John Morley

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…

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

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

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.

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

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.

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…

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?

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.

I don't myself believe in artful diplomacy; I have no gift for it.

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…

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.

What sophism can be more gross and dangerous?

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.

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.

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

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…

Democracy cannot govern remote dependencies." I do not know; it is a hard question.

Still, when all such difficulties are measured and taken account of, it is impossible to overrate the courage, the patience and fidelity, with which the present House of Commons faces what is not at all an easy moment in Indian Government.

Another point is that the Press is very often flooded with letters from Indians or ex-Indians--from Indicus olim, and others--too oftened coloured with personal partisanship and deep-dyed prepossessions.

I assure you that a mirror of that kind does not give you a more grotesque reproduction of the human physiognomy, than some of these tremendous telegrams give you as to what is happening in India.

We have got somehow or other, whatever the details of policy and executive act may be, we are bound by the first law of human things to maintain order.

In the interests of India, to say nothing of our own national honour, in the name of duty and of common sense, our first and commanding task is to keep order and to quell violences among race and creed; sternly to insist on the impartial…

How should we bear the smarting stings of our own consciences, when, as assuredly we should, we heard through the dark distances the roar and scream of confusion and carnage in India?

How should we look in the face of the civilised world if we had so turned our back upon our duty and sovereign task?