Viscount Morley of Blackburn speaks to the  House of Lords on the Government of India Bill of 1909, 23 February 1909

My LORDS, I invite the House to take to-day the first definite and operative step in carrying out the policy which I had the honour of stating to your lordships just before Christmas, and which has occupied the active consideration both of the Home Government and of the Government of India, for very nearly, if not even more than, three years. The statement was awaited in India with an expectancy that with time became almost impatience, and it was received in India-and that, after all, is the point to which I looked with the most anxiety-with intense interest and attention and various degrees of approval, from warm enthusiasm to cool assent and acquiescence.

        A deputation waited upon the Viceroy a few days after the arrival of my dispatch unique in its comprehensive character; both the Hindus and the Mahomedans were represented; it was a remarkable deputation, and they waited upon the Viceroy to offer their expression of gratitude for the scheme which was unfolded before them. Then a few days later at Madras the Congress met, and they, too, expressed their thanks to the Home Government and to the Government of India. Almost at the same time the Moslem League met at Amritsar, and they were warm in their approval of the policy which they took to be foreshadowed in the dispatch, though they found fault with the defects they thought they had discovered in the scheme, and implored the Government, both in India and here, to remedy those defects. So far as I know-and I do beg your lordships to note these details of the reception of our policy in India-there had been no sign in any quarter, save possibly in the irreconcilable camp, of organized hostile opinion among either Indians or Anglo-Indians.

        The Indian Civil Service I will speak of very shortly. I will pass them by for the moment. The noble Marquess (Lord Lansdowne) said truly the other night that when I spoke at the end of December I used the words 'formidable and obscure' as describing the situation, and he desired to know whether I thought the situation was still formidable and obscure. I will not drop the words, but I think the situation is less formidable and less obscure. Neither repression on the one hand nor reform on the other could possibly be expected to cut at the roots of anarchical crime in a few weeks, but with unfaltering repression on the one hand and vigour and good faith in reform on the other we all see good reason to hope that we shall weaken, if not destroy, these baleful forces.

        There are, I take it, three classes of people that we have to consider in dealing with a scheme of this kind. There are the extremists, who nurse fantastic dreams that some day they will drive us out of India. In this group there are academic extremists and physical force extremists, and I have seen it stated on a certain authority-it cannot be more than guessed-that they do not number, whether academic or physical force extremists, more than one-tenth, I think, or even three per cent., of what are called the educated class in India. The second group nourish no hopes of this sort, but hope for autonomy or self-government of the colonial species and pattern. And then the third section of this classification ask for no more than to be admitted to co-operation in our administration, and to find a free and effective voice in expressing the interests and needs of their people. I believe the effect of the reforms has been, is being, and will be to draw the second class, who hope for colonial autonomy, into the third class, who will be content with being admitted to a fair and full co-operation. A correspondent wrote to me the other day and said:

'We seem to have caught many discontented people on the rebound, and to have given them an excuse for a loyalty which they have badly wanted.'

        In spite of all this it is a difficult and critical situation, but by almost universal admission it has lost that tension which strained India two or three months ago, and public feeling is tranquillized, certainly beyond any expectation which either the Viceroy or myself ventured to entertain.

        The situation has become, at all events, more hopeful, and I am confident that the atmosphere has changed from being dark and sullen to being hopeful, and I am sure your Lordships will allow me to be confident that nothing will be done at Westminster to cloud that hopeful sky. The noble Marquess the other day said-and I was delighted to hear it-that he, at all events, would give us, with all the reservations that examination of the scheme might demand from him, a whole-hearted support here and his best encouragement to the men in India. I accept that, and I rely upon it and lean upon it, because if anything were done at Westminster, either by delay or otherwise, to show a breach in what ought to be the substantial unity of Parliamentary opinion in face of the Indian situation, it would be a very great disaster. I would venture on the point of delay to say this. Your lordships will not suspect me of having any desire to hurry the Bill, but I remember that when Lord Cross brought in the Bill of 1892 Lord Kimberley, who was so well known and so popular in the House, used this language, which 1 venture to borrow from him to press upon your lordships to-day:

'I think it almost dangerous to leave a subject of this kind hung up to be perpetually discussed by all manner of persons, and, having once allowed that, at all events, some amendment is necessary in regard to the mode of constituting the Legislative Councils, it is incumbent upon the Government and Parliament to pass the Bill which they may think expedient as speedily as possible into law.'

        I think the considerations of social order and social urgency in India make that just as useful to be remembered to-day as it was then.

        The noble marquess the other day, in a very courteous manner, administered to me an exhortation and an admonition and homily--I had almost said a lecture--as to the propriety of deferring to the man on the spot, and the danger of quarrelling with the man on the spot. I listened with becoming meekness and humility, but then it occurred to me that the language of the noble marquess was not original. Those noble lords who share the bench with him gave deep murmurs of approval to this homily which was administered to me. They had forgotten that they once had a man on the spot, the man there being that eminent and distinguished man whom I may perhaps be allowed to congratulate upon his restoration to health and to his place in this assembly. He said this, which the noble marquess will see is a fair original for his own little discourse; it was said after the noble lord had thrown up the reins:

'What I wish to say to high officers of State and members of Government is this: as far as you can, trust the man on the spot. Do not weary or fret or nag him with your superior wisdom. They claim no immunity from errors of opinion or judgment, but their errors are nothing compared with yours.'

        The remonstrance, therefore, of the noble lord (Lord Curzon) to the noble lords sitting near him is identical with that which I have laid to heart from the noble marquess.

        The House will pardon me if I for a moment dwell upon what by application is an innuendo conveyed in the admonition of the noble marquess. I have a suspicion that he considered his advice was needed; he expressed the hope that all who were responsible for administration in India would have all the power for which they had a right to ask. Upon that I can, I think,-though I am half reluctant to do so-completely clear my character, for in December last, shortly before I addressed your lordships, Lord Minto, having observed there was some talk of my interference, telegraphed these words, and desired that I should make use of them whenever I thought fit, having in view my addressing the House:

'I hope you will say from me, in as strong language as you may choose to use, that in all our dealings with sedition I could not be more strongly supported than I have been by you. The question of the control of Indian administration by the Secretary of State, mixed up as it is with the old difficulties of centralization, we may very possibly look at from different points of view, but that has nothing to do with the support the Secretary of State gives to the Viceroy, and which you have given to me in a time of great difficulty and for which I shall always be warmly grateful.'

        The Marquess of LANSDOWNE: I think the noble Viscount will see from the report of my speech that the part he has quoted had reference to measures of repression, and that what I said was that justice should be prompt, that it was undesirable that there should be appeals from one Court to another, or from provincial Governments to the Government in Calcutta, or from the Government at Calcutta to the Secretary of State for India. I did not mean to imply merely the Viceroy, but the men responsible for local government.

Viscount MORLEY OF BLACKBURN : I do not think that when the noble marquess refers to the report of his speech he will find I have misrepresented him. At all events, he will, I am sure, gladly agree that, in dealing with sedition, I have on the whole given all the support the Government of India or anybody else concerned had a right to ask for.

        I will now say a word about the Indian Civil Service. Three years ago when we began these operations I felt that a vital element for success was that we should carry the Indian Civil Service with us, and that if we did not do this we should fail. But human nature being what it is, and temperaments varying as they do, it is natural to expect a certain amount of criticism, minute criticism, and observation, and I have had proofs of that, but will content myself with one quotation from a very distinguished member, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, well known to the noble lord opposite. What did he say, addressing the Legislative Council a few weeks ago?:

'I hold that a solemn duty rests upon the officers of Government in all branches, and more particularly upon the officers of the Civil Service, so to comport themselves in the inception and working of the new measures as to make the task of the people and their leaders easy. It is incumbent upon them loyally to accept the principle that these measures involve the surrender of some portion of the authority and control which they now exercise, and some modifications of the methods of administration. If that task is approached in a grudging or reluctant spirit we shall be sowing the seeds of failure and shall forfeit our claim to receive the friendly co-operation of the representatives of the people. We must be prepared to support, defend, and carry through the administrative policy, and in a certain degree even the executive acts of the Government in the Council, in much the same way as is now prescribed in regard to measures of legislation; and we must further be prepared to discharge this task without the aid of a standing majority behind us. We will have to resort to the more difficult arts of persuasion and conciliation in the place of the easier methods of autocracy. This is no small demand to make on the resources of a service whose training and traditions have hitherto led its members rather to work for the people than through the people or their representatives. But I am nevertheless confident that the demand will not be made in vain. For more than a hundred years, in the time of the Company and under the rule of the Crown, the Indian Civil Service has never failed to respond to whatever call has been made upon it or to adapt itself to the changing environment of the time. I feel no doubt that officers will be found who possess the natural gifts, the loyalty, the imagination, and the force of character which will be requisite for the conduct of the administration under the more advanced form of government to which we are about to succeed.'

        These words I commend to your lordships. They breathe a noble spirit, they admirably express the feeling of a sincere man, and I do not believe anybody who is acquainted with the Service doubts that that spirit, so admirably expressed, will pervade the Service in the admittedly difficult task that now confronts them. The Bill is a short one, and will speak for itself I shall be brief in referring to it, for in December last I made what was practically a second-reading speech. I may point out that there are two rival schools, and that the noble lord opposite (Lord Curzon) may be said to represent one of them. There are two rival schools, one of which believes that better government of India depends on efficiency, and that efficiency is in fact the end of our rule in India. The other school, while not neglecting efficiency, looks also to what is called political concessions. I think I am doing the noble lord no injustice in saying that during his eminent Viceroyalty he did not accept the necessity for political concessions, but trusted to efficiency. I hope it will not be bad taste to say in the noble lord's presence that you will never send to India, and you have never sent to India a Viceroy his superior, if, indeed, his equal, in force of mind, in unsparing remorseless industry, in passionate and devoted interest in all that concerns the well-being of India, with an imagination fired by the grandeur of the political problem India presents-you never sent a man with more of all these attributes than when you sent Lord Curzon. But splendidly successful as his work was from the point of view of efficiency, he still did, leave in India a state of things when we look back-not in consequence of his policy-not completely satisfactory such as would have been the crowning of a brilliant career.

        I am as much for efficiency as the noble lord but I do not believe-and this is the difference between him and myself-that you can have true, solid, endurable efficiency without what are called political concessions. I know risks are pointed out. The late Lord Salisbury, speaking on the last Indian Councils Bill, spoke of the risks of applying occidental machinery in India. Well, we ought to have thought of that before we applied occidental education; we applied that, and occidental machinery must follow. These Legislative Councils once called into existence, it was inevitable that you would have gradually, in Lord Salisbury's own phrase, to popularize them so as to bring them into harmony with the dominant sentiments of the people in India. The Bill of 1892 admittedly contained the elective principle, and now this Bill extends that principle. The noble lord (Viscount Cross) will remember the Bill of 1892, of which he had charge in the House of Commons. I want the House to be good enough to follow the line taken by Mr. Gladstone, because I base myself on that. There was an amendment moved and there was going to be a division, and Mr. Gladstone begged his friends not to divide, because he said it was very important that we should present a substantial unity to India. This is upon the question of either House considering a Bill like the Bill that is now on the Table-a mere skeleton of a Bill if you like. I see it has been called vague and sketchy. It cannot be anything else on the principle explained by Mr. Gladstone:-

'It is the intention of the Government (that is, the Conservative Government) that a serious effort shall be made to consider carefully those elements which India in its present condition may furnish for the introduction into the Councils of India of the elective principle. If that effort is seriously to be made, by whom is it to be made? I do not think it can be made by this House, except through the medium of empowering provisions. The best course we could take would be to commend to the authorities of India what is a clear indication of the principles on which we desire them to proceed. It is not our business to devise machinery for the purpose of Indian Government; it is our business to give to those who represent Her Majesty in India ample information as to what we believe to be sound principles of Government; and it is, of course, the function of this House to comment upon any case in which we may think they have failed to give due effect to those principles.'

        I only allude to Mr. Gladstone's words in order to let the House know that I am taking no unusual course in leaving the bulk of the work, the details of the work, to the Government of India, and discussion, therefore, in this House and in Parliament will necessarily be not upon details. But no doubt it is desirable that some of the heads of the regulations, rules, and proclamations to be made by the Government of India under sanction of the India Office should be more or less placed within the reach and knowledge of the House so far as they are complete. The principles of the Bill are in the Bill and will be affirmed, if your lordships are pleased to read it a second time, and the Committee points, important as they are, can well be dealt with in Committee. The view of Mr. Gladstone was cheerfully accepted by the House then, and I hope, it will be accepted by your lordships to-day.

        There is one very important chapter in these regulations which I think now on the second reading of the Bill, without waiting for Committee, I ought to say a few words to your lordships about-I mean the Mahomedans. That is a part of the Bill and scheme which has no doubt attracted a great deal of criticism and excited a great deal of feeling in that very important community. We suggested to the Government of India a certain plan. We did not prescribe it, we did not order it, but we suggested and recommended this plan for their consideration-no more than that. It was the plan of a mixed or composite electoral college, in which Mahomedans and Hindus should pool their votes, so to say. The wording of the recommendation in my dispatch was, as I soon discovered, ambiguous-a grievous defect, of which I make bold to hope I am not very often in public business guilty. But, to the best of my belief, under any construction the plan of Hindus and Mahomedans voting together in a mixed and composite electorate would have secured to the Mahomedan electors, wherever they were so minded, the chance of returning their own representatives in their due proportion. The political idea at the bottom of that recommendation which has found so little favour was that such composite action would bring the two great communities more closely together, and this idea of promoting harmony was held by men of very high Indian authority and experience who were among my advisers at the India Office. But the Mahomedans protested that the Hindus would elect a pro-Hindu upon it, just as I suppose in a mixed college of say seventy-five Catholics and twenty-five Protestants voting together the Protestants might suspect that the Catholics voting for the Protestant would choose what is called a Romanizing Protestant and as little of a Protestant as thev could find. Suppose the other way. In Ireland there is an expression, a 'shoneen' Catholic-that is to say, a Catholic who, though a Catholic, is too friendly with English Conservatism and other influences which the Nationalists dislike. And it might be said, if there were seventy-five Protestants against twenty-five Catholics, that the Protestants when giving a vote in the way of Catholic representation would return 'shoneens'. I am not going to take your lordships' time up by arguing this to-day. With regard to schemes of proportional representation, as Calvin said of another study, 'excessive study either finds a man mad or makes him so.' At any rate, the Government of India doubted whether our plan would work, and we have abandoned it. I do not think it was a bad plan, but it is no use, if you are making an earnest attempt in good faith at a general pacification, to let parental fondness for a clause interrupt that good process by sitting obstinately tight.

        The Mahomedans demand three things. I had the pleasure of receiving a deputation from them and I know very well what is in their minds. They demand the election of their own representatives to these councils in all the stages, just as in Cyprus, where, I think, the Mahomedans vote by them- selves. They have nine votes and the non-Mahomedans have three, or the other way about. So in Bohemia, where the Germans vote alone and have their own register. Therefore we are not without a precedent and a parallel for the idea of a separate register. Secondly, they want a number of seats in excess of their numerical strength. Those two demands we are quite ready and intend to meet in full. There is a third demand that, if there is a Hindu on the Viceroy's Executive Council--a subject on which I will venture to say a little to your lordships before, I sit down--there should be two Indian members on the Viceroy's Council and that one should be a Mahomedan. Well, as I told them and as I now tell your lordships, I see no chance whatever of meeting their views in that way to any extent at all. To go back to the, point of the registers, some may be shocked at the idea of a religious register at all, of a register framed on the principle of religious belief. We may wish, we do wish-certainly I do-that it were otherwise. We hope that time, with careful and impartial statesmanship, will make things otherwise. Only let us not forget that the difference, between Mahomedanism and Hinduism is not a mere difference of articles of religious faith. It is a difference in life, in tradition, in history, in all the social things as well as articles of belief that constitute a community. Do not let us forget what makes it interesting and even exciting. Do not let us forget that, in talking of Hindus and Mahomedans, we are dealing with and brought face to face with vast historic issues, dealing with some of the very mightiest forces that through all the centuries and ages have moulded the fortunes of great States and the destinies of countless millions of mankind. Thoughts of that kind are what give to Indian politics and to Indian work extraordinary fascination, and at the same time impose the weight of no ordinary burden.

        Now I will come to the question which, I think has excited, certainly in this country, more interest than anything else in the scheme before you-I mean the question of an Indian member on the Viceroy's Executive Council. The noble marquess said here the other day that he hoped an opportunity would be given for discussing it. Whether it is in order or not-I am too little versed in your lordships' procedure to be quite sure-but I am told that the rules of order in this House are of an elastic description and that I shall not be trespassing beyond what is right, if I introduce the point to-night. I thoroughly understand the noble marquess's anxiety for a chance of discussion. It is quite true, and the House should not forget that it is quite true, that this question is in no way whatever touched by the Bill. If this Bill were rejected by Parliament it would be a great and grievous disaster to peace and contentment in India, but it would not prevent the Secretary of State the next morning from advising his Majesty to appoint an Indian Member. The members of the Viceroy's Executive Council are appointed by the Crown.

        The noble marquess the other day fell into a slight error, if he will forgive me for saying so. He said that the Government of India had used cautious and tentative words indicating that it would be premature to decide at once this question of the Indian member until after further experience had been gained. I think the noble marquess must have lost his way in the mazes of that enormous blue-book which, as he told us, caused him so much inconvenience and added so much to his excessive luggage during the Christmas holidays. The dispatch, as far as I can discover, is silent altogether on the topic of the Indian member of the Viceroy's Council, and deals only with the Councils of Bombay and Madras and the proposed Councils for the Lieutenant-Governorships.

        Perhaps I might be allowed to remind your lordships of the Act of 1833--certainly the most extensive measure of Indian government between Mr. Pitt's famous Act of 1784 and Queen Victoria's assumption of the government of India. There is nothing so important as that Act. It lays down in the broadest way possible the desire of Parliament of that day that there was to be no difference in appointing to offices in India between one race and another, and the covering dispatch wound up by saying that:

'For the future, fitness is to be the criterion of eligibility.'

        I need not quote the famous paragraph in the Queen's proclamation of 1858, for every member of the House who takes an interest in India knows that by heart. Now, the noble marquess says that his anxiety is that nothing shall be done to impair the efficiency of the Viceroy's Council. I share that anxiety with all my heart. I hope the noble marquess will do me the justice to remember that in these plans I have gone beyond the Government of India in resolving that a permanent official majority shall remain in the Viceroy's Council. Lord MacDonnell said the other day:

'I believe you cannot find any individual native gentleman who is enjoying general confidence who would be able to give advice and assistance to the Governor-General in Council.'

        It has been my lot to be twice Chief Secretary for Ireland, and I do not believe I can truly say I ever met in Ireland a single individual native gentle man who 'enjoyed general confidence'. And yet I received at Dublin Castle most excellent and competent advice. Therefore I will accept that statement from the noble lord. The question is whether there is no one of the 300 millions of the population of India who is competent to be the officially constituted adviser of the Governor-General in Council in the administration of Indian affairs. You make an Indian a Judge of the High Court, and Indians have even been acting Chief Justices. As to capacity who can deny that they have distinguished themselves as administrators of native States, where far more demand is made on their resources, intellectual and moral? It is said that the presence of an Indian member would cause restraint in the language of discussion. For a year and a half I have had two Indians at the Council of India, and I have never found the slightest restraint whatever.

        Then there is the question, What are you going to do about the Hindu and the Mahomedan? When Indians were first admitted to the High Courts, for a long time the Hindus were more fit and competent than the Mahomedans; but now I am told the Mahomedans have their full share. The same sort of operation would go on in quinquennial periods between Hindus and Mahomedans. Opinion amongst the great Anglo-Indian officers now at home is divided, but I know at least one, not, I think, behind even Lord MacDonnell in experience or mental grasp, who is strongly in favour of this proposal. One circumstance which cannot but strike your lordships as remarkable is the comparative absence of hostile criticism of this idea by the Anglo-Indian Press, and, as I am told, in Calcutta society. I was apprehensive at one time that it might be otherwise. I should like to give a concrete illustration. The noble marquess opposite said the other day that there was going to be a vacancy in one of the posts on the Viceroy's Executive Council-namely, the legal member's time would soon be up. Now, suppose there were in Calcutta an Indian lawyer of large practice and great experience in his profession-a man of unstained professional and personal repute, in close touch with European society and much respected, and the actual holder of important legal office. Am I to say to that man: 'In spite of all these excellent circumstances to your credit, in spite of your undisputed fitness, in spite of the emphatic declaration of 1833 that fitness is to be the criterion of eligibility, in spite of that noble promise in Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858 -a promise of which every Englishman ought to be for ever proud if he tries to adhere to it, and rather ashamed if he tries to betray or mock it-in spite of all this, usage and prejudice are so strong that I dare not appoint you, but must appoint instead some stranger to India from Lincoln's Inn or the Temple?' Is there one of your lordships who would envy the Secretary of State who had to hold language of that kind to a meritorious candidate, one of the King's equal subjects? I put it to your lordships in that concrete way. These abstract general arguments are slippery. I do not say there is no force in them, but there are deeper questions at issue to which Lord Minto and myself attach the greatest importance. My lords, I thank you for listening to me, and I beg to move the Second Reading.

From: A. Berriedale Keith, ed. Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 1750-1921. Vol. II. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1922, 81-98.