TOPICS OF THE DAY.
INDIA. AND THE BRITISH DEMOCRACY.
T"perfect acquiescence, nay, satisfaction, with which the huge Liberal majority in Parliament and the country generally have accepted Mr. Morley's statement of the Government's attitude towards the unrest in India is no surprise to us. Though we realised that there was a certain risk of Liberal extremists encouraging through ignorance dangerous movements in India, we never had any doubt as to the v in which the Liberal Party would act should a crisis arise. We are convinced that the Liberals are quite as determined as any other party in the State to maintain our Indian Empire, and that they may be trusted at a moment of crisis to act with quite as mach firmness and determination as their opponents. CyniCal" observers might say that they have no other choice, because it is quite evident that the country would not tolerate any party which adopted a policy likely to lead to the loss of India. In our opinion, however, there is no need for such cynicism. We believe that the majority of Liberals, though they may be a little too much inclined to assume' that Western ideas can be applied without modification to the East, are at heart quite as proud of our achievements in India as their opponents, and quite as strongly determined not to abandon our work there at the bidding of a noisy fraction of the Indian population.
In writing as we have written we do not, of course, ignore the fact that there is a certain group' of Members of Parliament who take the speeches of Bengalee orators at their face value, and who honestly imagine that the chief Indian agitators desire nothing which is incompatible with the retention of our Indian Empire. We venture to say, however, that the supporters in Parliament -of the extremist section of the Congress movement will be quite unable to move any considerable part of public opinion in England, and that if they come into the open they will only show their weakness. We of course understand the desire of Mr. Morley and the Government not to have a debate in Parliament on the whole question, for in moments of crisis, or apprehended crisis, it is the very natural and proper instinct of rulers to talk as little as possible. If, however, these considerations could be put aside, we believe that not harm but good would come from a debate in Parliament, since it must prove to the fomentors of unrest in India how little they have to hope from even so Radical a Parliament as the present. The truth is that the moment a Cabinet Minister rises in Parliament and shows himself willing to declare that unless a particular policy is pursued he will not be responsible for the safety of the Indian Empire, all abstract Radical principles are forgotten. The nation sets its teeth and determines that whatever happens it will hold India, and that the further display of abstract democratic principles must wait for a more convenient season.
Looking at the matter impartially, we cannot but feel a certain amount of intellectual sympathy for the Indian agitators who are thus being perpetually misled by British Radicals. From their point of view, their British friends must seem the most faithless of men. Not 'only do they use language from which it appears that they consider that their special political principles are applicable to all peoples at all times and in all places, and not only do they give personal and detailed encouragement to individual Indians engaged in attempts to destroy the British raj, but they seem willing to further directly specific proposals of a revolutionary kind. Naturally the Indian agitater is delighted at receiving such help, and is inclined to think his cause half won. As soon, however, as the slightest strain comes—as soon, that is, as there is any attempt to translate theory into practice, and there occurs the necessary breaking of the eggs required to make the omelette —the British Radical starts back in indignation, and makes it quite clear that he never intended to sanction anything of that sort, and that, though he is very sorry that this or that gentleman with a difficult name should be inconvenienced or harshly treated by the bureaucrats of Simla and Calcutta. he cannot possibly give encouragement to violent and seditious acts. The Asiatic mind may hi regard to large questions be mystic and illogical, but as regards minor matters it is intensely syllogistic, and is disgusted to find how unwilling the British patrons of the so-called Indian national movement are to draw the " inevitable " conclusions from premisses which they are willing to endorse in the abstract with so much emphasis.
If the Indian agitators were wise, they would completely abandon the notion of getting any help which will be of the least practical use to them from the British Radicals. The help offered by such sympathisers, though no doubt honestly meant when first proffered, is sure in the end to prove a snare and a delusion. They will find also that democracies are what they would probably term, in their not unnatural disappointment, the most cruel, irresponsible, and least trustworthy of Governments when what are supposed to be the rights of dependents are concerned., As Burke pointed out in a passage of deep wisdom and eloquence, you must never suppose that it is possible to put the same kind of pressure upon a democracy that you can place upon an individual Sovereign or upon an oligarchy. Democracy acts like a great force of Nature, and is 83 impervious to the personal appeal. The sovereign people possess a complete self-confidence, and believe that what they do is invariably right. They have no' fears of ultimate consequences, or of being punished or held responsible for their acts, such as oligarchies and Kings have always in the background of their minds. They have an instinctive reliance upon the maxim, Vox popudi vox Dei. Democracies, again, know no fear of public opinion. "Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favour." Burke goes on to declare that a democracy is also the most fearless thing in the world. "No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought ; for, as all punishments are for example• towards the conservation of the people at large, the people at large can never become the object of punishment by' any human hand." For this reason "it is of infinite' importance," continues Burke, "that they should not be suffered to imagine that their -will, any more than that of kings, is the Stiandard of right and wrong." With that view of the moral responsibility of democracies we are in entire agreement. But such agreement does not prevent us from realising the penetrating truth of Burke's view as' to the self-confidence and fearlessness of democracy, and of how little avail it is to tell the people, when it has made up its mind on a particular line of action, that it thought, or seemed to think, very differently a year before. The plea which may be so effectual with a King or with an oligarchy, ." Why did you lead us on ? " is utterly powerless to move a democracy. It does not seem even to hear such a complaint.
But though we state this warning in regard to those who are agitating in favour of the paradox of fiction, Indian Nationalism, we fear there is little chance of our warning being heard. What is far more likely is that as soon, as the present crisis subsides the Indian agitators will once more begin to build upon hopes excited by the irresponsible outpourings of individual British democrats, and once more will be bitterly disappointed by the event. That is a result to be deeply regretted ; but it is one, we fear, for which there is no remedy. We must take democracy as we find it, and cannot hope to alter its essential conditions. One of these is unconsciously to lay what seems almost a trap for the undoing of persons like Lala Lajpat Rai.
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