Lord Carmichael speaks to the House of Lords on the Government of India Bill, 12 December 1919

MY LORDS, I moved the adjournment of the Debate last night on behalf of Lord Harris, who, however, is not able to be present, so I will now make the few remarks that I desire to offer. I think I am entitled to say something, as it is not very long since I was a Governor of a Presidency in India. Some of your Lordships who know about recent affairs in India probably look upon me as holding views on the subject of this Bill which may be considered rather advanced--probably more advanced than those of most members of your Lordships' House; and I admit that this certainly is the case, although I trust that your Lordships will believe me when I say that the views I do hold are views of the correctness of which I am perfectly convinced.

        I dare say if I had not gone to India at the time when I did, or if I had gone to another part of India, I should not hold these views. I am not surprised that most members of this House do not look at these things quite as I do, because, if I had never been in India, or if I had gone to India before the passing of the Morley-Minto reforms--and I think even if I had not gone to India before the visit of the King-Emperor--I should not have thought as I do now. I am inclined to believe that if I had stayed on in Madras, where I first went as Governor, and had not gone to Bengal, I might have looked at things rather differently, and I probably should not have taken the view that, even if this Bill had gone a good deal farther than it does, go, it should not be opposed, on general principles at any rate. That is the point of view from which I look at the Bill, and I congratulate my noble friend the Under-Secretary of State for India (Lord Sinha) on the present form in which the Bill is; and, were he here I should congratulate my noble friend the Earl of Selborne and his colleagues on the form which has been adopted as the result of their labours on the Joint Committee.

        I do not pretend that I look upon the Bill as a perfect Bill--I certainly do not. If it were any use I should make criticisms on some matters on which probably most members of this House would agree with me. I do not love the idea of the dyarchy any more, I think probably, than, most members of this House, or most of those who have any knowledge of Indian administration. But I realize that no other alternative has been offered. Looking at it simply from the point of view of my own experience as a Governor in India, I believe there are just as many good arguments to be used against a scheme put forward by certain Lieutenant -Governors as there are to be used against the idea of the dyarchy. In any case, whatever is done will be somewhat in the nature of an experiment; in any case there will be difficulty, and I recognize that there will be danger; and I think in any case the point of view of a past Governor like myself would be that we have to make the best of whatever is brought forward.

        Personally I do not much mind what the form of the Bill is as long as something is done, and as long as there is sufficient elasticity to make whatever is done into something which will lead to a better state of affairs in India. I recognize as fully as anybody in this House that there is danger. I, perhaps, see some of the dangers which most members of this House do not see--or perhaps I see them a little more clearly. I recognize, and I think the Under-Secretary recognizes, that a very large number of the people of India cannot be said by their best friends, if they speak honestly at this moment, to be very suitable for self-government. But I believe that a great many of them are suitable for it, and I think that we ought not to wait until everyone is suitable. I know that many of those who are politically-minded--which I think is the expression used nowadays about those in India who take an interest in politics (they are a small proportion of the people of India)--have not been hitherto, and are not at this moment, very much enamoured of the present state of affairs. I would go farther and say that many of them do not like government by us. Personally I do not see why they should; and I will say at this moment that if I were an Indian I should hold very advanced views-views which many of your Lordships would look upon as extreme--and I should think that I was fully justified in holding them. But where I differ from many of my friends, especially from those who know India, is that I do not believe they will continue to be hostile to us. By 'us' I mean those people of Great Britain who govern India from the executive point of view at present.

        No one regrets more than I do the way in which Indians who are most fully informed on political matters dislike and distrust--I think honestly distrust--us. When I first went to Madras, and had not the experience I afterwards got, nothing gave me greater anxiety than the feeling that Indians who knew and cared most about politics thoroughly distrusted me. I say 'me' definitely, because many of them told me that they distrusted me; they did not distrust me in any personal sense, but they did not see how I could be in a position really to deal honestly with them. That caused me a great deal of anxiety, especially as I know it was honest distrust on their part, which they were not ashamed to avow to me, though they were not anxious to avow it to me; in fact, they would not do it for a long time until they began to trust me to a certain extent. I do not believe that this distrust need go on. I know that there are some men--with longer knowledge of India than I have; knowledge acquired at an earlier stage than I acquired mine--who believe (you have only to look at the newspapers from time to time to learn it) that the politically-minded Indians will not give up that distrust. But that is not my experience.

        Oddly enough, I got my Indian mail this morning and I have in my pocket letters from two Bengalis. These are both young men who at one time certainly held views which were not friendly to us, views which would have been looked upon by myself as dangerous, but they were honestly held--it was some time, I confess, before they would confide in me sufficient1v to tell me their real ideas--but they are men with whom I had a good deal of conversation and with whom I have had a good deal of correspondence. I am delighted to say that both their letters are about this Bill. They are not exactly the letters with which I dare say many of your Lordships would sympathize fully, but they say, and I am sure they honestly mean it, that in this Bill they see a prospect of hope which leads them to think that, after all, they have, perhaps, been wrong in the attitude which they held, believing honestly that it was impossible that British government of India could ever be such as they would gladly support. I am not going to deal with that very much. I have mentioned it merely because I know that some of your Lordships are aware that I am in sympathy--more, perhaps, than most who have been in India--with views which are looked upon as somewhat extreme. I am going farther to admit that possibly in the definition of what views were extreme and what were moderate I would go farther in the direction of extremism than a great many of my friends would in saying that certain views were moderate.

        We have all been younger than we now are. Some of us have modified our views--I know I have--on many points; and as we grow older I think we learn a certain amount of sense. One thing, which, perhaps, people in this country forget is that in India those who take an interest in politics are on the whole younger than the men who take an interest in politics here. It is rather difficult for us in this country to realize--it was very difficult for me to realize it when I first went to India--how much the very young count in matters of that sort. It is only when people begin to be educated--you may call it half-educated or three-quarter educated if you like--in Western ideas, that as a rule men of the upper classes (so to speak), or of the upper middle classes, in India take an interest in politics. Every year the number of men who are so educated becomes larger and larger. That, I think, is to our credit. I think any of your Lordships who have ever electioneered--as some of you have done and as I myself have done--will remember that the younger men did not count so much from the voting point of view as those who were rather older; but in India the more numerous body taking an interest in politics is always the youngest men, and, therefore, the men who have least experience. Though it is not necessarily so, at any rate you would still think they had all the enthusiasm and all the certainty of youth. It is in favour of British government that these men as they grow older and learn more will think more correctly; and I am conceited enough to think that if Indians think more correctly they will think more as their governors do.

        I have said enough upon that. I do not want to take up the time of the House, but there is one small matter at which I want to ask Lord Sinha to look. Perhaps in this I may be looked upon--I know that I am so looked upon by some of my friends--as somewhat reactionary. It is not often that I am looked upon as a reactionary. I do not quite know what 'reactionary' means, but generally it seems to me to mean, in the opinion of anybody who uses the term, that he thinks rather differently from you. I have no doubt many of your Lordships read The Times newspaper, and perhaps that is the quickest way of getting at the point. If so, although I know some of your Lordships to whom I have spoken missed it, others may have seen the letter from Professor Berriedale Keith, of Edinburgh University. He is a friend of mine, but he has not written to me about this matter, and I am speaking my own opinion. On December 1 he wrote to The Times drawing attention to a point which may be thought a small point, but which he says is of the highest constitutional importance. I confess that I regard it as of very high importance, and it may have escaped consideration. Mr. Keith draws attention to the Amendment in Part II of the Schedule--I am not going to deal with it, because I am sure that Lord Sinha will know what I mean--by which an addition is made to a clause in the Government of India Act, 1915, saying that the Ministers appointed under this Act, as is. the case with Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, the Chief Commissioner, and members of the Executive Council of the Governor-General or Lieutenant-Governor, are not to be subject to the original jurisdiction.

        There was a reply in The Times on Wednesday, December 3, from Sir Edward Chamier, which gave an explanation. No doubt it is the explanation which those who speak for the Government thought was good enough to put forward. It may be the only explanation. A further letter from Professor Keith appeared on Monday, December 8, in which he returned to the point. I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one. I have been a Governor in Australia, and a Governor in India, and I am an ordinary, commonplace man here. However, I do not think that this is a very important point. I quite see that it may be said that the new Ministers should be put on the same footing as the Executive Council or as the Governors. Possibly they should be. I am not certain myself that Governors ought to be in that position. However, this is a question with which constitutional lawyers can deal. Looking to the future--perhaps looking rather far ahead--I think that point ought to be fully considered. Perhaps it has been already, but the public ought to know that it has been more fully considered than the public at present think it has been. I do not believe that very much attention would be drawn to it in India, but my knowledge of India leads me to suppose that it is the sort of point which might come up some years hence. The only people in India who consider that sort of point wish India to be on a level with those other States which make up the British Empire, and I do not believe that they want their Ministers to be in a different position. No doubt these points will be looked into when we get into Committee, where there will be members of your Lordships' House who are learned in the law and in a far better position than I am to judge. I hope the Government will consider it and be able to satisfy us on the matter, because if they do not satisfy us they are raising up difficulty in India in the future.

        I said I would not say very much about my ideas as to where this Bill is defective, because there will be criticism from other members of this House, with much of which I shall agree. Where I differ from some members is that I feel more strongly than perhaps they do, that the greatest danger is to do nothing, and that the next greatest danger is to do something which seems in any way to detract from the authority of the Viceroy and from what I would almost call the veneration in which he is held in India. That is why I wish to see something done. This Bill has been put forward and nothing else, at any rate, has been more definitely proposed. What certainly weighs with me is that it is put forward on the strength of recommendations made by the Viceroy and by the Secretary of State, from which I might differ and do differ, in some respects, but I think it would be most unfortunate for India if we go very far from what they have recommended. That is the reason, more than any other, which weighs with me in being perfectly willing to sink my dislike of some of the provisions of the Bill, about which I know some of your Lordships hold very strong views.

        I am not going to press my own view that I think the Bill might have gone farther than it does in certain directions, because I can hardly expect your Lordships to agree with me. As I said a little while ago, if I had gone to India at an earlier date than I did, or if I had gone to a different part of India than that to which I did go, I believe I should not have hold the views I do hold. I believe however that those views will be generally held before very long in this country, though it takes a little time for them to spread. Only the younger men among officials think as I do, and I do not wonder at it; but I am not going to dwell on that. I am not sorry, because I know this is merely a step in the right direction. At least, I regard it as a step in the right direction, and I think all your Lordships admit that it is. There are very few members of your Lordships' House interested in India who do not agree that a good deal has to be done.

        I think we ought to be very thankful to the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and the other members of the Select Committee for the Report they have made. It is a most important document, and I do not think that the Under-Secretary of State overstated the case yesterday when he dwelt upon its importance. For my own part I feel extremely thankful--and I think all friends of India ought to feel thankful--also to my noble friend Lord Sydenham. He and I do not agree on a good many points, but there are others on which we agree very closely. Lord Sydenham has pointed out, dangers which he feels, and some of them I feel too, but we have drawn different conclusions, probably because he was not in Bengal in the years when I was there. However, we need not go into that. He is not going to change his mind, and I am afraid I am too stupid or too obstinate to change mine. On one or two other points probably Lord Sydenham will agree with me. This Bill when it becomes an Act will undoubtedly give us a great deal of cause for thought. I assume we are going to pass it, and in that case we are taking a step which would have astonished us if we had known ten years ago that we should take it. We are taking a step which, I think, will surprise people in European countries. At present they are thinking, as we are, of the War, but those interested in politics will be surprised to find that Great Britain is taking this step.

        The eyes of the whole world, indeed, will be on India to see what is the result. It lies, and must lie, with the people of India themselves, more than with anyone else, to make this Bill a success. Lord Sinha dealt with this point yesterday, and it is one which he was right to emphasize. Perhaps I can speak on this point more effectively than most people, as owing to circumstances there are Indians who fancy that I more than many other Englishmen sympathize with their advanced views. Those who are politically- minded in India, to whatever party and to whatever class they belong, are not, as a rule, very satisfied with their present position. I know that there are differences of opinion; that there are extremists and moderates, and that hitherto, perhaps naturally, the extremists have counted f or more as a force than the moderates.

        There was nothing I regretted more while I was in India than the position in which some of the moderate Indian reformers found themselves. I knew many of them. I have talked with them in Bengal, and I knew some of them in Madras. I did my best to try to know what they were really thinking, and I know that many moderate reformers, those whom the Government looked upon as moderate men, felt very bitterly their position. They were never sure when, to use a common expression, they might be 'put in the cart'. They were never sure when the Government would back them up, and I confess that, after all, one had as a Governor to think more of the views put forward by the extremists than by the moderates.

        But neither the extremists nor the moderates had very much power of getting anything done. They could criticize, and of course it was the criticism of the extremists that was most listened to. The moderates made suggestions to me and to my officers. They were not often very practical. How could they be? These people have no experience in administration. When I stood for a constituency in this country I had to listen to people putting forward views which were not exactly practical; and is it any wonder that impracticable views should be held by men who never had, and thought they would never have, the chance of having any real responsibility ?

        I do not blame the officials of the Government in India. They are all over-worked. The worst thing in India is the fact that every official from top to bottom is over-worked. Not one, from the Viceroy down to the most newly-joined officer, but is expected to do far more than any man ought to be expected to do. They try to do the work, but are very much over-worked, and when people are in that state they cannot have the patience, or show the patience, which is expected from them by men who were in the position of Lord Sinha when I first went to Bengal--intelligent men who thought on political questions, who had ideas well worth considering, and who wished to put them before those who alone could give effect to them. The officials had not the time to give to the consideration of these matters, and therefore brushed them aside, civilly I hope, though perhaps not always civilly. I know this from my own experience. You have to brush the proposal aside because you have not the time to deal with it and explain to the man the real position. I do not wonder that the moderate man has often felt that lie might just as well be an extremist.

        One of the best results of this Bill when it becomes an Act will be that it will give some sense of confidence to the moderate politically-minded Indians. From my knowledge of the Bengalis I do not think that the, politically-minded Bengali is as bold as he might be. The politically-minded Madrasis is a much bolder man. That is my experience. I was only a short time in Madras, but the number of Madrasis who told me I was wrong and gave me good reasons why they thought I was wrong--sometimes they were right--was much larger than the number of Bengalis who expressed their opinion. This is probably due to the fact that in Madras they have for a long time had a series of Governors, whereas I was the first Governor in Bengal. I know many of your Lordships will think, as I think, that a Lieutenant-Governor is much more likely to have, real knowledge about Indian affairs than a Governor has. I see just on my right one or two of your Lordships whose knowledge of Indians matters is far greater than mine can be. As to any details I bow to them, certainly, but I do not believe that the ordinary Indian would be as willing to be convinced by them as he would be by me, simply because he knows that they have been brought up in the Indian Civil Service, and he believes that they have got into traditions which, unfortunately but undoubtedly, have aroused a certain amount of distrust among Indians.

        I think there is an advantage in having a Governor rather than a Lieutenant-Governor, and a Governor who comes from this country--or I don't care where--but who has not been a Civil Servant in India. I said I do not care where he comes from. I think--it is a fad of my own--that a Governor might sometimes come, from another part than the British Isles. However, there is a great advantage in there being in the province one man who is ignorant--I do not care how ignorant--who even may be a fool, but who can ask questions, and whose questions must be answered--who has the right to ask questions and who, when something happens which he thinks is wrong, has a right to inquire into it. I have asked many questions. I used to ask questions in Madras, and also in Bengal, and I do not mind saying this-that when I went to Bengal, I think that sometimes some of my officers did not quite like my asking the questions which I did ask. They had an idea--a very natural idea--that I, as the first Governor after a change which they did not like quite as much as they might, should have sympathized with them, and that I was wasting their time, and that sort of thing; still they had to answer those questions, and I do not think it was at all a bad thing that they had to do so, because I hope that, when I was in Bengal, amongst Indians the idea grew up that there was one man who was, always to be blamed for anything that happened in Bengal, and that man was the Governor.

        I have said again and again to them. Well, if it is wrong I am to blame for it. Either I ought to have done it otherwise, or I ought to have seen that the person dealing with it was capable of dealing with it. That is not a position in which any Lieutenant-Governor who has been a member of the Civil Service ever can be or can be expected to be in. I say that the Indians must themselves make this Bill a success. If the moderate men prevail, as I hope they will, then this step will lead to success and will lead to further success, but I think it will lie with us--with the Government--to help the moderate men. It will lie with the members of the Civil Service to a great extent to help them, and I believe they will do so. I know myself that members of the Civil Service are not enamoured of this Bill. Many of them are against it, and I do not wonder at it. Their idea is, and it is a quite correct idea, that they have so far 'run the show', to use a common expression, very well. I think they have. And they do not quite see why we should alter the system. But I feel sure of this, that if we alter the system they will do their very best to make it a success.

        I know there are some of them who think that they will not have the power, so to speak, that they have hitherto had. My own view is that with the Ministers the Civil Service will have a very great deal of influence--more influence than they have with any member of an Executive Council. I believe that the Indian gentlemen who become Ministers will certainly want to make a success of their own work. They will be men of intelligence, and they will know that they themselves have no administrative or executive experience, and their first idea will be to rely on the officers who have. I am talking from some experience of Indian Executive Councillors, and my idea is that the Indian Executive Councillors listen to their secretaries and persons who advise them in a way which a secretary cannot complain of. I have discussed matters with my own executive councillors and I always found that my Indian executive councillors when they differed from me, as they sometimes did, quoted to me the views of their secretary, or some other member of the Indian Civil Service, far more than my English executive councillors did. I have not myself the slightest doubt that, at any rate at first, the danger will rather be that the Indian ministers will rely a little bit too much on individual members of the Indian Civil Service, and on English members of the Indian Civil Service.

        I shall say no more on that. I just want to say a word or two on two other points. Another person who will be in a great difficulty is undoubtedly the Governor. I am speaking feelingly in this. I think the Governor under the new system will be in a very difficult position. That has been recognized in Lord Selborne's report, and we will have to take care that good men go out as Governors. I know that it will be said it is difficult to find Governors, and still more to find good ones, but I think the future of this Bill will lie with them to a very great extent. One other thing, I am very glad to see that the Joint Committee have recommended that the matter of Europeans in Bengal should, at any rate, be considered. I have always found as a Governor that a great deal of help could be given by non-official Europeans. They do not take much interest in politics. Many of them are Scotsmen, and I am a Scotsman, and I quite sympathize with them. They were attending to their own business, but I often felt that if only they would help me to attend to mine a little more than they did it would help matters on. I hope when it comes to dealing with the rules that they will be considered very fully.

From: A. Berriedale Keith, ed. Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 1750-1921. Vol. II. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1922, 266-281.