government should have power to order the culprit to leave the country. The great body of European opinion in India, would, I believe, heartily support the removal of persons so convicted; and a few deportations would soon effect a definite change for the better.

§ 59. The principle is no new one in Indian administration. When Napoleon had closed Europe to British traders their demand for free admission to India was imperative. The British East India Company fought hard for its exclusive privileges when its charter came up for revision in 1813, relying mainly on the argument that a general access of traders to the country would have a disruptive effect on its ancient society, and lead to grave political dangers. That this argument contained a serious element of truth was proved by the character of those who appeared to support it. The aged Warren Hastings was called from his retirement to give evidence before the House of Commons, as well as Lord Teignmouth (Sir John Shore), Malcolm, and Munro. They all attested the practical difficulty of securing from Europeans proper treatment of the Indians and due respect for their habits and customs. To secure the enforcement in the courts of justice between Indians and Europeans was well-nigh impossible. The occasion was rendered notable by members rising in a body as Hastings entered the House, and standing bareheaded until he had taken his seat at the bar, a just though tardy admission of the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of their predecessors. In the debate which followed Charles Grant reminded the House of the injustice and oppression inflicted on natives in America and Africa by European adventurers exempt from all civilized control.

Parliament recognizing the reality of those dangers, ordered that Europeans might visit India and trade there subject only to licences granted by the Court of Directors, or, on their refusal, by the Board of Control. In India they were to reside subject to good behaviour and also with such restrictions as might from time to time be deemed necessary.

§ 60. It is much to be regretted that these powers were gradually abolished, and were not revived when the Imperial Government assumed exclusive control. But if we really mean our justice to be even-handed in India they ought to be revived in substance now. To deport Europeans whose conduct is a danger to the peace of India to the country of their origin, is a far milder measure than to exile Indians for a like reason. I greatly regret that I could not say so to Lord Selborne's Committee: the character of their reference excluded the subject; but I cannot take the pen from this paper without saying it here.1

§ 61. My Indian friends know that all I said to Lord Selborne's Committee, I had said to them in India years before. Not one of you has reproached me for arguing in public that every government, whatever it is, should have powers adequate for enforcing the law. For that reason, if for no other, my hopes for India are brighter than ever, in the face of all the dangers which are now gathering in the path of reform. And as some of the predictions I made to you then have been verified since, I will venture, in taking leave of this subject, on one more. My belief is that progress towards responsible government will be most rapid in that province where ministers and legislators openly exercise their influence to support the enforcement of law. Nothing but disorder can now delay the process and nothing can stop it but civil war, which always has its seeds in disorder. The enforcement of law is essential to government, and responsible government cannot develop in a country where government itself is ceasing to exist. This was the truth which a Liberal government forgot in ignoring measures taken in Ulster to resist the law.

Unless the law is enforced civil war will sooner or later result, and control pass from civil to military hands. The moment blood begins to flow passion is inflamed, and incidents such as those which disfigured the suppression of

1 Since writing these paragraphs, I have heard, on unimpeachable authority, that a European guilty of improper behaviour to an Egyptian was ordered by Lord Cromer to quit Egypt within forty-eight hours.

the Indian mutiny, the rebellion in Dublin, or the outbreak in the Punjab, are an almost invariable result. The Mutiny was responsible for decades of reaction in India. The first necessity is, of course, to see that the laws are as just as may be. The second is to see that the enforcement of those laws is never in question from the outset. To deal with criminals who defy the laws which protect society against themselves is easy enough. The real difficulty is presented by men who blindly but honestly believe that law is contrary to freedom. With all the idealism, devotion, and intelligence which criminals lack, they can always devise means to put any government in the wrong. All human laws are imperfect, and the conscientious resister will always pick out the less perfect laws to defy. He courts martyrdom to enlist sympathy, and if public sympathy is successfully marshalled against government, its task becomes one of extreme difficulty. When Mr. Lloyd George remembers how he breathed on the smoking flax of passive resistance, he must often wish that his lips had been sealed. I ask you to think of the time, already in sight, when the task of maintaining order, with all its bitter necessities, will rest on yourselves.

The direct responsibility for maintaining order still lies with the governments responsible to Parliament, and must continue to lie there until the final transfer of responsible government can be made. It is for ministers and legislatures to advise the governor-in-council on all measures taken to that end. But the advice you give to your own constituents is of even greater importance. You have always to remember that advice given publicly in the legislatures to the governor-in-council is also advice given to your own supporters. Your influence as popular leaders if exercised in the cause of law and order will be final and conclusive and conduce more than any one factor to the perfect tranquillity in which India can move most rapidly to the status of a self-governing dominion. I am thinking always of the time when Parliament will send commissions to India to report progress. The principal point to which

they will look is how far Indian electorates can be trusted to maintain order through their own representatives. In any crisis first ask yourselves what material you are going to provide the commissions for framing an answer to that question.

§ 62. In democracies the ultimate decision between right and wrong rests with the masses. And the hope of the world lies in this that the habit of deciding fits them for decision. If any one doubts this let him read the luminous article on Italy in The Times Literary Supplement which appears just as these pages are going to the press. A single quotation will here suffice.

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In other ways, too, the risorgimento has been justified in the eyes of men by recent events. A few years ago people qualified their approval of the work of Cavour by lamenting the disillusionment' of subsequent Italian history. And that there was much disillusionment the Italians themselves were the first to confess. But slow beneficent change is often going on underground during periods of apparent and proclaimed 'disillusionment'. To any one who knows what Italy was really like in the period which we justly call her heroic age, from 1848 to 1870, her recent progress is clear enough. The southern and much of the central populations were sunk in barbarism, the evil inheritance of centuries of servitude; everywhere corruption, inefficiency, and lethargy were a deadweight which the patriots had to lift, being men translated above themselves by the inspiration of their cause. Great has been the progress silently effected by fifty years of the new régime, with all its faults and failures. To those who know the histories of the campaigns of 1848 and 1866 the performance of Italy from 1915 to 1918 in mobilizing and maintaining five million men, and fighting a modern war in all its equipage along three hundred miles of Alpine front, will itself be a proof of the steady average advance made during the dim halfcentury that followed Italy's great illumination.1

§ 63. Yet this article shows that Italy could not have done what she did, nor yet be what she now is, but for the leadership in the crisis of her fate of Mazzini, Garibaldi,

1 The Times Literary Supplement, September 16, 1920. 'Venti Settembre, 1870-1920.'

Cavour, and some hundreds of associates who were translated above themselves by the inspiration of their cause'. Popular government succeeds only in so far as electorates can be brought to subordinate passion to reason. Where the burden of decision rests on the many the responsibilities cast on the few are immeasurably increased. For the many cannot decide between right and wrong unless the right is clearly presented to their judgement as well as the wrong. Electorates are seldom wanting in counsellors to tell them that the dictates of their passions are the voice of God. To tell people what they want to hear is an easy task. The difficulty lies in getting a hearing for the still small voice of reason; but no genuine choice begins to be exercised until there are men like Gokhale with the courage to make it heard. The only true servants of popular government are those bold enough to voice opinions which are for the moment unpopular. Appeals to reason calmly and persistently made prevail in the end. If both sides are heard, the people do in the long run learn to distinguish their friends from their creatures. In popular institutions the influence of a brave, upright, and outspoken few is decisive. As Abraham knew, when he talked with God, a nation may be saved by no more than ten of them. There are more than ten, to my knowledge, in India, who may live in their countrymen's memory for ever if they will but face their reproaches to-day.

§ 64. The working of popular government depends upon certain qualities and habits of mind in the people at large which paternal government does little to foster. The difficulty of creating such habits where no free institutions exist or of founding such institutions where no such habits have been formed is inherent in the problem; and those who have given their best thought to it will be most chary of assuming that the principle embodied in the recent Act supplies the ultimate solution. The best that we can say of it is that a series of inquiries covering years brought to sight no other principle the greater difficulty of which had not already been proved. To test dyarchy in the crucible