The Under-Secretary for India, Mr. Grant Duff, in a later
speech to his constituents than that on which we commented last week, while referring—in terms very honourable and cordial to this journal—to our comments on the comparative neglect with which he had treated the fearful calamity menacing Bengal, remarked as follows :—" Now, gentlemen, I will tell you why I did not say more about the state of things in Bengal. There are no facts connected with it, except those known to all the world, which are known to me otherwise than confidentially. Everybody who thinks for a moment must be aware that anything I could say about it would be either empty common-place, or would be matter .of the greatest importance, which would influence the markets one way or the other, and do perhaps irreparable public or pri- vate mischief. And so, gentlemen, I said all I dared to say." But this is to mistake the drift of our criticism. What we wanted was not, of course, either empty common-places, or revelations of " confidential " communications, but simply a speech containing moral evidence to the people of India and England that the terrible danger had full possession of the imaginations and sympathies of our Indian statesmen. It is quite a mistake to suppose that "all the world" has even realised as yet that there is an impending calamity in Bengal, far less made the effort to conceive its magni- tude and the vastness of our responsibilities. Only the other day, a Member of Parliament was heard to say that he had imagined the whole difficulty was provided for. The British people have no real conception of the meaning of famine in such a district as Bengal, and still less of the meaning of the task of defeating famine. It would be an effort well worthy of the ablest states- man to bring the true character of the danger home to the people of the United Kingdom, and nothing would tend more directly to increase the trust of the Bengalees in our rule. Mr
Grant Duff missed a great moral opportunity, which no one could have turned to better account than he.
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