EUROPEANS IN INDIA.
TI1HE European Association of Calcutta has issued an official statement of its views on the Montagu-Chelms- ford reform scheme, which ought carefully to be- studied by all those who wish to form an opinion on the proposals now under discussion. Those proposals, it may be remarked in passing, cannot, as the Government have admitted, be put into operation until a decision has been reached on the question of the electorates. A Commission under the presidency of Lord Southborough is now, or soon will be, at work in India studying this question. Nobody yet' knows whether the Commission is likely to recommend what in this country would be called a democratic suffrage, or whether it will content itself with proposing some slight extension of the existing very minute electorate for Indian Councils. In the latter event the pre- tence that the proposed reforms are democratic in character may be at once dismissed. Their whole effect would be to transfer the responsibility for a large part of the work of government in India from the existing holders of that responsi- bility to a small oligarchy mainly consisting of English- educated Indians, who, in the majority of cases, are less representative of the interests of the masses of India than is the average English official. If, on the other hand, Lord Southborough's Commission decides to make the suffrage democratic at once, Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford will be faced with the difficulty of attempting to explain to a totally ignorant electorate the principles of representative government.
The Report before us deals in a masterly manner with some of the main issues involved in the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme. In particular it lays stress upon a point which already has the endorsement of the Mohammedan community, and is eagerly advocated by the non-Brahmins of Southern India-- namely, the necessity for what is known as " communal " representation. The phrase needs explanation for English readers. It does not mean, as the average English reader might be likely to assume, the representation of " communes," or local governing bodies, which is the historical basis of the House of Commons, and is expressed in its French name, La Charabre des Communes. What it does mean is that groups of persons professing the same faith should be repre- sented as communities and not merely as inhabitants of a particular area. Thus in any electoral district the Moham- medans would vote as a body, the Brahmins perhaps as another body, the lower Hindu castes as a third. In the Punjab the Sikhs would vote separately from Hindus, and in the Bombay Presidency Parsees would also be separately represented. The European Association argues that non- official Europeans should also be represented in any quasi- Parliamentary bodies that may be created. The claim is a reasonable one. The British Empire in India owes its origin to the non-official Englishmen who went there without any Government aid more than three centuries ago with no other intention than building up trade, but who ended by building up an Empire. To-day a very large part of the commercial and industrial enterprise in India is in the hands of Europeans, mainly Englishmen and Scotsmen. If their enterprise were withdrawn, a large part of the wealth of India would instantly disappear, and though the Parsees, as the Tata firm have so brilliantly shown, are capable of far-seeing enterprise and of bold undertakings, there are not enough of such indigenous elements in India to ensure her industrial progress if the Europeans were withdrawn. Surely then they are entitled to vote as a community so that their views may be definitely brought before any governing body that is established.
Coming to the proposed Constitution which Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford have fashioned for India, the European Association points out how in many crucial matters the scheme must fail to meet the ends aimed at. As far as can be gathered from the text of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, the principal aim was to train three hundred million Asiatics to a full appreciation of Parliamentary representative government as developed by centuries of experience in Great Britain. But when the authors came face to face with a few of the hard facts brought under their notice, they realized that they must compromise with the principle which guided their policy. For example, it is the essence of our Parliamentary system that a 'Ministry which cannot retain the confidence of the House of Commons must resign, and the same principle applies, or is supposed to apply, indirectly to individual Ministers. The Montagu-Chelmsford scheme, however, proposes that the Indian Ministers who are to take charge of certain branches of work in Indian administration are not to be dismissable if they lose the confidence of the Legislative Council. They may be entirely incapable ; they may be altogether unpopular ; but they will continue to hold their offices as long as the Legislative Council retains its existence. The result, as the European Association points out, will be that the Indian Ministers, who will form the most prominent feature of the new Constitution, " will not receive an essential part of the training for office under what in the British Empire is regarded as a representative system—a training, that is, in the business or art of persuading and managing members so that a majority of them support his (the Minister's] policy, and of doing this continuously, under peril of loss of office.
The necessity of so convincing and manipulating members may be detrimental to good administration or prompt action ; it may involve some humiliation, some economy of truth ; but it is a necessity under the representative system of government, and it is therefore a necessary part of any education for representative government."
The most characteristic feature of the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme is the dualism, or diarchy, to use the phrase of the Report, which it creates. Certain functions which are essential to the maintenance of the peace of India are to be reserved for British officials ; others are to be transferred to Indian Ministers. Among these transferred subjects is education, a subject which perhaps more than almost any other raises fierce religious controversy in India, as it does in Ireland, and indeed in most parts of the world where religious convictions run deep. Mr. Lionel Curtis has given a remarkable illustration of the difficulties which for manyyears blocked educational pro- gress in the United Provinces of India, owing to a conflict between Hindus and Mohammedans over a comparatively small point in the educational curriculum. The difficulty was finally settled with the consent of both parties by the autocratic decision of the British Lieutenant-Governor. It is not, however, only the possibility of these religious difficulties which has to be considered. There is also the question of the educational standard. One of the curious features of contem- porary Indian politics is the desire of a large number of the most vocal Indians to have the University standard lowered, the reason being that the University is the gateway to Govern- ment employment, and the office-seekers want to keep the gate wide open. Is this lowering of the standard of educational efficiency to be part of the blessing to be conferred upon India by representative institutions borrowed from Britain ? If so, then, as. the European Association remarks, there will be " a lowering of the University standard, or to use such language as will be congruous to that of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, a progressive adaptation of tests to incapacity."
It will of course be said that these criticisms are entirely negative, and therefore give no satisfaction to that type of mind which, whenever a serious problem arises, says that " something must be done," regardless of the fact that doing something in a critical situation may even be worse than doing nothing. The European Association, however, meets this criticism by suggesting, very wisely as it seems to us, that there are other ideals to be aimed at better adapted to India than the exotic conception of representative government, and that " the possibility of the real people of India developing another ideal of self-government, such as that of a federation of Indian States, should be kept in view, and that the main endeavour should be to foster qualities and aptitudes which must prove beneficial to India, whatever her political future, rather than to force on a system which may eventually prove unacceptable to the bulk of the Indian peoples."
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