THE MONTAGU REPORT.
(To THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—When I was in German East Africa I used to fee! that I had met an old friend when I chanced to get hold of a copy of the Spectator, usually two to three months old; it is, therefore, rather a shock to find myself estranged from so valued a friend by his latitude towards the Indian reforms. The gulf between us has been par- tially bridged by your editorial note to Dr. Miller's admirable letter. You say : " We are by no means opposed to reform. We hope for the time when India may manage her own affairs. But we do say emphatically that the time has not yet arrived." After this declaration I have hope that we may get even closer together. Surely if the goal of our policy is that India may some day manage her own affairs, it is high time to begin training her for that duty. It is my belief that the training might with advan- tage have been begun twenty years ago, as soon, that is, as it was evident the Congress movement had come to stay; we should have begun work in a better temper all round, and the political energy which has been largely wasted in acrimonious controversy might have been diverted to constructive work, Every decade that the inception of training is postponed increases the difficulty of making a propitious start, for it finds the politically-minded classes less eager for genuine collaboration and a wider circle of Indians impregnated with separatist opinions. If this is con- ceded, the next question is how we can begin to train India to manage her own affairs ? On this there cannot be a wide difference of opinion. The only way yet discovered of teaching people how to manage their own affairs is to give them some responsibility, the power of making mistakes, and of thereby learning how to avoid others. As we cannot afford to allow Indians, during their period of training, to make mistakes which would imperil the existence of the State, we •have to devise some scheme by which they will be responsible for certain specified functions of govern- ment only, and not for the control of the entire machinery. The responsibility delegated to them must be full, otherwise it will not be educative, but it must be limited, and the control of Parliament, exercised through the Government of India, must outside the prescribed limits be unimpaired. I am in general agreement with the Montagu-Chelmsford Report because it is based on these principles and embodies definite proposals for giving effect to them. I accept the Report, not, of course, as an infallible Bull, but as a basis of discussion. In some respects I hope it will be amended. Personally, I should like to see the powers of the Government of India placed more obviously in the public eye. As the Government of India is to retain in the last resort absolute power to make its will prevail, I see no advantage in camouflaging it as a deliberative Assembly. I do not, however, feel justified in elaborating my amendment here because the Spectator is not yet prepared, I fear, to accept the Montagu- Chelmsford Report as a basis for discussion. I very much regret this, because it is in the columns of the Spectator that we might have hoped to get that helpful constructive criticism which the proposals certainly need.
From the letters you have published I derive the impression that some of your correspondents are not able to go as far as you, Sir, and are therefore unable to look forward with satisfac- tion to a change in the government of India. I venture with all respect to say that this position is untenable. It is an attempt to fight English thought. What makes the real case for Indian autonomy within the Empire is not the explicit declarations of Government, but the implicit promises of English literature. These no individual Englishman can repudiate, even if he would, for they are part and parcel of the English character; they belong to the very fibre of our national life. Further, it must always be remembered that by throwing open to Indians the pages of English literature we have done something far more momentous than to furnish them with dangerous weapons for controversial warfare. We have effected a revolution in Indian thought. Ideas of English origin are nowadays in the ascendant all over India. They dominate not only those who themselves read English, but also that much larger class who receive them through a vernacular medium; indeed, my own experience is that the stoutest champions of those Western opinions which the lluhamedans used to call the New Light are men who themselves know no English. The triumph of English thought has been so complete that there is no longer any body of articulate opinion attempting to make head against it. There are, of course, enormous classes, the great majority of the population, who do sot think at all; they are neither for nor against the New Light, but when they are aroused from their intellectual lethargy they will certainly adopt the views which prevail all round them.—I Weybridge.
[We fear we cannot follow Sir Theodore Morison in his argu- ment about the revolution or Anglicisation of Indian thought. We hope it may come, but the system of caste still prevails. Can democracy possibly flourish alongside a system which refuses to millions of human beings the power to rise, or even to enjoy the dignity of being regarded as human beings ? The " untouchable," for instance, must remain untouchable from the cradle to the grave for no better reason than an accident of birth. That is a flat negation of democracy. It may be argued that the Brahmins will give up caste as the price of self-government. Let them then be invited to promise to do so as a preliminary pledge of democratic capacity.—Eo. Spectator.]
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