would be found to be based on either or both of the two principles which underlie the Congress-League scheme on the one hand and the Joint Address on the other; and each of these principles has a quality of its own. The one is rigid, the other is highly elastic. The Minto-Morley principle, carried to its practical conclusion, of necessity results in something closely resembling the Congress-League scheme. The Joint Address is but one way of applying the principle of specific devolution. A dozen draftsmen working on that principle might produce as many different plans for giving effect to it. These particular proposals are not submitted as offering the one key to the problem, but only because a principle of government cannot be clearly explained, nor thoroughly tested by discussion, until it is expressed in some scheme and developed in considerable detail.

§ 14. In the throes of a struggle for all that makes life worth living, the British people may well ask whether they can reasonably be called upon to consider and dispose of questions like these. And when peace is signed they may pardonably feel that the social problems of those who have borne the brunt of the struggle, have endured hunger and cold, have looked famine in the face, and have devoted their blood without measure, have still the prior claim. The naked truth is that the machinery of our institutions has long been unequal to the needs of the United Kingdom, entangled as they are with those of a Commonwealth of nations which cover a quarter of the globe. A single cabinet and parliament are expected to deal with them all. On the wharves of Westminster heaps of outstanding questions have gathered. Matters of moment lie buried and forgotten in the piles. The wheels of government would labour less if only it could deal with things before they had become intractable to treatment. For years we have all been absorbed in the tactical problems of politics. Strategic aspects have been ignored. We have gone on asking how this and that should be done, while forgetting to ask whether the existing machinery was adequate to the doing. It cannot keep pace with the claims made on it. This particular problem is a case in point. Had the pronouncement of August 20, 1917, been made two years before, coupled with a statement that the matter must rest there till after the war, the movement which compelled a visit to India by the Secretary of State in the crisis of a desperate war would never have come to a head.

§ 15. This assuredly is not the time to recast the frame

work of the whole machine. Nor can the disposal of the present problem be left to await a reconstruction of the Imperial Government. It is therefore of cardinal importance to consider how Parliament and the electorate to which it is answerable can best arrive at a decision second only in gravity to those by which they began and will end this war. The decision must be theirs; Lords and Commons must find the means of examining and settling in all its aspects the proposal laid before them. The pronouncement of August 20 involves no less. The force of that momentous declaration was seriously diminished by the fact that it was merely given in answer to a question by a Secretary of State new to office. In its present form it contains the last word on British policy in India. But whatever that last word is to be, let it stand for all time, solemnly recorded as the will of the Parliament which, as things are, alone can speak for the Commonwealth at large. At least let it stand in the preamble of the Act which initiates the next step. For the Indian mind it is better that it should issue as a Royal proclamation as well, provided that behind it is the explicit endorsement of Lords and Commons. But whatever the final shape, let the whole Commonwealth know that it stands and shall stand in all its parts. India at least has need of such assurance. most enlightened and also the most courageous of Indian papers complained that I laid an unnecessary stress on the provision that the British Government, and the Government of India on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of the Indian peoples, must be judge of the time and measure of each advance'. How can too much stress be laid on a statement which includes no note of qualification, when it stands in a document so grave? Let Parliament consider whether it means these words or no; and, having considered, leave no one in doubt. Mere tacit acceptance has left India in doubt. When the goal of responsible government is achieved this condition will cease to apply. But until it is achieved it is Parliament, and Parliament only, which can decide the method and pace of each advance. Ruin to the hopes raised on August 20 will surely result from any attempt to evade the responsibility. The saving factor in the situation is the undiminished confidence which the people of India still have in the people and Parliament of England.

The

§ 16. It has often been said that if the Empire is destroyed it will be the British Parliament that destroys it. The

statement is true in the sense opposite to that in which it is made. If the Empire is lost it will only be by the partial or total neglect of Parliament. The development and control of Indian policy up to fifty years ago is a record at which no Englishman need blush. But in those days Parliament conducted a searching inquiry whenever the Company's charter came up for renewal. Every twenty years a committee was appointed which saw people from India face to face, put questions, sifted the answers in cross-examination, and finally submitted to Parliament reports which had a determining effect on policy. So long as the Company, or even its shadow, remained, public opinion and Parliament were watchful. No sooner was it abolished than both acted as though the need for watchfulness had ceased. The officers of government were now their immediate servants; and such was the recognized capacity, honour, and devotion of those officers, that everything was felt to be safe in their hands. The fact was overlooked that a civil service, however devoted, honourable, and efficient, cannot initiate policy, or provide for the evolution of policy. From 1858 onwards Parliament forgot to ask itself to what ends it was governing India, or to supply its agents with the answer.

§ 17. The answer has now been framed in a form which wears the character of finality. It remains for Parliament to pass from tacit to explicit acceptance of the answer. But it also remains for Parliament to see that the first and every subsequent step taken to realize its pronouncement does in fact conform to its terms. This cannot be done by mere Parliamentary debate, unless before the final discussion the plan proposed is examined on the old lines and by those methods which Parliament used when it really discharged these duties. Spokesmen of rival interests in India will flock to London while these matters are at issue. They cannot be heard at the bar of the House. Let them have their say to a select committee, whose members can test their statements by question. In any discussion of Indian affairs the air grows thick with unverified assertions. Before the final decision is taken let Parliament appoint members of its own to test these statements, to examine witnesses, to digest papers, to insist on their production, and, as in the days of old, to report thereon for the guidance, not merely of the whole body, but also of public opinion at large. Then, and then only, will it be felt that again there is governance in Indian affairs. Above all, let such

a Committee be charged to report whether the plan proposed for adoption is really conceived in the spirit of the reference under which it was framed. In unequivocal words it proposes responsible government as the goal of Indian policy. This goal it says can only be achieved by steps. But the first of those steps it provides shall be taken as soon as may be. Of the nature of these steps, and of the pace at which they can follow each other, the Imperial Government and the Government of India are to judge, and this the Parliament to which both are accountable can alone determine from time to time.

§ 18. With these conditions before them there are certain questions by which Parliament and public opinion will do well to test the details of any plan proposed for acceptance. If, as the Pronouncement asserts, the responsibilities of government cannot be transferred to Indian electorates all together, at one stroke, they must be transferred by instalments. Now when any transfer is proposed the first necessary question is whether it is a genuine transfer. Are real responsibilities to be handed over, and to whom? Do the functions transferred carry with them the powers necessary to discharge them? Is it clear that responsibility for the things transferred rests on the electorate and those they elect? Above all, are the arrangements such as admit of electoral government at all? Those who have the patience to read these papers will better appreciate the meaning of such questions.

§ 19. You have promised to apply a new motive power to Indian government. Can you do so without changing the plan of the mechanism or of the chambers in which it is housed? India desires new wine-and rightly. But she thinks to keep it in the old bottles. Can you give her that wine without the vessels to hold it?

§ 20. This people for whom you are the trustees are a fifth part of the whole human race. You have promised to hand over that trust, piece by piece, as you can, to Indians able to accept it. Your task is to find such Indians; but that you will never do, if you wait until you see electorates which are fully and all at once capable of the trust. Did the middle classes in England show themselves fully capable of the trust they owed to the unenfranchised masses? You must have the nerve to see Indian electorates hurt othersthe helpless, as well as themselves. It is the only way in which the spirit of trusteeship can be called into being and made to grow.

To that end you must give the largest

measure of responsibility which can be transferred at any one time, without imperilling the whole structure. But in doing so realize the importance of continuing to discharge those parts of the trust which remain to yourselves. Do not think that you can help Indians to a higher sense of responsibility if at the same time you fail to discharge your own. You cannot advance towards responsible government without entrusting some interests of the helpless peasant to his landlords. But see that you discharge those interests which you keep in your own hands for the time being. The best service you have done to India is to set a standard of public duty. The worst service you can now do is to lower that standard at the very moment when you are asking Indians to adopt it for themselves. In any plan proposed for your acceptance one inexorable question should be whether it allows you really to discharge those parts of the trust you purport to retain.

§ 21. At last you have named the port which is to be the goal of the voyage, but the way to it lies across uncharted seas. To use Lord Morley's phrase, you can only navigate those seas by throwing the lead', and by readiness to turn this way or that as the soundings dictate. Then beware of promises and plans which do not permit of you or your successors throwing the lead. One condition you may with a clear conscience ordain from the first-that the lead shall be thrown from time to time, and that the soundings taken shall be reported to you. Until the final port of full responsible government is attained, the burden of those decisions must rest with you and your successors. It cannot be shifted to India, still less to the English in India. The facts upon which your judgements are based must be carefully and also impartially collected in India. They must also be thoroughly sifted at home. Ask, therefore, whether the system upon which you propose to start is one in which experience can still be used by you and your successors as the criterion of all further advance.