Government (British and Indian) which you have called a 'dyarchy' will suit Indian conditions. Of course a National Government (I mean the Government of India as constituted at present) and Provincial autonomous Governments may work side by side quite satisfactorily. But two Provincial Governments, the one with certain reserved' powers and the other with certain transferred powers' may find it difficult to adjust each to the other. It is only possible when there is unstinted sympathy on the part of the present rulers and full confidence on the part of the Indian people. If the rulers are not perfectly ready to see India get self-government as soon as possible, they will not, it is natural to suppose, afford as much help as the Indian Council with transferred powers may need. It will be difficult if the rulers take up a merely critical rather than a sympathetic and a friendly attitude. I am convinced that there are some individual Anglo-Indian rulers (it is difficult to say anything about their proportion) who are absolutely sympathetic and friendly. But that does not prove that the Provincial Governments will be equally so. It will be disastrous if the transferred Government and the Police are hostile. I specially mention the Police because there have been cases in which groundless suspicions not only put impediments in the way of really good pieces of work, but have made them nearly impossible, by means of espionage and petty prosecutions quite natural to Government but very objectionable all the same. I feel, therefore, that the most effective way of granting self-government is to make the present legislative councils stronger and to give the Indian members more executive powers and greater responsibilities. Instead of starting a new and distinct self-governing Council in each Province it is better to provide the present provincial Governments with a larger and more real element of Indian co-operation. For instance, you could have a larger number of Indian members on the executive councils. You could also grant tentatively more powers to the non-official members. If experience showed that they deserve them you could have more Indians in the executive councils and grant to the non-official members more powers. on the other hand they failed such powers could be recalled. What I should like to see is a fair chance for them to show their ability in the art of government. If 5. There is another difficulty which I want to mention. The members of civil service, Imperial and Provincial, and officials of other departments will remain, under the system you propose, servants of the Government of India and the Provincial Governments, The Provincial Indian Councils with transferred powers will perhaps have nothing to do with their appointment, promotion, and dismissal; and the council which will use them as instruments will have the same difficulty in managing affairs as a power finds with borrowed labour from his neighbour. I do not know how much loyalty these councils can expect from these officials. Of course, they may select their own heads of departments and the heads may organize the departments, but after all they will come as borrowed servants and the Government of India and the Provincial Governments will remain their masters. The difficulty will be considerable if these officials are Europeans as it is natural to expect that they will be. 6. What you propose is not altogether new in India. The Indian Municipalities and the District and the Local Boards are to a certain extent self-governing institutions. But in most cases a Government official who is supposed to guide and help them unconsciously or consciously usurps all powers and local self-government becomes a misnomer. I am not competent to pass an opinion on the working of these self-governing Bodies; but I feel sure that a study of these institutions will throw considerable light on the scheme you propose. 7. I entirely agree with you that the principle of self-government should work from the bottom upwards and not from the top downwards. I strongly agree with you, therefore, in thinking that it is the provincial Governments which should be tackled first. These Provincial Governments as at present existing must be quite autonomous with regard to certain definite powers, and there should be an attempt to introduce a gradually increasing responsible Indian element. And here will be the beginning of Indian self-government. 8. I am now a convert to the principle of direct representation. We may have, as you propose, a list of qualified voters for each province. Care must, however, be taken to make the list as full as possible. Qualifications must definitely be laid down and there may be a special tribunal to judge the qualifications in doubtful or contested cases. But I should not leave it entirely to Government officials, nor to any section of the community. No. 4 a The following is a record of a discussion which took place on the above memorandum between three Englishmen and four Indians, including the author of the above memorandum. None of the persons taking part in this discussion were members of the public services. X was pressed to put into concrete form his fears of what might happen if an Imperial Parliament such as is proposed by Mr. Curtis were constituted. It was supposed firstly that with British illogicality such a Parliament might be given control only over the external affairs of India as in the case of the self-governing units of the Empire, and that India's internal affairs might continue to be subject to a Parliament responsible to the electors of the United Kingdom. X stated that under such a system the only fear he would have for India would be that she might be over-taxed for purposes of Imperial Defence. On its being pointed out that assessment for such purposes could never under any system be made to depend on votes but would have to be fixed by some more or less automatic method such as that proposed in The Problem of the Commonwealth, X withdrew this point. X was then asked to state in concrete form the dangers he feared for India if her internal affairs also should be controlled by such a reconstructed Imperial Parliament. He mentioned two. (a) That the Colonial representatives would be less sympathetic towards Indian aspirations than a wholly British Parliament. The three Englishmen present and Z strongly disagreed. The other Indians present preserved an open mind on the point. (b) That in matters of trade and commerce there might be conflict of interests between the Colonies and India and that in consequence in matters of tariffs, &c., India might suffer. It was urged in reply that this would be much less likely to happen than at present because (1) the Colonies are so widely separated geographically that it would be very unlikely that all their interests would jump together, and in fact the united Indian vote might easily in matters of Indian tariffs and trade find itself in the position of the Nationalist party in the House of Commons, i. e. able to turn the vote in favour of either side. At present it is simply British interests and Indian: result, vide e. g. the cotton excise. (2) Britain is committed to Free Trade and has imposed Free Trade on India against her wish. The Colonies would sympathize with her desire for protection. The meeting generally adopted this view. It was admitted by all that the dangers mentioned by X would exist; and it was agreed that if any scheme such as that outlined in Mr. Curtis's letter were introduced, (1) it would be necessary that the scheme should be drawn up to its very smallest details by Parliament so as to leave as little room as possible for variation and obstruction by the Civil Service, and (2) it would be desirable that L.G.'s, as well as Governors, should be appointed from outside India. It was, however, generally agreed that no scheme of reform anywhere ever had been or would be without difficulties and dangers, and that this particular scheme did seem to be workable. Some of those present also felt that X was perhaps inclined to exaggerate the dangers. Y especially wished his opinion to be recorded, that among the first set of transferred' departments there should be at least one which would arouse popular enthusiasm and suggested Primary and Secondary Education. He also wished it to be recorded that in his view, concurrently with the introduction of this scheme, the official Government should also be gradually more and more leavened with Indians, especially in the Executive Councils, thus giving them opportunities for administrative training. Others felt that all the best men would be needed for the transferred' Governments. With regard to X's alternative suggestions it was pointed out: (i) That taking more Indians into the Executive Councils would give training in administration but not in responsible government, for which quite a different kind of training,1 viz. that of responsibly governing, is required. (ii) That enlarging the number and powers of the non-official members of the Legislative Councils would be giving power without responsibility, which would be most undesirable. 1 The difference is that between the training of individual ability and training of groups in the corporate political sense. (iii) That this would also lead to representative Government, which would cause even worse difficulties with officialdom than even X feared under Mr. Curtis's proposals; and that sooner or later there would be an absolute deadlock. X admitted that his scheme would be unworkable. It was generally agreed that Mr. Curtis's was the only scheme of advance towards responsible government put forward so far which seemed to be workable. All present agreed in urging very strongly that Mr. Curtis should study the working of Municipalities in India. No. 4b Separate Note by Y, one of the Indians above mentioned. Self-government in the complete form will take a very long time to come. The question, therefore, is what can be done now and in the meanwhile towards the destined goal of self-government. A charter such as suggested by Mr. Curtis may be promulgated. But more than this would be needed to meet the situation. For the purpose of training individuals in the practical administration of the country more Indians must be introduced both in the Executive Councils and in the Indian Civil Service. What is wanted is closer association on terms of equality-and in this way making the government a national government. Further, that steps should be taken to introduce the Indian into the ranks of the Officers of the Army holding the Royal Commission. High Military training should be afforded and also equal rank and status given. In this way individual ability will be trained and developed throughout the country; and then as we grow ripe for responsible government, i. e. responsible to our own people in the full sense of the word, self-government will come and we shall be ready to undertake it. To attain the latter Mr. Curtis's plan is excellent. It will probably come only in this way when it does come. But at present, as far as I can judge, the country will be slow to agree to it; and the scheme may fail on account of reasons suggested by X. My belief is that we must first attempt to make the government national by making the personnel of it largely national (Indian), and as we do this we must proceed to take steps to make it responsible to the people of India in the way suggested by Mr. Curtis-till we have attained full self-government. The need of an Imperial Parliament for External affairs is clear. The development of a national (Indian) government and of selfgovernment on internal affairs is a sacred duty. Connexion with the British Parliament may still go on during the interim, i. e. before full self-government comes.1 These last three papers are of interest as showing the manner in which the mixed groups which the writer at one time hoped to establish would have worked. Comments by Europeans not in the Service of Government. No. 5. FROM A TEACHER In submitting these notes' and criticisms on your scheme for the gradual introduction into India of some form of self-government, I will first give you a statement as to what qualifications I have for doing so. I have lived now for three and twenty years in India, all of which have been passed in the United Provinces. I have of course wandered about a good deal, in Kashmir, Quetta, Mysore, and the Central Provinces, but what remarks I may make are mainly based on my knowledge of the people and conditions of Northern India. As a non-official who can count among his Indian friends most of the so-called leaders' in these parts, and a very large number of men of all classes, official and non-official, I have been able to get, perhaps at least as well as most men, some idea as to the hopes and feelings of our Eastern dependency. For years I have been convinced that great changes are necessary: that to ignore, or sneer at Indian claims is not only useless but mischievous that refusal to grant reasonable concessions, until you are forced to give more than is either needed or asked for, is dangerous that the treating of individual Indians, however wellborn or educated, with contempt, or, at best, with half-amused tolerance and condescension, is not only showing a lack of breeding on the part of the Englishman, but is fraught with grave danger to the Empire. : I regard Indian unrest' as a huge artificial lake contained by an immense dam-the present system of government. The water is too heavy for the dam, and is forcing itself through chinks, ever increasing in number and dimensions, and threatening its entire structure. What would a good engineer do in such a case? Would he not either divert some of the immense flood that was threatening to overwhelm him, into other and safer channels, or would he not entirely reconstruct the dam? Probably both. But what does government do collectively and individually? Does it not run about bestowing little meaningless concessions here, feeble flattery there, lamentable weakness at one moment, misguided severity at another, for all the world like a lot of indifferent masons putting in bits of stone and mortar in the vain hope of stopping the leaks? For a time such a policy succeeds, and will continue to succeed, and the engineer lives in a fool's paradise; but, one day, the ever-widening breaches refuse to be stuffed up with rubble, the whole structure gives way, and engineer and staff are carried away in the universal ruin. The Civil Service is a magnificent institution. It is probably the most efficient, and the most uncorrupt, that the world has ever seen. But it has the faults of its virtues. It is so good that it regards itself as infallible it is so anxious to rule well and justly that it |