John Morley

Well, well, the ship (speaking of me) swings on the tide, but the anchor holds." Yes, gentlemen, I am no Pharisee, but I do believe that my anchor holds, and your cheers show that you believe it too.

I will confess to you in friendly confidence, that I have winced when I read of lifelong friends of mine saying that I have, in certain Indian transactions, shelved the principles of a lifetime.

Now I think a public man who spends overmuch time in vindicating his consistency, makes a mistake.

We ought to face it with sympathy, with kindness, with firmness, with a love of justice, and, whether the weather be fair or foul, in a valiant and manful spirit.

We know that we are not doing it for our own interest alone, or our own fame in the history of the civilised world alone, but for the interest of the millions committed to us.

Anybody who pictures to himself the anarchy, the bloody chaos, that would follow from any such deplorable step, must shrink from that sinister decision.

That is not only a great ethical, but a great political law, and we shall reap a sour and sorry harvest if it is forgotten.

To govern men, there is but one way, and it is eternal truth.

But there is another vital fact--namely, that the Indian Asiatic is a man with very vivid susceptibilities of all kinds, and with living traditions of a civilisation of his own; and we are bound to treat him with the same kind of respect…

There is vital difference, and it is infatuation to ignore it.

I believe I have defended myself from ignoring the principle that there is a difference between the Western European and the Indian Asiatic.

I may have to argue it in Parliament at a later stage, but I think it is right to say what is my intention, realising as we all do how few opportunities the governing bodies have of hearing the voice of Indians.

I think that the time has now come when the Secretary of State may safely, wisely, and justly recommend at any rate one Indian member.

To hesitate to make a beginning with our own policy of improving the administrative machinery of the Indian Government, would have been taken as a sign of nervousness, trepidation, and fear; and fear, that is always unworthy in any…

They held that, to draw back on account of local and sporadic disturbances, however serious, anxious, and troublesome they might be, would have been a really grave humiliation.

They see that the British hand works the State machine surely and smoothly, and they think, having no fear of race animosities, that their hand could work the machine as surely and as smoothly as the British hand.

Their means--many of them--are scanty; they have little to lose and much to gain from far-reaching changes.

There need be no surprise in the fact that they want a share in political influence, and want a share in the emoluments of administration.

This educated section is making and will make all the difference.

So they are, in numbers; but it is fatally idle to say that this infinitesimal fraction does not count.

Now, when two men, singularly unlike in temperament and training, agreed as to the evil of centralisation on this large scale, it compels reflection.

But in their hearts they know that their solid interest is bound up with the law and order that we preserve.

It does not come easy, in west or east, to like foreign rule.

Do not let us waste ourselves in controversy, here or elsewhere, or in mere anger; let us try to draw to our side the men who now influence the people.

Yet all evidence tends to show we are rather making administration less personal, though evidence also tends to show that the Indian people are peculiarly responsive to sympathy and personal influence.