Letters to the Editor
PROVINCIAL GOVERNORS FOR INDIA
[To the Editor, of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Speaking to the Liberal candidates at the National Liberal Club on December 5th, Mr. Lloyd George said : " I have worked with Civil Servants for seventeen years, and I know their value in peace and war, and anybody who tries to dis- parage them is a man who does not know what he is talking about. But they have got their limitations. They have got their functions, and the function of a Civil Servant is not to dictate or to thwart policy, but to carry it out. But they must take orders and advise as to the best methods of carrying it out, and if they do that you get full value out of them. Otherwise you will find that it will mean that there will be no advance."
Although these words were not addressed to the delegates of the India Round Table Conference, yet they will do well to ponder over them. In the future, as never before, the Provincial Governors in India will be called upon to show imagination and initiative. It will not do for them only to have their ears close to the ground, but they must also see the horizon. They must study world-movements and watch their repercussions on India. Without in the least suggesting any offence to the great Indian Civil Service, one may be pardoned for saying that these purpoSes will be best served by appointing distinguished public men, British and Indian, as Governors of Indian provinces. Should anybody, how- ever, entertain a suspicion that an Indian public man may in circumstances fail to rise above his party prejudices (a suspicion in itself not very generous), such a possibility may be guarded against by appointing Provincial Governors, when they are to be Indians, to hold office in provinces other than their own. This procedure will also serve, at least to some extent, to prevent the growth of excessive provincialism in India.—I am, Sir, &c., D. P. RAYCHATJDHURI. 23 Parliament Hill, N. W. 8.
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