TOPICS OF THE DAY.
INDIAN REFORMS.
THOUGH we feel obliged to make certain criticisms in detail of Lord Morley's plans of Indian reform, and to express certain misgivings as to their practical effect, we desire before we do this to state that with the abstract principles laid down by Lord Morley, and with the spirit in which he approaches his task, we are in the heartiest agreement. We have for Lord Morley's attitude both the sympathy of comprehension and the sympathy of approbation. We understand what he is aiming at, and we believe that his object is a sound one. Let us begin . by expressing our satisfaction with Lord Morley's scheme on the negative side. He is not yielding to the pressure exercised by disorder. No one can justly say that his reforms would never have been proposed but for the present agitation in India, and the assassinations and attempted assassinations of officials. As he himself has put it, he has stuck to his guns—that is, to a policy of reform— undeterred by the violence of those whose object it is to weaken our rule in India, and who are careless what weapons they employ. Lord Morley and the Government of India are not inspired by panic, nor are they yielding to the argument of the bomb where they would not yield to the argument of reason. There is another thing which Lord Morley is not doing, and for not doing which he must have the sympathy of all true friends of India and of the Indian people. He is not attempting to lay the foundations of a Parliamentary system in India, or taking the first step towards endowing India with representative institutions. He clearly realises how unsuitable and how fraught with peril any such system would be.
• When we come to Lord Morley's positive principles we can hail them as no less sound than those which are negative. It may be said of Lord Morley as a politician what was said of Wordsworth as a poet. lie never fails to keep his eye on the object. That object is the welfare and happiness of our Indian Empire and its peoples as a whole. We hold India in trust for the natives of India, and our essential aim must be to secure to them the right and opportunity to pursue happiness, not as Western nations in general desire to pursue it, or as the British people in particular desire to pursue it, butin accordance with their special interests, needs, and circumstances. Modern political philosophers will perhaps tell us that such a view of government is hopelessly antiquated. If so, we must, confess to being old-fashioned and out of date. Whether the various races and peoples of India will ever be in a position to govern themselves better than we can govern them remains to be seen. At present there can be no doubt that it would not be for their happiness to be emancipated from the control of their trustee. While the trust lasts the trustee must think solely of what is in the interests of the cestuis-que-trust. This does not, of course, mean that we are not to listen to the voice of the cestuis-que-trust— i.e., of those in whose interests the trust exists—or to try to meet their wishes wherever possible. it only means that those wishes are not to be regarded as the paramount con- sideration. The paramount consideration is, as we have said, the welfare of the Indian community as a whole. To put the matter in a practical form : we must not alter our system of government in India either because of bombs and murders, or even should a majority of the people of India ask for the alteration, and still less if a small section asks for it. On the other hand, if we are con- vinced that certain reforms are good per se, and likely to improve our system of government, we must not withhold them because of unrest or agitation, or because they have been asked for in a disagreeable or offensive way. A trustee who A'as moved by such petty and pedantic considerations as these would have proved himself unworthy of his trust.
What is to be said of Lord Morley's proposals, judged by the principles just laid down ? In our opinion, the report to be made of them is that they are in general prudent and sound. For example, we are on the whole in agreement with what Lord Morley says as to the maintenance of the freedom of the Press, though we see certain dangers and difficulties. What we want to do is to punish, and punish severely, the license of the Press in
disseminating incitements to assassination and rebellion, not to attempt to restrict its general freedom. A wholesale Press censorship is bad if only because it is impossible. Here, if anywhere, Burke's great dictum is true. "I must bear with inconveniences till they fester into crimes." The alternative would be to put not only the Press, but the whole of society, into leading-strings lest they should use their liberty to commit excesses. The Jesuits tried that in Paraguay, and made a disastrous failure of their experiment. The cloistered people reared in their Reducc ions were unfit not only to govern them- selves, but to be governed. Indeed, it might almost be said of these infantes barbati in Shakespeare's words : " Unfit to govern, nay, unfit to live."
With Lord Morley's proposal to enlarge and reform the Provincial Councils by abolishing the official majority and making the non-official members elected representatives of certain classes of the community, and by giving them the power of discussion and of passing recommendations and resolutions, we find ourselves in sympathy, for we hold that the veto of the Governor is sufficient check on these bodies. We trust, however, that it will be made clear from the very beginning that these Councils are in no way Parliaments in embryo. The real danger is the danger of false analogy. So strong is the precedent of the British Parliament, and so far-reaching the power of imitation, that deliberative Assemblies are very apt, because they deliberate and vote resolutions, to think that if they are not tinned with all the rights and powers of the House of Comtnous they are somehow being defrauded and oppressed. The Provincial Councils must, then, be made from the very beginning to realise that the reform of their organisation is not a step towards turning them into Parliaments, but merely a development on their own lines as con- sultative and advisory Councils. Again, the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors must be made to feel that their exercise of the veto is a. perfectly natural and simple function, and does not in any way involve a Constitutional crisis. The veto must not be used only in the last resort. It should be looked on as nothing more than the Governor's intimation that, while he appreciates the bona fides of the Council, he does not agree with it,and that as the last word is confided. to him, his will prevails, but prevails without inflicting any injury, or even any snub, upon the Council. it would be fatal to Indian administration if the idea were to grow up that the Governor must not always be saying " No " to his Council, and that therefore he must occasionally pass measures, not because he approves of them, but because he cannot go on saying " No " for ever. He must be able to say " No " as easily as a majority of the House of Commons says " No " to the minority. Again, we see no reason to object to an enlargement of the Executive Provincial Councils such as Lord Morley proposes.
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