Lord Curzon on Monday in a speech at the Constitutional
Club made a remark which will be received in India with a certain disgust. He gave as a message from India to British politicians : " In the first place, come and see us." That is not, we think, a message which accurately represents Indian feeling. There is no evidence that natives care to be inspected by English travellers ; and the Anglo-Indians have an im- movable belief that a trip to India impairs, instead of im- proving, knowledge of the great peninsula. The visitor either imbibes the views of the official caste without reserve, or he falls into a mental attitude of criticism unchecked by experience or knowledge. The opinion of a rapid traveller from New Zealand about all Europe would not be worth much, and India is as large as Europe west of the Vistula, with a population far more diversified in thought, language, and degree of civilisation. The " globe-trotter " is not the wise man of Indian imagination.
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