Now, I sometimes say to friends of mine in the House, and I venture respectfully to say it to you--there is one tremendous fallacy which it is indispensable for you to banish from your minds, taking the point of view of a British Liberal…

In my view that is the most concise statement that I can imagine, of the grossest fallacy in all politics.

I think it is the hollowest and, I am sorry to say, the commonest, of all the fallacies in the history of the world in all stages of civilisation.

Because a particular policy or principle is true and expedient and vital in certain definite circumstances, therefore it must be equally true and vital in a completely different set of circumstances.

What sophism can be more gross and dangerous?

You might just as well say that, because a fur coat in Canada at certain times of the year is a truly comfortable garment, therefore a fur coat in the Deccan is just the very garment that you would be delighted to wear.

Yes, but that reproach will only have a sting in it, if you persuade me that Ireland with its history, the history of the Rebellion, Union and all the other chapters of that dismal tale, is exactly analogous to the 300 millions of people…

First of all, I hope that the Government of India, so long as I am connected with it and responsible for it to Parliament and to the country, will not be hurried by the anger of the impatient idealist.

Is it a good way to help reformers like Lord Minto and myself, in carrying through political reform, to inflame the minds of those who listen to such teachers, to inflame their minds with the idea that our proposals and projects are shams?

Do not think there is a single responsible leader of the reform party in India, who does not deplore the outbreak of disorder that we have had to do our best to put down; who does not agree that disorder, whatever your ultimate policy may…

If India to-morrow became a self-governing Colony--disorder would still have to be put down with an iron hand; I do not know and I do not care, to whom these gentlemen propose to hand over the charge of governing India.

Whoever they might be, depend upon it that the maintenance of order is the foundation of anything like future progress.

To nobody in this world, by habit, by education, by experience, by views expressed in political affairs for a great many years past, to nobody is exceptional repression, more distasteful than it is to me.

After all, gentlemen, you would not have me see men try to set the prairie on fire without arresting the hand.

We will not be hurried into repression, any more than we will be hurried into the other direction.

We are representatives, not of Oriental civilisation, but of Western civilisation, of its methods, its principles, its practices; and I for one will not be hurried into an excessive haste for repression, by the argument that Orientals do…

Extremists are few, but they are active; their field is wide, their nets are far spread.

Anybody who has read history knows that the Extremist often beats the Moderate by his fire, his heated energy, his concentration, by his very narrowness.

Yet we still hold that it would be the height of political folly for us at this moment to refuse to do all we can, with prudence and energy, to rally the Moderates to the cause of the Government, simply because the policy will not satisfy…

Let us, if we can, rally the Moderates, and if we are told that the policy will not satisfy the Extremists, so be it.

It is the height of folly to refuse to rally sensible people, because we do not satisfy Extremists.

Is all that is called unrest in India mere froth?

Is it the result of natural order and wholesome growth in this vast community?

Is India with all its heterogeneous populations--is it moving slowly and steadily to new and undreamt of unity?

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