John Morley

But after such a policy had produced a mute, sullen, muzzled, lifeless India, we could hardly call it, as we do now the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown.

We shall ask Parliament to repeal this prohibition.

We shall propose to invest legislative Councils with power to discuss matters of public and general importance, and to pass recommendations or resolutions to the Indian Government.

It is a device by which the Governor-General, or the Governor of Bombay or Madras, may secure a majority in his Legislative Council by means of officials and nominees.

But anybody can see how directly, how palpably, how injuriously, an arrangement of this kind tends to weaken, and I think I may say even to deaden, the sense both of trust and responsibility in the non-official members of these councils.

Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an attitude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of members of these Legislative Councils.

If I were attempting to set up a Parliamentary system in India, or if it could be said that this chapter of reforms led directly or necessarily up to the establishment of a Parliamentary system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at…

If my existence, either officially or corporeally, were prolonged twenty times longer than either of them is likely to be, a Parliamentary system in India is not at all the goal to which I would for one moment aspire.

The absence of an Indian member from the Viceroy's Executive Council can no longer, I think, be defended.

The Secretary of State can, to-morrow, if he likes, if there be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Council, recommend His Majesty to appoint an Indian member.

All I want to say is that, if, during my tenure of office, there should be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Executive Council, I should feel it a duty to tender my advice to the King that an Indian member should be appointed.

The great object, the main object, is that the merits of individuals are to be considered and to be decisive, irrespective and independent of race and colour.

I find in it a chance of getting the Indian angle of vision, and I feel sometimes as if I were actually in the streets of Calcutta.

But this, at all events, must be common sense--for the Governor-General and the European members of his Council to have at their side a man who knows the country well, who belongs to the country and who can give him the point of view of an…

Let me say further, on the Judicial Bench in India everybody recognises the enormous service that it is to have Indian members of abundant learning, and who add to that abundant learning a complete knowledge of the conditions and life of…

I propose at once, if Parliament agrees, to acquire powers to double the Executive Council in Bombay and Madras, and to appoint at least one Indian member in each of those cases, as well as in the Governor-General's Council.

What we still want to acquire is moral strength--moral strength in guiding and controlling the people of India in the course on which time is launching them.

Let us abandon all that system of calumny against natives of India which has lately prevailed.

Had that people not been docile, the most governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power there for 100 years?

Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are they not, upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian service ever produced, endowed with many qualities which make them respected by all Englishmen who mix with…

I would not permit any man in my presence without rebuke to indulge in the calumnies and expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth without measure upon the whole population of India....

The people of India do not like us, but they would scarcely know where to turn if we left them.

We found a society in a state of decomposition, and we have undertaken the serious and stupendous process of reconstructing it.

I do not think that the millennium will come in five more weeks, nor in fifty weeks; but I do say that for a scheme of so wide a scope to be received as this scheme has been received, is a highly encouraging sign.

I would use my best endeavours to make these States independent in matters of administration.