locality. He has not the fun,and games, and amusements, and society, to which he is

accustomed at home. There is apt to be a good deal of

monotony about his life. He lives perhaps in stuffy and ill

l ighted barracks,where on the hot nights he can scarce ly

get a breath of air. If he leaves the lines there is noth ingbut the native bazar with its low temptations to attracthim. I make

,and I think that we should all make

,full

al lowance for these conditions. They are partly responsiblefor the drinking and the other wrong deeds that occur. Formy own part, I would like to alleviate them to the bes tof my power. There is no subject in which I have takengreater interest

,since I have been in India

,than in that of

the improved venti lation and lighting of barracks . I haveinsisted on forcing it to the front, and in causing all s orts of

experiments to be made. Sir Edwin Collen was stronglywith me on the matter ; and so, I have reason to know,

a re

the present Military Member and the Commander- in- Chie f.I look forward to the time, and am doing my best to hurryit on, when every barrack in India shall be l ighted byelectricity

,and when the punkahs shal l be pulled by the

same motive power ; and I be lieve that if this scheme were

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552 ARM Y TEMPERANCE A S S OCIA TION, S IMLA

our men in South Africa. They were sober there by com

pulsion,perhaps, as well as by choice, for the d r ink was

not to be had ; and they comported them se lves l ike heroes

and gentlemen. It was only when they got back that

Lord Roberts feared they would fal l below the high standard

that they had observed in the field, because of the tem p ta

tions to drink that were pressed upon them at home.

Accordingly, we have passed, as I say, into a phase of li feinwhich every one admits tha t the sober soldier is a be tt erm anthan the intoxicated soldier, the moderate drinker thanthe hard-drinker

,and I daresay the total abstainer the b est

of al l. No one wil l deny that. But we cannot stop there .

We have only got so far to an abstract admission we must

translate it into concrete fact. I t is not the slightest use forany of us to indulge in these platonic aphorisms, and then tothink that our work is over. I t is no good for the s peakerson this platform to say how much better the British Arm yis nowadays than it was in the days of Talavera orWa terloo ,

and to think that this is an end of the whole busine ss, andthat nothing more need be done. I t is no good eith e r forthe soldiers from Jutogh or anywhere else to applaud th e

excellent sentiments to which we all treat them,and then to

walk back and drown it all in a too liberal part icipation inthe joys of the regimental canteen.

No, we have to face facts and not to delude ourse lvese ither with sentiment or with figures ; for if there i s one

thing that is sometimes capable of being even more fal la ciousthan sentiment, it is figures. Therefore I decline to say thatall is wel l, because at anearlier period of our history i t wasworse ; and I refrain from quoting the statistics of crim e

, or

the returns of the orderly room,lest I should be lul led into

th inking that because they i llustrate the growing advance of

temperance, therefore the battle has beenwon . That is notthe case. The crime returns are neither the sole test nor an

in fall ible test, and the Commanding Ofl‘icer who thinks thatbecause he can show a clean sheet in this respect

,there is no

excessive drinking going on in his regiment,is often liv ing

in a fool’s paradise. Let us recognise, and let this Soc ie tyrecognise, that, even if crimes resulting from drink diminish,as I hOpe and believe that they do, there are still far too

ARM Y TEMPERANCE A S S OCIATIOIV, S IMLA 553

m any ; that, if cases of drunk and disorderly are fewer ,they ought to be fewer sti l l ; and that there are in everyregim ent a large number, too large a number, of men whotake more than they should

,who habitual ly drink hard, even

if they are not convicted of intoxication, and who are constantly on the brink of excess, even if they do not actual lystep over it.I had some ofl‘icial figures given me the other day, which

showed that in one British regiment in India, in the monthof Apri l last, where the total number of men, exclusive of

patients in hospitals and members of this Association, was

380, the amount of beer consumed was nearly 1 30 hogsheads. Now this meant an average daily consumption of

2% quarts for every man ; and when you remember thatamong the 380 must have been several men who onlydrank in moderation

,you will see that there must have been

a certa in number in the regiment who drank much morethan was good for them . These are the men, therefore,that this Association ought to try and get within its mesh.

We want to stop not merely gross excess, leading to crime,but steady drinking

,leading to disordered faculties, and

physical and moral decline. I believe that if every Commanding Officer in India were told that he himself would bejudged by the sobriety of his regiment, and that a flourishingcanteen fund would be looked upon as a mark of a badColonel, it would be a most excellent thing ; and I respectfully present this suggestion

, for what it is worth, to theCommander- in-Chief.There is only one other point of view from which I desire

to plead the cause of the Association , and to appeal to the

ofl‘icers and soldiers of the British Army in India. I t is awider

,and, in my opinion , a higher standpoint. What, I

would ask,are we all here for—every one of us, from the

Viceroy at the head of the official hierarchy to the latestjoined British private in barracks We are not here todraw our pay, and do nothing, and have a good time. Weare not here merely to wave the British flag. We are herebecause Providence has

,before al l the world, laid a solemn

duty upon our shoulders ; and that duty is to hold thiscountry by justice

,and righteousness

,and good -will, and

554 ARM Y TEMPE RANCE AS S OCIATIOIV, S IMLA

to set an example to its people. You may say why shouldwe set an example, and what example have we to se t Well,I daresay that we have much to learn as well as to teach.

I t would be arrogant to pretend the contrary. I fee l m yse lf that never a day of my life passes in India in wh ich Ido not absorb more than I can possibly give out. But we

have come here with a civil isation , an education , and amoral ity which we are vain enough, without disparagem entto others, to think the best that have ever been seen;and we have been placed, by the Power that ordains all,

in the seats of the mighty, with the fortunes and the futureof this great continent in our hands. There never wassuch a responsibil ity. I n the whole world there i s no

such duty. That is why it behoves every one of us , grea tor small, who belong to the British race in this country ,

toset an example. The man who sets a bad example is

untrue to his own country. The man who sets a good

one is doing his duty by this. But how can the drunkardset an example, and what is the example that he se ts

And what sort of example too is set by the office r whowinks at drunkenness instead of treading it under foot It

is no answer to me to say that the native sometim es gets

intoxicated in his way just as the British soldier does in h is .

One man’s sin is not another man ’s excuse. Where are our

boasted civilisation and our superior ethics if we cannot see

that what is degrading in him is more degrading in us ?If we are to measure our own responsibility by that of themil lions whom we rule

,what becomes of our right to rule

and our mission ? I t is,therefore

,officers and soldiers, not

on mere grounds of abstract virtue, nor for the sake of thediscipline and the reputation of the Army

,nor even for your

own individual good alone, that I have stood here this afternoon to plead the cause of temperance in the ranks ; butbecause the British name in India is in your hands jus t asmuch as it is in mine, and because it rests with you, beforeGod and your fellow -men

,to preserve it from sul ly or

reproach.

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556 DINNER B Y UNI TED S ER VICE CLUB, S IMLA

that have always been at my side. The part which Ind iafi l ls in the memory and affections of Lady Curzon i s not

inferior to that which she occupies in my own; and when

we have left this country m y heart wil l not alone be leftbehind, but a considerable portion of hers wi l l be here a lso .

I do not stand here to-night to discuss controvers ialtopics. They wil l work out to their appointed issue byprocesses which we cannot d iscem—or at any rate cannotat present discern. History will write its verdict upon themwith unerring pen, and we need not to-night anticipate the

sentence. I stand here rather as one who has laboured and

wrought amongst you to the best of his ability through theselong and stirring years

,and who rises for the last t im e to

address the comrades who have shared his toil, and , if he

has anywhere conquered, have enabled him to conquer. I

cannot approach such a task without emotion , and I cannotfeel sure of be ing able to discharge it with credit.Mr. Hewett, as I have said, referred to the posi t ion of

peculiar isolation in which the Viceroy stands. I prefer ra the rinwhat I have to say to-night to turn my attention to thoseaspects of his work which bring him into contact with others .

The relationof the Viceroy to the Services in India is one

of a peculiar and unexampled description . He is over them ,

but not of them . He is not attached to them, as a partypolitician in England is to his party, by the ties of longfellow-service in a common cause . His link with them isone of official rank

,not of personal identity, and it is lim ited

to a few years at the most, instead of be ing spread overa lifetime. He is almost invariably, from the nature of thecase, a stranger brought out from England, and placed for ashort time in supreme charge. I have always thought it a

remarkable thing in these circumstances, and a proof of the

loyalty and devotion to duty which is the instinct of Englishm en—that the Indian services should extend to the Vice roythe fidelity and the support which they do.

I n my own case my feeling for the I ndian Services wasformed and was stated many years before I cam e to thiscountry as Viceroy, and I cannot be suspected therefore of

any afterthought in declaring it now. When I brought outmy book about Persia more than thirteen years ago—having

DINNER B Y UNI TED S ER VICE CLUB , S IMLA 557

written it in the main in the interes ts of Indian defence—Ided icated it to the Civi l and Military Services in I ndia, andon the title - page I spoke about them in language whichrepresented my profound conviction then, and represents itsti l l. You may imagine, therefore, with what pride I foundmyself placed at the head of those Services seven years ago

,

and given the opportunity of co-operating for great endswith such strenuous and expert all ies. I t will always

,

I think,remain the greatest recollection of my public life

that for this not inconsiderable period I was permitted topreside over the m ost efl‘icient and the most high-m indedpublic service which I be l ieve to exist in the world.

Our oflicial generations in I ndia move so quickly,

particularly in the higher ranks, that a Viceroy who hasbeen here for seven years ends by finding himself the doy enofthe official hierarchy, and feels that he is old almost beforehe has ceased to be young. Such has been my own ex

perience. Though the Viceroy has only six col leagues inhis Cabinet or Council, lately ra ised to seven, the normalduration of whose ofli ce is five years, I have served with nofewer than twenty council lors in my time. I n the ten localGovernments I have co-operated with nearly thirty Governors,Lieutenant-Governors, and Chief Commissioners. Perhaps

,

therefore, I may claim an exceptional right to speak. I tdoes indeed seem to me a remarkable thing that workpursued under the conditions of pressure which havecharacterised our recent activities, and with responsibleagents so varied, so important, and so numerous, shouldhave been carried on with so much smoothness and goodfeel ing, and, if I may speak for the treatment which I havepersonal ly received

,with such generous consideration and

warmth of personal regard . I venture to assert,not as a

boast or as a compliment,but as a fact, that there has never

been a time when the relations between the SupremeGovernment and the heads of the local Governments havebeen so free from friction or so harmonious. I n old volumesof our Proceedings, which it has been my duty to study atmidnight hours, I have sometimes come across pepperyletters or indignant remonstrances, and have seen thespectacle of infuriated proconsuls strutting up and down the

558 DINNE R B Y UNI TED SER VICE CLUB , S IMLA

stage. We now live, not in the I ron or Stone Age, whenimplements of this description were at any rate figura tive lyin constant use, but in the age of Milk and Honey, whenweal l sit down together to devour the grapes of Eshcol, by wh ichI mean the surpluses that are provided for us by the FinanceDepartment. Even that department has ceased to be a nightmare to the good as well as a terror to the evil

,and has

assumed an urbanity in harmony with the spirit of the t im e.

No doubt these results are partially due, as I have hinted, to themore prosperous circumstances through which we have beenpassing, and to the greater devolution of financial responsib ility upon local Governments that we have carr ied out.But they also reflect a positive desire on our part to be

everywhere on the bes t of terms with the local Govemments and their heads, and to avoid nagging inte rfere nceand petty overruling ; and they have everywhere been m et

by loyalty and a friendly co-operationon their part which Ishould like to take this opportunity to acknowledge, and

which have made the re lations between the Viceroy and the

Governors and the Lieutenant-Govem ors with whom he hasserved one of the most agreeable episodes of my term of

office.

I am not one of those who hold the view that localGovernments are hampered in their administration by ex

cess ive centralisation , or that any great measures of devo lutionwould produce better results. I n so far as there has beencentralisation in the past it has been in the main beca use ,

under the quinquennial contract system,the local Government

had not the means with which to extend themselves,and there

cannot be much autonomy where there are not financialresources. Now that we have substituted permanent agreements for the terminable financial agreements

,and have placed

the loca l Governments in funds,they can proceed with

interna l development with as much freedom as can bedesired . I am not in favour of removing altogether or evenof slackening the central control ; for I believe that withdue allowance for the astonishing diversity of local conditions ,it is essential that there should be certain uniform principlesrunning through our entire administration

,and that nothing

could be worse either for I ndia or for British dominion in

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560 DINNER B Y UNI TED SE R VICE CLUB , S IMLA

responsible with himself, and very often deserve the credit

which he unfairly obtains . On the other hand, it is som e

times unfa ir to him ; for he m ay have to bear the entireresponsibility for administrative acts or policies wh ich wereparticipated in and perhaps originated by them . In these

rather difficult circum s tances, which perhaps work out on the

whole in a fair equation, it is a conso lationto me to reflect

and th is is the only Cabinet secret that I am going to

divulge—tha t during my seven years of oflice there has notbeen a single important question, whether of internal or

external politics, in which the Government of India havenot been absolutely unanimous , unless you except the las t ofal l

,where the unanimity was scarce ly broken . I believe

th is to be unexampled in the history of Indianadminis trat ion.

I n the previous records of I ndian Government I have oftencome across sparring matches between the il lustrious com

batants , and contentious Minutes used to be fired off like

grape- shot at the head of the Secretary of State. I can

only recall three occasions in which a Minute dissentingfrom the decision of the majority of the Council has beensent home in the whole of my time. I venture to th ink

that with a Council representing so many d ifl'

erent interestsand points of view, this indicates a very remarkable and

gratifying unity. Certain ly it has not been purchased byany sacrifice of independent judgment. The Viceroy has nomore weight in his Council than any individual mem ber of

it . What it does show is that the Government of I ndia,in

approaching the work of reconstruction and reform wi thwhich we have charged ourselves, has been inspired by asingle spirit, and has pursued a commonaim . I recal l withpride that in every considerable undertaking we have beenan absolutely united body

,united not merely in identity of

opinion,but in a common enthusiasm ; and on this parting

occasion it may be permissible for me to say, both of the

distinguished civil ians and the eminent soldiers with whomit has been my privilege to serve, that I thank them w ith agratitude which it would be impossible to exaggerate, for a

co-operation that has converted the years of toil into yearsof honourable pleasure, and that will always remain one of

the happiest recol lections of my life.

DINNE R B Y UNI TED S ER VICE CL UB , S IMLA 561

Then I turn to the Secretaries to Government, thosefaithful and monumental workers who dig in the mounds ofthe pas t and excavate the wisdom of our ancestors

,who

prepare our cases for us and write our official letters and despatches , and generally keep us al l from going wrong. I haveserved with many Secretaries to Governments in my time,and I do not be lieve that in any administration in the worldis the standard of trained intel ligence or devotion to duty inthe rank and class of service which they represent so uniformly high. My consolation in thinking of them is that abetter reward than my poor thanks lies before them. Asthey gradually blossom into Chief Commissioners andLieutenant - Governors and Members of Council they willearn the fuller recognition to which they are entitled , and inmy retirement I shall for years to come have the pleasureof seeing the higher posts of I ndian administration fi l led bymen with whom I have been privi leged to work, and of

whose capacity for the most responsible oflicc I have hadsuch abundant opportunity to convince myself. Some paperat home said the other day that I had not founded a schoo l .There was no need to do that, for it was here already. ButI have assisted to train one

,and if the tests have som etimes

been rather exacting, I may perhaps say in self-defence thatI have never imposed upon others a burden which I was notwil l ing to accept myself.What I have said of Members and Secretaries is not less

true of the oflicers who have served under them in the

Departments of Government . When I came to Simla Iobserved that I regarded this place as the workshop of the

administration,and such indeed during the last few years

I believe that it has truly been . I t was Burke who remarkedin one of his speeches that there is one sight that is neverseen in India, and that is the grey head of an Englishman .

As I look about me I begin to think that we must l ive in arather different and degenerate age, and I am not sure that acertain gui lty consciousness does not steal over my mind . Imust confess that I have heard it whispered that Simla hasacquired in recent times an unenviable reputation for staidness and sobriety, and I be l ieve that invidious epithets haveeven been applied to the hospitable and once light-hearted

2 O

562 DINNER B Y UNITED SE R VICE CLUB , S IMLA

institution in which I am now privileged to be enterta ined.

Must I offer an apology for this alleged falling off from thestandards of the past No, I do nothing of the sort. I donot allow for a moment that we have pursued duty at thecost of the amenities of l ife. I most certainly have not d oneso. We have all had our hours of gaiety and case at S im la,and very pleasant they have been . But we have certa inlyset work before play ; we have spent more time in sc hoolthan out of it ; and for my own part I bel ieve that an incalculable benefit has been conferred upon the entire se rvice bythe example of those public servants who used to be accusedof idl ing away their time in the hil ls, but who now m ade upfor the refreshing altitude at which they labour by the

arduous and unremitting character of the labour itse lf. We

have final ly k i l led the fallacy, perhaps never true at al l, andcertainly least of al l true now, that the summer capita l ofGovernment is a place where it is all summer and not muchgovernment ; and if a Royal Commission were sent roundto investigate the factories of the Empire, I should awaitwith perfect equanimity the place that Simla would occupyin its report.There is one error against which I think that we ought

very particularly to be on our guard. I should not likeany of us, because we happen to be at the headquarters of

Government, to delude ourselves into thinking that we arethe only people or even the principal people who run the

Indian machine. I t would be quite untrue. India m ay

be governed from Simla or Calcutta ; but it is administeredfrom the plains . We may issue the orders and correct themistakes ; but the rank and file of the Army are elsewhere, and if we make the plans of battle, they fight them .

Let me not forfeit this opportunity of expressing myfeel ings towards the entire Civil Service of I nd ia for the

loyal co-operation that I have received from them . Atthe beginning I be l ieve that they thought m e rather a

disturbing element in the economy of Indianofli cial existence . But when they saw that my interests were theirinterests and theirs mine—because there is no one who isso much benefited by increased efficiency in administrationas the administrator himself—they gave me every assis tance

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564 DINNE R B Y UNI TED S ER VICE CLUB , S IMLA

about him,and the sympathetic ofli cer d ifl

'

uses an atmos phereof loyalty and contentment.Perhaps I may be allowed to interpolate a word in this

place about the particular branch of the service of wh ichI have been more especial ly the head—I allude to the

Political Department. The Viceroy, as taking the Fo re ignOfli ce under his personal charge, has a greater responsi b i l ityfor the officers of that Department than of any o ther.A good Political is a type of ofli cer difficult to train .

I ndeed training by itself wil l never produce him. For thereare required in addition qualities of tact and flexibi l ity

,

of moral fibre and gentlemanly bearing, which are an

instinct rather than an acquisition . The public at largehardly realises what the Political may be called upon to do.

At one moment he may be grinding in the Foreign Office,at another he may be required to stiffen the administra tionof a backward Native State, at a third he may be presid ingover a jz

'

rga of unruly tribesmen on the frontier, at a fourthhe may be demarcating a boundary amid the w i lds of

Tibet or the sands of Seistan . There is no more varied orresponsible service in the world than the Political Depa rtment of the Government of India ; and right we l l h aveI been served in it, from the mature and experienced ofl icer

who handles a Native Chief with velvet glove, to the youngmilitary pol itica l who packs up his trunk at a m oment’snotice and goes off to Arabia or Kurdistan . I commendthe Political Department of the Government of I ndia to a ll

who like to know the splendid and varied work of whichEnglishmen are capable ; and I hope that the tim e m ay

never arise when it will cease to draw to itself the bes tabil ities and the finest characters that the services in I ndiacan produce .I have beenspeaking so far of the agents with whom I

have been permitted to work. Let me add,if I m ay ,

a fewwords about the work itself. If I were asked to sum it up ina single word , I would say

“ Efficiency.

” That has beenour gospel, the keynote of our administration . I remembe ronce reading in a native newspaper which was attacking m e

very bitterly the sentence As for Lord Curzon, he caresfor nothing but efliciency . Exactly

,but I hardly think

DINNE R B Y UNITE D S E R VI CE CL UB , S IMLA 565

that when I am gone this is an epitaph of which I need feelgreatly ashamed. There were three respects in which ashort experience taught me that a higher leve l of efficiencyunder our administration was demanded. The first was inthe despatch of business. Our methods were very dignified,our procedure very elaborate and highly organised, but thepace was apt to be the reverse of speedy. I remember inmy first year settling a case that had been pursuing theeven tenor of its way without

,as far as I could ascertain,

exciting the surprise or ruffl ing the temper of an individualfor sixty-one years. I drove my pen like a sti letto into itsbosom . I buried it with exultation

,and I almost danced

upon the grave. I real ly think that not merely the newrules that we have adopted, but the new principles that areat work , have done a great deal to assist the despatch of

business : and I hope that there may not be any backslidingor relapse in the future. It was one of John Lawrence’ssayings that procrastination is the thief of efl‘iciency as wel las of time : and though I would not say that an adm inis

tration is good in proportion to its pace, I would certainlysay that it cannot be good if it is habitual ly and needlesslyslow.

Our second object was the overhauling of our existingmachinery

,which had got rusty and had run down . There

is scarcely a department of the Government or a branch of

the service which we have not during the last few yearsexplored from top to bottom

,improving the conditions of

service where they were obsolete or inadequate, formulatinga definite programme of policy or action, and endeavouringto raise the standard and the tone. And

,thirdly, we had

to provide new machinery to enable India to grapplewith new needs. Perhaps there is nothing which thepublic has shown so general an inabil ity to understand asthe fact that a new world of industry and enterprise andsocial and economic advance is dawning upon India. New

continents and islands leap above the horizon as they didbefore the navigators of the Elizabethan age. But if I amright

,if agriculture and irrigation and commerce and

industry have great and unknown futures before them , thenGovernment, which in this country is nearly everything,

566 DINNE R B Y UNITED S ER VICE CLUB , S IMLA

must be ready with the appliances to enable it to shape and

to direct these new forms of expansion . You cannotadminister I ndia according to modern standards , but onthe old l ines. Some people talk as though, when wecreate new departments and posts, we are m erely add ingto the burden of Government. No, we are doing noth ingof the sort. The burden of Government is being added to

by tendencies and forces outside of ourselves which we are

powerless to resist, but not powerless to control . We are

merely providing the mechanism to cope with it. Of coursewe m ust not be blind to the consideration that progress isnot a mere matter of machinery alone —and that l ife and

the organisation of l ife are very different things. There is

always a danger of convert ing an efficient staff in to abureaucracy

,and

,while perfecting the instruments, of ignor

ing the free play of natural forces. Against that tende ncyI would implore all those who are engaged in work in Indiato be peculiarly on their guard . For it may be said of

reforms everywhere, and here perhaps most of al l, that tha twhich is contrary to nature is doomed to perish, and thatwhich is organic wil l alone survive.I am afraid

,however

,that I am becoming too phi losoph ic

for the dinner table. I wil l revert to the concrete . Of

the actual schemes that we have undertaken with the

objects that I have attempted to describe , I will say noth inghere. You know them as well as I do. You are the jo intauthors of many of them . Time alone wil l show wheth erthey have been the offspring of a premature and feverishenergy, or whether they wil l have takenroot and will endure.My colleagues and I desire no other or fa irer test. In somecases it is a l ready in operation , sifting the good from the

bad , and giving glimpses of the possible verdict of the

future. I wil l only take one instance , because it is fami liarto you all , and because there m ay be ofl

‘icers here presentwho were originally doubtful about the wisdom or pro

priety of the change. I speak of the creation of the

North -West Frontier Province, which was carved out of

the Punjab more thanfour years ago. You wil l al l remember the outcries of the prophets of evil . It was goingto infl ict an irreparable wound upon the prestige o f the

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568 DINNE R B Y UNI TED S E R VICE CLUB, S IMLA

it is not the rea l sentiment of Indian service. A s thetime comes for us to go, we obtain a clearer pe rspective.I t is like a sunset in the hills after the rains. The va l leysare wrapped in sombre shadows, but the hil l- tops stand outsharp and clear.We look back upon our Indian career, be it long, as i t has

been or will be in the case of m any who are here to- nigh t, orrelatively short as in mine

,and we feel that we can never

have such a life again, so crowded with opportunity ,so

instinct with duty, so touched with rom ance. We forgetthe rebuffs and the m ortification; we are indifferent to the

slander and the pain . Perhaps if we forget these , o therswil l equal ly forget our shortcomings and mistakes. We

remember only the noble cause for which we have workedtogether, the principles of truth and justice and righteousness for which we have contended, and the good , be it everso l ittle, that we have done. I ndia becomes the lodes tarof our memories as she has hitherto been of our duty . Forus she can never againbe the Land of Regrets.

ADDRESS FROM CLERKS OF THE GOVE RNMENT OF IND IA , SIMLA

OnOctober 1 3, 1 905 , the V iceroy received a farewell Addres sfrom the m inisterial establishm ents of the Governm ent of Ind ia at

S im la. Practically the whole body of clerks, severa l hundreds innum ber, the m ajority of them Natives

,were present. The V iceroy

rep lied as follows to the Address

Among the m any hundreds of expressions of complim ent and regard that have reached me from all classesof the comm unity during the past few weeks, the re isnot one to which I attach a higher value than the tributewhich is now offered to m e by yourselves as the representatives of the ministerial establishments of Governm ent, or wha ta re oftengenerically described as the European and Nativeclerks. The tribute is the more affecting and val uablein m y eyes because, as you tell me in your Address

,it i s

unprecedented in the anna ls of your service,and because

I have the best of reasons for knowing that it springs

CLE RK S OF GOVE RNMENT OF INDIA 569

spontaneously from the heart of those who tender it. Everyman who vacates an ofli ce, however great, in which he hasbeen placed above his fellow-creatures, l ikes to think thatif regret is anywhere felt at his departure, it is not confinedto those in high place or station only, but is shared by themuch larger number to whom fortune has assigned a lowlier,though not necessarily a less responsible, position in hissurroundings.Ever since I came to India my heart has been drawn

towards the subordinate officers of our Government. I nthe first place it seemed to me that they were a mostindustrious and painstaking body of m en, labouring for

long hours at a task which,though it tends to become

mechanical, is very far from being lifeless, but demandsqualities of diligence and accuracy and honesty of no meanorder. I have often remarked that the best Indian clerk is,in my opinion

,the best clerk in the world, for he is very

faithful to detail,and very unsparing of himself. Secondly,

I observed that many members of the class to which I amreferring are obliged to serve the Government at a distancefrom their homes

,sometimes in places that are uncongenial

and expensive,and that their work is apt to be pursued

amid rather monotonous and depressing surroundings .And thirdly

,I found after a little experience, not merely

that these classes were rather forlorn and friendless, butthat there was a tendency

,whenthey made mistakes or were

guilty of offences, to be somewhat hard upon them , and onoccasions to hustle them out of employment or pension uponhasty and inadequate grounds .I set myself, therefore, to try to understand the position,

and, if possible, to alleviate the lot, of the classes of whomI have been speaking ; and the new rules which we havepassed or systems that we have introduced about theabolition of fining in the departments of Government, theobservance of public holidays, the leave rules of the subordinate services, the rank and pay of the higher gradesamong them

,and the allowances and pensionary prospects

of all classes—have, I hope, done a good deal to mitigatesome of the hardships that have been felt, and to place themin a more assured and comfortable position in the future .

570 CLERKS OF GOVE RNMENT OF INDIA

I t was on similar grounds that I pres sed for the appo intment of the committee to deal with Simla allowances and

although I do not know if it wi l l be possible for m e to passfinal orders uponthe subject before I go, yet the main thingis that the question has been seriously investigated andcannot now be dropped.

Personal ly, I have taken, if possible, an even warm erinterest in the opportunities that have presented them selvesto m e of investigating memorials and grievances , and nowand then of rescuing individuals from excessive punis hm entor undeserved disgrace. You know, for I have oftenstated it in public, the fee l ings that I hold about thestandards of British rule in this country. We are herebefore everything else to give justice : and a single act of

injustice is, in my view, a greater stain upon our rule thanmuch larger errors of policy or judgment. I have som e tim esthought that in dealing with subordinates, and particularlyNative subordinates, there is a tendency to be ratherperemptory in our methods and to visit transgress ion, orsuspected transgression , with the maximum of sever ity .

For flagrant misconduct, whether among high or low,

European or Native, I have never felt a ray of sympa thy.

But I have always thought that a small man whose wholefortune and l ivelihood were at stake deserved just as m uchconsideration for his case

,if not more so, than a big man,

and that we ought to be very slow to inflict a sentence ofruin unless the proof were very strong. The most strikingcase in the history of the world of mercy in high places isthat of Abraham Lincoln

,the President of the United States,

who was assassinated. He was sometimes condemned for itat the time, but it is one of his glories in history . A

I

Viceroy of I ndia has no such opportunit ies as occur to the

head of a great Government at a time of civil war. Butyet as the final court of appeal on every case , grea t orsmal l , amid the vast population of India, he has chancesthat occur to but few. I think that he ought to take them.

I have tried to do so. I can recall long night hours spentin the effort to unravel some tangled case of alleged m isconduct resu lting inthe dismissal of a poor unknown Nativesubordinate. Perhaps those hours have not been the worst

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572 D INNER GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y

however, I have been unusually fortunate in my tim e ; for

apart from the four occasions of arrival or departure, I havebeen here once in Lord Sandhurst’s and once in LordNorthcote

’

s time,and again a week ago, so that this is my

seventh visit in seven years. Here I made m y firs t speechon Indian shores

,and here it is not unfitting that I should

make my last. Calcutta did me the honour of inviting meto a parting banquet

,and so did the Civi l Service of Bengal ;

and I was greatly touched by those compliments . ButI felt that

,having accepted your invi tation, I owed a duty

to you,and that I should only become a nuisance i f I

al lowed myself either the luxury or the regret of too m anyfarewells.I t is no exaggeration to say that my several vis its to

this city have given me an unusual interest in its fortunes.I have seen it in prosperity and I have seen it in suffe r i ng ;and I have always been greatly struck by the spiri t and

patriotism of its citizens. There seems to me to be he re an

excel lent feel ing between the very different races and creeds.Bombay possesses an exceptional number of publ ic- sp ir itedcitizens, and the sense of civic duty is as highly deve lopedas in any great city that I know. If there is a big m ovement afoot, you bend yourself to it with a powerful andconcentrated wil l

,and a united Bombay is not a force to

be gainsaid. L et m e give as an i l lustration the magnificentsuccess of your reception and entertainment of their R oyalH ighnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales. Moreo ver

,

you have the advantage of one of the best conducted andablest newspapers in Asia .

1 My recollections of Bombay a re

also those of uniform kindness towards myself, a kindnesswhich has found active expression on each occasion thatI have visited the city , and that has culminated to-nightin this splend id enterta inment and in the reception thatyou have just accorded to my hea lth .

As to the speech of the Chairman,to which we listened

just now,I hardly feel that I know what I ought to say.

He seemed to me to be so famil iar with al l the detai ls of

my administration that I felt that if I ever wanted abiographer it is to Bombay and to the Byculla Club that

1 The Times of India .

DINNER GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y 573

I must come to find him . But his account of what I havedone—or perhaps I should rather say endeavoured to dowas characterised by so generous an insistence on the bestthat I almost felt that a rival orator should be engagedto get up and paint the opposite side of the picture. Iknow of several who would have been prepared without agratuity to undertake the congenial task—only in thatcase I should not perhaps have enjoyed the hospital ity of

this harmonious gathering. I must therefore leave thingsas they are, and content myself with thanking the Chairmanfor his great and undeserved leniency in his treatment of

the subject of his toast. Gentlemen, I have thus endeavouredto express my acknowledgments of your kindness, and Imust include in these acknowledgments those of LadyCurzon. Your gracious reference to her presence greatlytouched my heart .May I also take this opportunity through you of

thanking all those communities and persons who, from allparts of India, have, during the past three months, showeredupon me expressions of esteem and regret. I think I amjustified in assuming, both from the quarters from wh ichthey have emanated and also from the language employed

,

that these have not been merely conventional expressions .From a departing Viceroy no one in India has anythingmore to ask or to expect ; his sun is setting and anotherorb is rising above the horizon . If in these circumstanceshe receives, unexpected and unsought, from representativebodies and associations

,from the leaders of races and

communities, from princes, and from unknown humble men,such messages, couched in such unaffected language, as havecrowded in upon me, while he cannot but feel very gratefulfor all this k indness, there may also steal into his mind thecomforting reflection that he has not altogether labouredin vain, but has perhaps left some footprints that will notbe washed out by the incoming tide.I t is almost seven years ago that I stood upon the

neighbouring quay on the morning that I landed to takeup my new office . Well do I remember the occasion andthe scene ; the Bunder gay with bunting and bri l liant withcolour ; the background of the acclaiming streets with their

S74 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y

tens of thousands, and the sett ing of the statelies t panoramain Asia. I do not deny that to me it was ave ry so lemnmoment. For I was coming here to take up the dream of

my life and to translate into fact my highest aspira t ions.In that spirit I endeavoured to respond .to the Add re ss of

the Corporation, and were I landing again to—morrow,I

would use the same language again . Oceans seem nowto roll between that day and this ; oceans of incident and

experience, of zest and ach ievement, of anxiety and suffe r ing ,

of pleasure and pain . But as I stood there that m o rningand the vista spread out before me, I said that I cam e toIndia to hold the scales even :1 and as I stand here to -nightseven years later, I dare to say in all humility that I havedone it—have held the scales even between al l classes and

al l creeds—sometimes to my detrimen t, often at a costthat none but myself can tell , but with such truth andfidel ity as in m e lay. I further said that the tim e for

judgment was not when a man puts on his armour butwhen he takes it off. Even now I am fast unbuck lingmine

,in a few hours the last piece will have been la id as ide.

But,gentlemen

,the test—can I survive my own test ? The

answer to that I must leave to you among many others,and by your verdict I am wil ling to abide.

When I came here seven years ago I had some idea,

but not perhaps a very complete idea, of what the postof Viceroy of India is. Now that I am in a position togive a more matured opinionon the subject

,I may proceed

to throw a little light upon it. There are,I be lieve, m any

people at home who cherish the idea that the Viceroy inI ndia is the representative of the Sovereign in much thesame way as V iceroys or governors-general in other pa rtsof the British Empire

,except that, I ndia being in the East,

it is considered wise to surround him with peculiar state andceremonia l, while in a country which is not a constitutionalcolony but a dependency, i t is of course necessary to investhim with certa in administrative powers. No conceptionof the Viceroy’s position and duties could well be wider of

the mark . Certainly the proudest and most honourable of

his functions is to act as representative of the Sovereign,

1 Vida pp . 1 5 and 26.

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576 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y

want them to be faz’

né'

ants or figureheads . Youwant themto pull the stroke oar in the boat. You want Englishministries to send you their very best men , and th en you

want to get out of them, not the correct perform ance of

ceremonial duties, but the very best work of wh ich theirenergies or experiences or abil ities may render them capable.

Anything therefore that may deter them from such a conceptionof their duties or confine them to the steri le p ursuitof routine is, inmy view, greatly to be deplored.

However, I am only yet at the beginning of myenumeration of the Viceroy’s tale of bricks. He is thehead, not merely of the whole Government, but also of

the most arduous department of Government, vi z.,the

Foreign Ofli ce. There he is in the exact position of anordinary Member of Counci l, with the difference tha t thework of the Foreign Department is unusually responsible

,

and that it embraces three spheres of action so entirelydifferent and requiring such an opposite equi pm ent of

principles and knowledge as the conduct of relations withthe whole of the Native States of India, the managem entof the frontier provinces and handling of the frontier tribes ,and the offering of advice to His Majes ty’s Government onpractically the entire foreign policy of Asia

,which m ainly

or wholly concerns Great Britain in its relation to I ndia.

But the Viceroy, though he is directly responsible for thisone department, is scarcely less responsible for the re

m a inder . He exercises over them a contro l which is, in

my judgm ent, the secret of efli c ient administration. I t isthe counterpart of what used to ex ist in England

, but hasdied out since the days of Sir Robert Peel—with conse

quences which cannot be too greatly deplored . I earnestlyhope that the Viceroy in India may never cease to be headof the Government in the fullest sense of the term . I t isnot one man rule, which may or may not be a good thingthat depends on the man . But it is one man supervision

,

which is the very best form of Government,presuming the

man to be competent. The alternative in I ndia is abureaucracy, which is the most mechanical and lifeles s of

all forms of administration.

To continue,the Viceroy is also the President of the

D INNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB, BOMBA Y 577

Legislative Counci l, where he has to defend the policy of

Government in speeches which are apt to be denounced asempty if they indulge in platitudes, and as und ignified if

they do not. He must have a financial pol icy,an agricul

tural policy, a famine po l icy, a plague policy, a rai lwaypolicy, an educational policy, an industrial policy, a militarypolicy. Everybody in the country who has a fad or a

g rievance—and how many are there without either—huntshim out. Every public servant who wants an increase of

pay, al lowances, or pension—a not inconsiderable bandappeals to him as the eye of justice every one who thinkshe desires recognition, appeals to him as the fountain of

honour. When he goes on tour he has to try to know nearlyas much about local needs as the people who have l ivedthere al l their l ives

,and he has to refuse vain requests ina

manner to make the people who asked them feel happierthan they were before. When he meets the merchants hemust know al l about tea, sugar, indigo, jute, cotton, salt, andoil . He is not thought much of unless he can throw in someknowledge of shipping and customs. In some places electricity,steel and iron, and coal are required. For telegraphs heis supposed to have a special partial ity ; and he is l iableto be attacked about the metric system . He must be equal lyprepared to discourse about labour in South Africa or labourin Assam. The connecting link between him and Munici

palities is supplied by water and drains. He must be prepared to speak about everything and often about nothing.

He is expected to preserve temples, to keep the currencysteady, to satisfy third-class passengers, to patronise racemeetings

,to make Bombay and Calcutta each think that it

is the cap ital city of India, and to purify the police. Hecorresponds with al l his l ieutenants in every province

,and it

is his duty to keep in touch with every local Administration .

If he does not reform everything that is wrong, he is toldthat he is doing too little

,if he reforms anything at all , that

he is doing too much.

I am sure that I could occupy quite another five minutesof your time in depicting the duties which you require of

the Viceroy in India,and to which I might have added the

agreeable finale of be ing entertained at complimentary2 P

578 D INNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y

banquets. But I have said enough perhaps to show th at itis no light burden that I am now laying down

,and tha t it is

not perhaps surprising if seven years of it should p roveenough for any average constitution . And yet I des i re tosay on this parting occasion that I regard the offi ce of

Viceroy of India, inconceivably laborious as it is, as the

noblest ofli ce in the gift of the British Crown . I think the

man who does not thril l upon receiving it with a sense notof foolish pride, but of grave responsibility

,is not fit to be

an Englishman . I believe that the man who holds i t withdevotion, and knows how to wield the power wisely andwel l , as so many great m en in India have done

,can for a

few years exercise a greater influence upon the destinies ofa larger number of his fellow-creatures than any head of anadministration in the universe. I hold that England oughtto send out to India to fi l l this great post the pick of her

statesmen , and that it should be regarded as one of the

supreme prizes of an Englishman’s career. I deprecate anyattempt, should it ever be made, to attenuate its influence,to diminish its privi leges, or to lower its prestige. Sh ouldthe day ever come when the Viceroy of I ndia is treated asthe mere puppet or mouthpiece of the Home Governm ent,who is required only to carry out whatever orders it m ay bethought desirable to transmit

,I think that the justificat ion

for the post would have ceased to exist. But I cannotbe l ieve that the administrative wisdom of my countrym en

,

which is very great, would ever tolerate so great a blunder.And now after this little sketch of the duties of a Viceroy

,

you may expect to hear something of the manner of fulfi l l ingthem . I have been told that on the present occasion I amexpected to give a sort of synopsis of the last sevenyears ofadministration. I am sure you wil l be intensely relieved tolearn that I intend to disappo int those expectations. Listsof laws, or administrative acts , or executive policies, m ayproperly figure in a budget speech ; they may be recordedin anofl‘icial minute ; they m ay be grouped and weighed bythe historian. But they are hardly the materia l for anafterdinner oration . Bes ides wh ich I have been spared th e

necessity of any such review by the generous abi lity withwhich it has already been performed for me by the press .

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580 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB . BOM BA Y

where the conduct of affairs is neces sari ly in our hands.Thus

, in respect of Tibet, the Government of I nd ia havethroughout had a most definite pol icy which has not pe rhapsbeen fully understood, because it has never been fully s tatedin published correspondence, but which I have no t the

s lightest doubt wil l vindicate itself, and that before long.

Similarly, with regard to Afghanistan, our policy throughoutmy term of ofli ce has been directed to clearing up a ll thedoubts or misunderstandings that had arisen out of ourdifferent agreements with the late Amir, and to a renewalof those agreements, freed from such ambiguity, wi th h is

successor. It was to clear up these doubts tha t theMission was sent to Kabul , as the Amir found h im self

unable to carry out his first intention to come down toIndia ; and for al l the widespread tales that the M issionhad been sent to pres s roads or railroads or teleg raphsand all sorts of unacceptable conditions upon the Amir,from which the Government of India or myself was

alleged to have been only with d ifli culty restrained by acautious Home Government, there was never one shred of

foundation .

Perhaps in Persia, a subject which is perhaps be tterappreciated, and is certainly better written about, in Bom baythan in any other city of the Empire, we have been able todo most in respect of a positive and intel l igible po l icy.

Resting uponLord Lansdowne’s statesmanlike and inva luabledictum as to the Persian Gulf, from which I trust that noBritish Governm ent wil l ever be so foolish as to recede

,we

have been able to pursue a definite course of act ion in

defence of British interests at Muscat, Bahrein , Koweit, andthroughout the Persian Gulf. The same applies to Mekran

and Seistan , and I believe that I leave British interests inthose quarters better safeguarded than they have ever be forebeen . I will not trouble you further about foreign afl

'

a irs

to- night,though I might take youround the confines of the

I ndian Empire and show you an Adenboundary determined,

largely owing to the ability of the ofl‘icers serving under m ynoble friend, our relations with Sikkim and Bhutan grea tlystrengthened, and the final settlement of the Chino-Burm es eboundary practically achieved.

DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CL UB, BOMBA Y 58 1

Neither wil l I detain you about the tribal frontier of

India, although the fact that I can dismiss this almost in asentence is perhaps more eloquent than any speech couldbe. The point is that the Government of India, the localofli cers , and the tribesmen now know exactly what we are

aiming at,namely, in so far as we are obliged to maintain

order, to keep up communications, or to exert influence inthe tribal area, to do it, not with British troops, but throughthe tribes themse lves. The other day I saw the ChiefCommissioner of the North -West Frontier Province, andasked him if he could sum up the position of the frontier.“ Yes, he replied,

“ I can, in a single word, and that isConfidence Confidence at Hunza, confidence at Chitral,which when I came out to India I was told by the punditsat home that I should have to evacuate ina year, but whichis now as tranqui l as the compound of the Byculla Club ;confidence in the Khyber and the Kurram, confidence alldown the frontier of Baluchistan . That is no mean boast.I observe that al l the people who have for years depicted meas a somewhat dangerous person , and who were kind enoughto warn India seven years ago of the terrible frontier convuls ions that she was in for under my rule, have found it alittle d ifli cult to account for the seven years’ peace that hassettled downon the land. Two explanations have, however,lately been forthcoming. The first is that the tr ibes were so

severely handled by my predecessor that they have not hada kick in them left for m e. The second is that havingconcentrated al l my unholy propensities in the direction of

Tibet, where, however, for some unexplained reason I didnot begin until I had been in Ind ia for four years, I hadnothing left for the tribes. I do not think that I need bedisturbed by either of these criticisms. I can hand overthe frontier to my successor, with the happy assurance notonly that matters are quiet

,but that the principles deter

mining our action,whether as regards tribal mi litia, or

border military police,or frontier roads and railways, or

tr ibal control , are all clearly laid down , and are understood.

If these principles are departed from,if the Government of

I ndia were to go in for a po l icy of cupidity or adventure,then the confidence of which I have spoken would not last

582 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB, BOMBA Y

a month. Otherwise I do not see why it should not be

enduring.

We have also for seven years pursued a very cons is tentmilitary policy

,not differing therein in the least from the

d istinguished men who preceded us , but using the m uchlarger opportunities that have been presented to us by

recurring surpluses to carry out measures of which they often

dreamed, but which they had not the funds to rea l ise. I amnot one of those who think that the I ndian Army is a bad

one. I be l ieve it to be by far the best portion of the force sof the British Crown and certainly such work as it has beenmy duty to ask it to undertake, whether in South Afr ica or

Ch ina or Somali land or Tibet, has been as good as any in

the history of the Empire. We have done a good deal torender the I ndian Army, I wil l not say more effic ient, butmore effective. We have entirely re-armed eve ry sectionof

it. We have reorganised the horse and field arti l lery fromtop to bottom. We have created a new transport organisation, we are now making our own gunpowder , rifles , guncarriages, and guns ; we have added 500 British offi cers , andare proposing to add 3 50 more we are doubling the Na tiveArmy reserves ; and all these measures are independent ofthe schemes of reorganisation and redistribution of whichyou have heard so much. I f due attention continues to bepaid to the idiosyncrasies of the Native Army, and if it istreated sympathetically

,I be l ieve that we shall continue to

receive from it the splendid level of service wh ich is itstradi tion and its glory .

In the sphere of internal politics we have adopted as l ightly d ifl

'

erent method, though with the same end, forthere we have

,as a rule

, not framed our pol icy wi thout amost exhaustive preliminary examination of the data uponwhich it ought to rest

,conducted by the most expe rt

authorities whose services we could command. Thus wedid not proceed to draw up a plague policy until the PlagueCommission had reported. Our new famine codes and

m anuals, the methods by which the Government of I n diawi l l grapple with the next famine when it comes

,and th e

preventive methods which we have beenbringing into operation one by one

,are the result of the Comm ission over which

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584 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CL UB , BOMBA Y

the cultivating clas ses. If you want to know our fiseal

policy,it is contained in the publ ished despatch Of Oc tober

1 903. Thus,wherever you turn

,I think you w i ll find

my claim jus tified— the case examined, the pr inc ipleselucidated

,the policy laid down , action taken , and already

bearing fruit.The second principle that I have held in view has been

this. Amid the numerous races and creeds of whom I ndiais composed , while I have sought to understand the needsand to espouse the interests Of each, to win the confidenceOf the Princes, to encourage and strengthen the terri toria laristocracy, to provide for the better education , and thus toincrease the opportunities

,of the educated classes, to stimulate

the energies of Hindu,Mohammedan

,Buddhist, and Sikh,

and to befriend those classes l ike the Euras ians who a re notso powerful as to have many friends Of their own—m y eye

has always rested upon a larger canvas,crowded with untold

numbers, the real people Of India, as distinct from any c lassor section of the people.

But thy poor endureAnd are with us yet

Be thy nam e a sureRefuge for thy poor,Whom m en’s eyes forget.

I t is the Indian poor,the Indian peasant, the patient,

humble, silent mil l ions, the 80 per cent who subsist byagriculture, who know very l ittle of pol icies, but who p rofitor suffer by their results

,and whom men ’s eyes

,even the

eyes of their own countrymen,too often forget—to whom I

refer. He has been in the background of every pol icy forwhich I have been responsible

, of every surplus Of which Ihave assisted in the disposition. We see him not in thesplendour and Opulence, nor even in the squalor, Of grea tcities he reads no newspapers

, for, as a rule, he cannot readat all he has no po l itics. But he is the bone and sinew Of

the country, by the sweat of his brow the soil is til led , fromhis labour comes one - fourth of the nationa l income, heshould be the first and the final Object of every Viceroy’sregard.

I t is for him in the main that we have twice reduced

DINNER GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y 585

the salt- tax, that we remitted land revenue in two yearsamounting to nearly 25 mil lions sterling ; for him that weare assessing the land revenue at a progressively lower pitchand making its col lection elastic. It is to improve his creditthat we have created cO-Operative credit soc ieties, so thathe may acquire capital at easy rates, and be saved from theusury Of the money- lender. He is the man whom we desireto l ift in the world

,to whose children we want to give

education, to rescue whom from ty ranny and oppression wehave reformed the I ndian police, and from whose cabin wewant to ward Off penury and famine. Above all let uskeep him on the so il and rescue him from bondage orexpropriation. When I am vituperated by those who claimto speak for the Indian people, I feel no resentment and nopain . For I search my conscience

,and I ask myself who

and what are the real Indian people ; and I rejoice that ithas fallen to my lot to do something to al leviate theirs, andthat I leave them better than I found them . As for theeducated classes

,I regret if, because I have not extended to

them political concessions—more places on councils, and soon—I have in any way incurred their hosti lity. For Icertainly in no wise return it, and when I remember howimpartially it is bestowed on every Viceroy in the latter partOf his term of Ofl‘ice, I conclude that there must be somethingwrong about all of us which brings us under a common ban .

I also remember that in a multitude Of ways even as regardsplaces and appointments I have consistently befriended andchampioned their cause. That I have not Offered pol iticalconcessions is because I did not regard it as wisdom orstatesmanship in the interests Of I ndia itself to do so ; andif I have incurred Odium for thus doing my duty, I have noapo logy to advance.

And yet in one respect I venture to th ink that theclasses of whom I am speaking have found in me theirbest friend. For I have endeavoured to pursue with themthe third principle Of action to which I before al luded

,

viz. to be frank and outspoken , to take them into Openconfidence as to the views and intentions Of the Govemment, to profit by public Opinion , instead Of ignoring it, notto flatter or cozen , but never to mystify or deceive. I have

586 DINNER GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CL UB, BOMBA Y

always held that Governors are servants of the pub lic , andthat po licies are not such high and holy things a s not to

adm i t Of clear exposition and candid argum ent for a ll who

care to hear. I cannot say that I have everywhere been

rewarded for th is confidence. But I have pursue d it as

pa rt of a definite policy, for there has not beenanact or an

a im of Government whose sincerity I have not been pre

pared to vindicate and to m e there is som ething m anlier in

treating your critics with respect than in pretending that

you are unaware even of their existence. And m y last

principle, has been everywhere to look ahead to scrutinisenot mere ly the pass ing requirements of the hour, but theabiding needs Of the country ; and to build not for the

present but for the future. I should say that the one great

fault of Englishmen in India is that we do not sufficientlylook ahead . We are so much absorbed in the toil of theday that we leave the morrow to take care of itse lf. But it

is not to-morrow only, but twenty years hence, fifty years

hence , and one hundred years hence. That is the thoughtthat has never left my mind. I have had no ambition to cutGordian knots or to win ephemeral tri um phs. I am contentthat all my work should go that is not fitted to las t. S ome

Of it wi l l go of course . But I hope that a solid res iduummay remain and take its place as a part of the o rganicgrowth of I ndian politics and Indian society. To leaveI ndia permanently stronger and more prosperous, to haveadded to the elements of stability in the national existence,to have cut out some sources Of impurity or corrupti on, tohave made dispositions that will raise the level of adminis tration not for a year or two but continuously, to have liftedthe people a few grades in the scale Of well -be ing, to haveenabled the country or the Government better to confrontthe dangers or the vicissitudes of the future

,that i s the

statesman ’s ambition . Whether he has attained it ornot wil l perhaps not be known until long after he has

disappeared .

I need say but few words about my resignation or thecauses that led to it. I desire only to mention one causethat did not. I t seems to have been thought in s om e

quarters at home that this was a personal quarrel,and that

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588 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CL UB ,BOMBA Y

I t is a much pleasanter subject to turn from m yselfto the nobleman whose ship is hourly drawing nea rer tothese shores, and who the day after to-morrow w ill takeover the task that I lay down .

1 It is a pleasure to me

to he succeeded by a lifelong friend. But it is a muchgreater pleasure to know that India wi l l gain a V iceroyOf ripe experience, of a strong sense of duty, of soundjudgment, and Of great personal charm . I hope that therough seas through which I have sometimes ridden m ay

leave smooth waters in which his keel may glide, and from

the depth of my heart I wish him a tranquil and trium phantViceroyalty.

And now, as the moment comes for me to utter theparting words, I am a little at loss to know wha t theyshould be. A week ago a man said to me

,DO you

really love India ? ” I could not imagine if he was

jesting. Love India,I replied ; why otherwise should

I have cut myself adrift from my own country for the

best seven years Of my life, why should I have g ivento this country the best Of my poor health and strength,why should I have come back in the awful circum s tancesOf a year ago, why should I have resigned m y officesooner than see injury done to her now ? Good ,

”he

said,“ I was merely trying you— I knew it as wel l as

every one else.

”

Gentlemen, you all know it. There is not a man in th isroom , there is not an impartial man in India, there is not aBengali patriot who now denounces me for giving h im the

boon for which he wil l one day bless my name, who doesnot know that no Englishman ever stepped on to the shoresof I ndia who had a more passionate devotion to the countrythan he who is now bidding it farewel l . Nor wil l anyEnglishman ever have left it more resolved

,to the be st of

his humble abil ities and strength,to continue to do justice

in England to India— India who after 200 years stil l standslike some beautiful stranger before her captors, so defenceless, so forlorn , so l ittle understood , so little known . Shestands in need as much as ever—perhaps more than ever

,

when such strange experiments are made by many whoseI The Earl of Minto.

D INNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CL UB , BOMBA Y 589

knowledge of her does not extend beyond the fringe of hergarment—Of being championed and spoken for and savedfrom insult or defamation . Perhaps my voice for I ndia maynot always be identical with that of all her sons

,for some

of them, as I have said, see or speak very difl'

erently fromme. But it wil l be a voice raised onbehalf not of a sectionor a faction, but, so far as the claim may be made, of al lI ndia. And in any case, it will be of an India whosedevelopment must continue to be a British duty, whose fairtreatment is a test of British character, and whose destiniesare bound up with those of the British race. SO far as inme lies

,it will be a voice raised in the cause of imperial

justice and fair dealing ; and most of all Of seeing thatIndian interests are not bartered away or sacrificed orselfishly pawned in the financial or economic adjustments of

Empire.A hundred times in India have I said to myself, Oh

that to every Englishman in this country, as he ends hiswork

,might be truthfully applied the phrase, Thou hast

loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

”NO man has

,I

bel ieve,ever served India faithfully of whom that could not

be said. All other triumphs are tinsel and sham . Perhapsthere are few Of us who make anything but a poorapproximation to that ideal . But let it be our ideal allthe same. TO fight for the right, to abhor the imperfect,the unjust

,or the mean , to swerve neither to the right hand

nor to the left, to care nothing for flattery or applause orOdium or abuse—it is so easy to have any of them in I ndia—never to let your enthusiasm be soured or your couragegrow dim

,but to remember that the Almighty has placed

your hand on the greatest Of His ploughs, in whosefurrow the nations of the future are germinating andtaking shape

,to drive the blade a little forward in your

time,and to feel that somewhere among these mil lions

you have left a little justice or happiness or prosperity,

a sense Of manliness or moral dignity, a Spring Of

patriotism, a dawn of intel lectua l enlightenment, or astirring of duty, where it did not before exist— that isenough, that is the Englishman

’s justification in I ndia. I tis good enough for his watchword while he is here, for his

590 DINNE R GI VEN B Y B YCULLA CLUB , BOMBA Y

epitaph when he is gone. I have worked for no o ther aim.

Let I ndia be my judge.1

I This is the passage that elicited from the venerab le Prim ate of I re land(Archb ishop A lexander) the rem arkab le Ode Of Welcom e that appea red in the

Tim e: on the day Of Lord Curson’s return to England, December 4, 1 905, and

from which the fol lowing is anextract

SO to our race inInd ia full and strongFell from thy lips that phrase no tim e outwears ,Thouhas t loved ri ghteousness and hated wrong

Thus spake our great m enof the Oldentim e,

Who grand ly spoke , because they grand ly thoughtWhose spir it first, thenspeech . beeam e sublime !

Colossal brevity as by m agic wroughtCatch ing the d ifficult ear of after tim e

Res traint—and not effus ion—d ear ly bought.Now, whenour politic arm ies intheir p laceS tand clam ouring by the fires along their line ,Each battle sees the other

's angry face.

Come now wi th utterance of the m enOf Old ,

Com e thou. be judged of all th is land Of th ineNot with a pom p Of colour and of gold ;Thouwho has instinct Of a m ighty work.

Of the great utterance Of the days gone by .

Superb as Chatham , steadfast-souled as Burke.

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592

M y S ir E's

Buddhist Religion, 2 1 5Budget Speeches, xxi -xxi i , xxxvu;

1 899 . 65 -69 ; 1900, 69 -73 ; 190 1 .- 109 ; l 9°3s 1 10

1 29 ; 1904» 1294 47 ; 1905» 147168

Bundelkhund, 1 26, 1 38 , 1 76, 253Burke, Edmund , 29 , 55 , 56 1Burma , 9 , 82 , 2 10-2 1 5, 406, 435-438

Bushire, Address at, 503-507Busteed , Mr. H . E. , 443

Calcutta , xlvi -xlvi i , 265 -272, 523Anglo-Indian Associat ion, Addressfrom , 362 -374

Black Hole, vide BlackChamber of Comm erce Banquet,265 -28 1

Conference onChiefs ’ Colleges, 234,26 1 , 263

Fort William , xlvii, 268 , 442 , 444,

54'Has tings House, 268 , 546Imperia l Library , xlvii , 268 , 545Im provem ent Schem e, 133, 1 5 1 , 270

Ma idan,266-268

Municipal Governm ent, 27 1Smoke Prevention, 269-270Universi ty , Convocation of, xxxiv

xxxv. 340-346, 480 489 , 489 -499Canning, Earl , 5 , 19 , 2 1 , 23, 63, 192 ,

362

Capita l inIndia , 273-274, 279 -280

Carlyle, T. , quoted , 2Centralisatron, 79 , 1 34, 160, 338 , 558

Character, Native, wife NativeCharnock, Job , 267 , 448 , 534Chattisgarh , Fam ine in, 84, 38 2

Chenab Colony , xxxvi i i, 450-452 , 458

Chesney , S ir G. , xlvii i , 284Chiefs , Ind ian, Duties and respons i

b ili ties of, xxvi -xxvi i i , 42 , 2 1 72 1 8 , 22 1 -224 , 22 7, 230-233, 23724 1 , 260 ’ 26 l 9 2632 379 9

4 1 2 vide Native S ta tes andEducation

Col leges for educationof, xxvi i i , 42 ,233

° 236r 242’ 246 r 260'

264Chitor, 202 , 537Chitra l , 10 , 4 10 , 4 18 , 422 , 429 , 430,

58 1

Chittagong, xlvCivi l S ervice, m ’

dc ServicesClerks of Governm ent of India , Fare

wel l Address from , 568 -57 1

INDEX

Dalai Lama , The, xii i -xli i i , 44Dalhous ie, Marquis Of, 33 , 542Daly , S ir H enry , 233, 248Dawkins , Mr. (afterwards S ir ) C. , xur,

7 l ‘ 73r S I ) 375Deane, S ir H . , 426

Debt, Ind ian, 1 3 1

Delhi , 18 7, 190,199 , 203, 52 3

Art Exhibi tion, xxvi , 104, 204-209Durbar, xxix, 4 1 , 1 14, 2 20-22 1 ,

22 5 , 2894299» 3003 09Im perial As sem b lage 29 5Unvei l ing of Mutiny TelegraphMemoria l at, 439 -442

Departm ental Reform , 39 , 78 -79 , 276,

S65Derby, Presentation Of Freedom of

Borough Of, 52 -6 1

Dubois, Abbé, quoted , 27

Clive, Lord, 1 2Collen. S ir E 464. 466, 5 30

Commander - ia -Chief in Ind ia , Th ,

xlix. 49Comm erce, A tti tude of Governm ent

towards, xxix -xxxi, 1 03 , 1 38

1 39 . 1 58 . 276 2 77. 28 2. 384.

5 145 1 5Cham bers of, xxxi , 265, 5 1 3

Comm ercial Department, Insti tufitmof new. 63. 103. 139 . 1 58. 278.284

Development of India, xx ix-nx, 36,8 1 . 9 x. 103. 1 384 39 . 1 59. 2723 80,

Enterprise, Native, 1 59, 2 79 -280

Comm is ions of Inquiry, 104 106,1 1 8 , 58 3

Congress, The, xix-xxi, xxxv, 167Connaught, Duke of, 29 1 , 30 1 , 303Continuity of Adm inistration, 54Convocation Addresses , vide Calcutta

Universi tyCo - operative Credi t Societies, u

'

dc

Agricultural BanksCornwal lis, Earl, 63, 542Coronation, Cost of IndianDeputation

to English, 163, 298

Cotton, S ir H . , xxi, xlii

Counci l of Governor-General, Euca

tive, xvi i , 559 560le gis lative. xvi i -vii i. 69 -70 . 577

Cunningham , S ir A. , 188 , 19 2

Currency Reform , ram , 4 1 , 67 , 72 , 808 1 , 1 29 , 274-275, 28 2 -2 84

Curzon, Lady , 1 7, 32 , 62 , 5 56

Custom s , vide Im perial Cus tom s

INDEX

Dufferin, Marquis of, 6, 240, 259 ,

Durbar at Delhi , 289 -299 ,vide DelhiLucknow, 18 -24Peshawar, 422 -428

Quetta, xli , 4 10-4 1 5S hara-h. xl. 500-503

Durbars , 1 8

Duty in India. s. 63. 309 . 466. 568 .589

East India Company, Adm inistrationof. xxvi i i. 4. 9 . 504. 537

Comm iss ion, xxxiiiEducation, Agr icultural, 358Departm ent, 102 , 338E lementary or Primary , m u, 23,

330 33 1 : 350 35 15 3533 54European and Eurasian, 358 , 37 1

373Female, 359H igher or Universi ty , xxxh -xxxiii ,23. 1 2 1 . 3 19

-

328 . 340. 342 -345 .

3509

Mohamm edan, 475 -478

Mora l, 337of IndianAr istocracy , 233-236. 242 °

246, 247 -264Rel igious. 337. 348S econdary. 323 -329 . 35 1 . 3543 55Technical , 1 37, 3 1 2 , 329 ,

3592360, 372 9 528

Vida Native S tates,Tata

Educational Policy of Governm ent,xxxi -xxxiv, 23, 38 , 40, 89 , 98 ,

102, 1 20- 1 23, 1 36- 137, 1 5 1 , 3 13

339 . 341 -346. 348 . 353-36 1 . 476

Edward VI I . , King, Message to DelhiDurbar, 303

Efficiency in Adm inistration, 39 , 142 ,280, 564

E lectricity Act, 1 38

E lectricity inBarracks, xlvi i i , 296E lgin, Ear l of, 6, 16, 2 5 , 1 94, 259Elles , S ir E . , 468 , 470

Ell iott, S ir C. , xlvEm igration, Indian, 380 ; vi de AfricaEm pire, British, Place of India in,vide

IndiaEngland, Speeches delivered in, upon

Appointm ent, in 1899 , 1 - 1 3after First Term of oflice in 1 904,

32 -6 1

Entai l, Legis lationfor, 1 38Epigraphy , Indian, 1 86Etonians, Speech to old, 1 -6

S im la, and

593

EurasianCommunity, xxxv-xxxvi, 144146, 362 -374, 584; m

’

d! EducationExam inations in Indian Educational

Sys tem . 3 1 7. 325 -326. 344Experts , Em ployment of, xix, xxxi ii ,

277-278 . 286. 338 . 356. 566

Exports , Indian, 82 , 84, 288

Fam ine and Fam ine Policy , xxxvixxxvi i , 25 , 38 , 82 -84, 1 18 , 1 54,294, 38 1 - 404: 4 13 ;vide Native S tates

Comm iss ion, 10 1 , 1 18 , 1 54, 1 56,

402, 582

Insurance Fund, 73, 99 , 1 28 , 403

Fatehpur S ikri , 18 7, 1 89 , 1 99Fergusson, Mr. J. 190

Finance, xxi -xxiii, 1 28 ; vi de BudgetS peeches , Currency Reform , Pro

vincial Settlem ents , and TaxationFinancial S tatement, Annual

,vide

BudgetFiscalQuestion,vide PreferentialTariffsForeignAffairs, xxxix

-x1, 37, 405-409 ,

579ForeignOpinionof India, 59Fowler, S ir H . , 4 1

Fraser, S ir A. , 84, 160, 58 3Frontier Crime, 4 1 2 -4 13, 426, 427Militia , xli, 4 18 , 42 1 , 424-425,

Policy. xl-xlu. 37. 43. 407. 410-4 1 5.

4 1 5 -4 18 . 418 -42 i . 423-427. 428

434. 567. 579 -58 I

Province, New, xli, 1 53, 176, 41 7,

4290Rai lways , 42 5. 43 iTribes , 9 ) 4 109 4 12 9 4 I4,

422-428 , 58 1

Fryer, S ir F.,2 1 3

Gam e Preservation, 142, 435-438Gaselee, S ir A. , 107Gaur, Ruins of, 200

Gladstone, Mr . , 473Gokhale, Mr. G. K. , 1 23, 161

Gold and S i lver, Imports of, 1 32Gold Reserve Fund, 8 1 , 1 30, 275Gold S tandard , The, 8 1 , 274Gordon, General , 1 5Government of India , Constitution of,

XViir S48 1Governments, Local , xvii i, xliv, 79 , 99 ,

106, 1 28 , 1 33, 1 34, 160, 1 79 ,228 , 276, 292 , 336, 378 , 38 1 ,

594 LVDEX

Warren, 4, 12 , 53, 55, 203, 268 ,

393. 448 . 54 1 . 543. 546

Hewett, Mr. J. P. , 158 , 5 55 -556

Holwell Monument, Restoration of,

268 :Honours , Distributionof, 2 10, 427

Hostels or Boarding Houses, 322Hyderabad, Nium of, 1 1 5, 240, 387

Ibbetson, S ir D. , 1 2 5, 127, 1 55 , 1 56,

”9Ignorance inEngland about Ind ia , 33,

34, 37. 273Imperial Cadet Corps, xxvn, 42, 100,

14 1 . 239 . 249 . 255 . 257. 262

Custom s Service , 138 , 284S ervice Troops , 239 -240, 430

Im perialism , vide India, Place of in

British Empire

Incom e Tax, Reductionof, 1 3 1India, and Party Politics , vide PartyPlace of, inBri tish Em p ire, 111, 8 ,

26s 28 1 34, 369 lo7' log s 290 1

30 1. 499S piri t of British Rule in, lii , 5 , 1 5 ,30, 3S: 4's 64, 89 1 l46a

28 1 . 304. 553-5 54. 568 . 570

IndianCharacter,vide Native CharacterInterests , Defence of, in Im perialSystem ,

163People, the real , 142 , 149 , 584- 58 5

Ind ians, Employm ent of, in Pub l icS ervice, 60,

143- 146, 160, 16 1

163, 2 14, 498

Indore. Daly College, 233 -236, 248 ,2 53

Industrial Development, vi de Com

m ercial DevelopmentIndustria l Schools , 137, 334

-335 , 360

Inoculationaga inst Plague , 5 10-5 1 2

Irrigation Comm iss ion, xxxvi i i , 103,

1 23. 14 1 . 1 5 5. 457-46 1 . 58 3

Irrigation in India, xxxvi i -xxxvi i i , xl,

40, 86, 99, 102 - 103, 1 23- 1 24,

130 2 14, 402 -403,

449 -46!

Jacob, Sir S t intm , 2 2 3Jaipur, Banquet at, 2 19 -22 5Maharaja of, 2 19 -22 1 , 238.

396 5 19. 524. 52 8

Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 3 03Judicial and Executive Fur-a im s , 1 25

Justice, Administratic

Kohat Pm . 4 19. 423. 43!

Kutub Minar, The , 184, 18 7 , 189

Lahore, 20 1

AitchisonCol lege, 248 , 2 5 3Land Alienation, Prevention of, 40,

- 1 76

Revenue , Rem is ion of, xxi i i, 971 10, 138

Settlements and Co l lect ion, m u,10 1 , 138 1 57

'Lansdowne, Marquis of, 6, 10 1 , 147 ,

240. 259. 287. 580La Touche, S ir J . , 199 , 357Law. Sir E . xxii. 7s. 8 1 . 8 5 . 94. 96.

103, m . 127. 130. 133. 1 56. 275Law inIndia , The, 24, 427, 48 3-

484h wrence, S ir J . (Lord ) , xl, 19 , 2 1 .

Leave Rules , Reform of, 77LegislationinInd ia. 69 - 70, 74, 168

Lieutenant Governor. Duties of a,

xliv-xlvLions inIndia , 435-436Loans, Indian, 1 3 1

Local Governm ents , xvm :vi de Centralisation

London, Presentation of Freedom of

City of, 32-47

Speech at MansionHouse , 47 - 52Loyalty in India , xxix, 14. 1 5 , 4 1 ,

224, 30 1 -302

Lucknow, Durbar at, 18 -24

Lum sden’s Horse , 5 16

Lyal lpur, xxxvi i i, 450Ly tton. Earl of, 193, 29 1 , 29 5 , 362,

4 18. 4 19

Macaulay , Lord, 20, 33, 48 , 168 , 3 1 5 ,

330. 48 5MacDonnell, S ir A . , 20, 2 1 , 10 1 , 1 18 ,

I S4. I S7: 194. I 99Macnaghten, Mr. Chester, 242 , 249Madras Army, Reorganisationof, 469

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S96

Rai lway Finance, 85Rai lways, Government Policy toward,

69 . 8 5. 149 . 2 1 3. 278 . 283in India, 22 , 38 , 8 1 -85 , 94, 1 24

1 25, 131 , 283, 369Raiyat, The Indian, 8 2, 90 - 92, 97,

x49. 1 56. 1 79 . 174. 18 1. 286.

376. 408. 584Rajkot, Rajkumar College, 242-246,

253Rajputana. 2224 23. 232. 395. 398 .

Ra leigh, S ir T. , 12 1 , 340, 350

Ranjit S ingh, 18 7, 19 1Religious Non- interference, Policy of,

2 1 5. 224. 337. 348 . 422

Report-writing inIndia, xxxviii, 78 80,

1 16- 1 17, 135Rhodes , Ceci l , 36R ipon, Marquis of, 1 9 , 193R ivaz, S ir C., 1 73Roberts, Earl, 5 5 1 - 552

Robertson, Mr. T. (Rai lway Comm issioner), 104, 1 25, 140

Rosebery , Earl of, 1 , 2 , 48Royal Societies Club , Dinner at, 7- 13

Salisbury , Marquis of, 48 , 295Salt Tax, Reductionof, 96, 1 1 1

- 1 12,

13 1 , 15a, 585Sanchi Tope, The, 184, 189 , 193, 202Sandeman, S ir R ., 4 10, 4 14

Sandhurst, Lord, 16, 509

Savings Banks , Indian, 132, 287Scientific Advice, Board of, 1 26, 1 37Scindia, Maharaja of Gwalior, 202 ,

435. 524Secretariats, The, vide Departm ental

Reform

Secretaries to Government, 56 1Seistan,vide Nushki and Pers iaBoundary , xxxix

Services in India, The, 26, 36 , 49 52 ,

561 77 9 1439 I6 I , 369 1Subord inate, vide Clerks

Shah Jehan, 18 5, 1 8 7, 1 89 , 19 1 , 193ShanS tates (Burm a ), 2 1 1 , 308

Shargah , Durbar at, xl, 500 503Shooting Rules for British Soldiers, 88S iam , 9 , 36, 108 , 406, 408

S ikandra , 199S ikhs, The, 357 , 540

S ikkim , 44, 580

S im la, 56 1 - 562

Address from Clerks , 568 57 1Educa tional Conferences at, xxxi ,

12 1 , 1361 346‘ 36 I

INDEX

S imla, United Service C lub , D inner at,5 55-568

Sold iers , British,vide British S oldiers ,E lectricity, and Shooting Rules

Somaliland, xxxix, xl, 35 , 108S tephen, S ir ] . Fitz-J . , 3S trachey , S ir J . , 193Sugar, Countervai ling Duti es upon,

100

Swadeshi Movement, xlvi

Taj, The, 1 85 , 1 89 . 1 90, 1 98 , 1 99,

202

Takavi Loans, 1 77, 286

Talukdars ,vide OudhTashi Lama, The, xliv, 546Tata Insti tute, 1 23, 359Taxation, Reduction of, xxi ii , 40, 66

67s [ IO- 1 1 3, 149 1

1 5 1 . 304Tea Industry , wile Assam and PlantersTea -cess, 138

Technical Scholarships, 1 37 , 359Telegraphic Rates, Reduction of, 68 ,

86-87, 100, 127 , 135 , 28 5Temperance inArmy , 548 - 554Territorial A ristocracy, 23, 38 , 138 ,

222, 256-257, 260

Text-books, Educational, 327 328Tibetan Expedi tion, xiii -xliv, 44-45,

139. 49 9. 580

Times qf lnd r'

a , T115 , 572

Training Col leges , 335Transfers , Officia l, 77Transvaal , The, vide AfricaTravancore, Maharaja’s Col lege, 3 10

Trevor, S ir A 8 1

Truthfulness , xxxiv, 490-493Turner, S ir M. , 100 , 265

Viceroy of India , Conceptionof DutiesOf: 5 1 1 54 6: 1 9: 237: 2 59 : 529 ,

574-578 . 588 -59°

Ulwar, Installationof Maharaja , 229233

Univers ities Act, xxxv, 1 36 , 342

Comm ission, xxxii i , 102 , 1 2 1

Conception of, 3 19 -322 , 342 -345,

478

Constitution of Indian, xxxu-xxxm ,

352

Ind ian, vide Ca lcutta Universi ty ,Education

INDEX

V iceroy of India, Pos itionof, xvi, xvu,1 3 . 56. 162. 556-

557. 559 - 560.

574-578

Resignationof, l, 299 , 587R esum ptionof office by , 62

-64Term of Office of, 1 3, 30, 32 , 80,

Tours of, xxxvi, 198 , 237, 272 , 292Victoria , Queen, 1 5 , 4 1 , 326, 462 ,

478 . 5 17-5 18 . 532Memorial to (V ictoria MemorialHall), xxvi, 238, 268 , 444, 5 19

525 2Volunteers , Indian, 5 16

597

Waddington, Mr. C. W., 242, 243

Watt, S ir G. , 205Wazi ristan. 4 1 8. 419. 42 1. 424. 432Wealth of India, 279 , 287, 376Welldon, Bishop, 2 , 3Welles ley, Marquis, xlvi , 5, 223\Vellington, Duke of, 48 , 55 1

Westland, S ir J . , xxi i, 66, 449 , 454Wi lson, Mr. C. R . , 444Woodburn, S ir J . , 16 1

Younghusband, S ir F xliii, 10

Yunnan, 9, 2 1 2 , 406

THE END

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