Tried by this test, Lord Morley's attitude is triumphantly vindicated.
His proposals would, he declared, be extremely illogical if he were endeavouring to set up a Parliamentary system in India, but that was not the goal to which he aspired. "If I knew my days, either official or corporeal, were to be twenty times longer than they can be, I should be sorry to set out for the goal of a great Parliament over India." He was not, he declared, an Imperialist, but he presided over the destinies of a people ranging in their stages of transition from the Europeans of the fifth century in some parts by various stages to the twentieth century in other parts, and "to be the guide of this movement is not
only a human duty, but a great national honour, and one of the most glorious tasks ever confided to any Government." Lord Morley further declared that he fully approved of, and shared responsibility for, the introduction of drastic machinery in the work of government. To persist in reforms is not concession to violence, but simply standing to our guns.
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