DYARCHY UPON ITS TRIAL [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sut,—The recently issued Report of the Committee appointed in India to investigate the working of Dyarchy is certainly a very startling pronouncement. There is naturally a difference of opinion amongst the members, but the praise of the majority is so faint and the criticism on their part is so strong that, , without any consideration of what the very powerful minority have to say, it is clear that the child of Lord Chelmsford and Mr. Montagu is doomed. What the majority say, it seems to me, comes to this : Dyarchy is a very poor, feeble thing ; it does not suit India, but let us keep it going till the end of the .ten years, because—well, because we have said that no revision should take place till ten years have elapsed. There is some 'force in what they say, but there is very much more force in what the minority have put forward. In any case there is really nothing in the ten years argument from a practical
• point of view. If we began now to try and evolve a federal constitution for India it would occupy us for several years, and before it could be got into working order at least the sacred time would have elapsed—probably more.
It is not an easy business to make a satisfactory constitution for a great Empire. But we can learn many lessons from the past. And one principle I think all will accept now is that we should never introduce Englishmen and Indians in the same .services on the same terms. If we do so the Indians will always think that they are not getting fair play and the English will also think exactly the same ; and probably in some cases both will be right. And the reasons against such a course are the stronger where of the two races one is still called—I leave others to say whether rightly or wrongly—the ruling race. It is so much better to avoid racial feeling. In India we have deliberately invited it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. A. J. ARCHBOLD.
(Late Principal of Allgarb, Dacca, and Muir Central Colleges.) Selwyn Croft, Cambridge.
Previous page
