• TOPICS OF THE DAY.
• THE INDIAN REFORM BILL.
MHE British nation now have before them all the materials they are likely to get for some time for forming a judgment on the Indian Reform Bill. We hope that they will give the subject earnest consideration. India has been governed in trust by British officials since the work of government was taken over from the East India Company in 1858, and she has been governed with a brilliance and an honesty which in combination can be nowhere matched in the world. It is now proposed to pull down that system. Mr. Montagu takes credit for intending that the process shall be gradual, though we cannot but believe that if the Indian Reform Bill becomes law, the mischief will begin early and will soon become desperate. Why should we disguise our real thoughts ? Mr. Montagu 1115CS phrases lightly and rhetorically, but our own solemn belief is that what he is planning—with an inevitability which he is unable to appreciate—is the ruin of India.
In his speech in the House of Commons on Thursday week he disclosed no grounds for the haste which he says is imperative in introducing reforms. Much less did he justify the recklessness and the unnecessary complexity of his proposals. The diarchy must surely be condemned by statesmanship by reason of its extreme intricacy —statesmen always aim at simplicity in administration— if it were not condemned because of its inherent absurdity. But apparently simplicity and directness are alien to Mr. Montagu's mind. He aims at what is ambitious and high sounding. Even when it comes to so simple a matter of duty as to justify the Rowlett Acts he strikes a note which is really humiliating, because in effect he apologizes instead of stoutly telling the truth. The Rowlett Acts embody the recommendations of a most able and learned Judge who had no axe whatever to grind in India, and who said what he thought on the evidence, as a Judge ought to do, without bringing any preconceptions to his task. The Acts are framed for the defence of honest men and innocent pmeons. What need is there to say more ? That is their reason for existing, and it is a complete and ample one. They are directed solely at the suppression of sedition and anarchy, and every law-abiding citizen ought to rejoice in the security which they afford not only to the individual but to the whole of India. Mr. Montagu's reasons for introducing his drastic Reform Bill would sound very strange if they were not, unfortunately, too familiar. He continually harks back to the pledge of the Government given in August, 1917. As a matter of fact, the Povernment were not pledged by the words then used to any so-called plan of democratic reform, and have not been pledged at any moment since. It is a had tign, this harping on the pledge. It reminds one rather of the way in which the typical moneylender talks to his client. He uses language which intimidates, because it is vague ; he always has some awful threat ready, though it has never been submitted to exact or legal scrutiny. If his client does not pay the extortionate interest, he talks terribly about "your letter of the 22nd ult.," or declares that he must recall to his client's memory the "fifth clause" of their agreement. The unhappy client believes that without knowing it he has pledged himself irremediably by the accusing instruments of his own band. If people will calmly look into the history of the Indian Reform scheme, they will find that we are not in honour bound to confer upon India any such scheme as Mr. Montagu has proposed, but that, on the contrary, our whole relation to India binds us to govern in future as we have dons in the past according to the rules which will give the best results and therefore the greatest happiness to India.
In his speech on Thursday week Mr. Montagu talked about the " eagerness " with which the Indian " nation " —as though India were a nation—was awaiting his Reform Pill. He may for the 'moment. have forgotten, but we have not forgotten, that in the Report issued in his own name and that of Lord Chelmsford he confessed that -his policy was approved of by only a very small minority. We have seen it estimated," he wrote, that the number of people who really ask for free institutions does not exceed
five per cent, of the population. It is in any case.a small proportion, but to the particular numeral we attach no importance whatever. . . . Our reason is the faith that is in us." These figures, brushed aside with such insouciance by Mr. Montagu last week, might well eve pause to more sober minds. But Mr. Montagu is inflamed with his ambitious State-building, and so the Report tells us that the placid pathetic contentment of the masses is not the soil on which Indian nationhood will grow, and in deliberately disturbing it we are working for her [India's] highest good." The contentment is admitted ; the placidity is admitted ; the insignificance of the demand for forms of self-government, which hardly anybody in India understands, ts admitted ; but because that clever and rhetorical use of the word " pathetic " has entered the mind of Mr. Montagu everything that is certain and stable is to be sacrificed ! We have heard of acts of• statesmanship that were rash and of acts of statesman- ship that were uncalled for or, as people say, gratuitous, but for a combination of rashness and gratuitousness we know of no political proposal to equal Mr. Montagu's Reform Bill.
The core of the Bill is of course what is known as the diarchy—the proposal that in the administration of the Provinces part of the executive work shall be carried out by Ministers dependent upon a popular vote, and partly by Ministers appointed under the old methods of Indian Government, though those methods will be slightly changed. Those subjects of legislation which are to be retained in the hands of the bureaucratic Ministers will be known as "reserved" subjects, and those which are to be handed over to the new popularly elected Ministers will be known as " transferred " subjects. Probably if Mr. Lionel Curtis had not travelled in India and written with all his literary power about this scheme of diarchy, Mr. Montagu would never have thought of such a thing. Mr. Montagu tells us that he cannot imagine any other way of gradually building up a system of self-government than this method of transferring subjects from the one authority to the other as the popularly elected Ministers become capable O? dealing with fresh matters. But against his fanciful notions there is a solid array of disapproval expressed by some of the ablest and most experienced administrators in India. That Mr. Montagu can rely upon a certain degree of support is of course true ; it is almost part of the duty of Civil Servants to promise to do their best to make a scheme work when they understand that the Government desire it. But Mr. Montagu, if he were not so self-confi- dent, would have been much more impressed, and might even have been abashed, by the very strong criticism of his diarchy. Moreover, we must say that it was in- sulting of him to discount the opposition offered to his scheme by British administrators in India on the ground that these men were "not unprejudiced." We agree with them that the diarchy will not work in practice. In each Province where the diarchical machinery is set up there is to be only "one Government," and therefore it will be impossible for public criticism to say whether blame for mistakes rests upon the Departments which are dealing with the " reserved ' subjects or upon the Depart- ments which are dealing with the " transferred " subjects. It is inevitable that whenever anything goes wrong the critics will merely blame "the Government." What else can they do? In fine, there is no prospect of education in self-government wider the diarchy because the people cannot rectify mistakes if the people cannot name the source of the mistakes.
But if the diarchy itself is a first-rate difficulty, it is after all only a mechanical defect that is capable of change. By far the greatest difficulty in the way of such reform as Mr. Montagu proposes is the immemorial and religious practice of caste among the Hindus. Politically minded Indians are a very small number among the three hundred and fifteen millions of population, and among this minority the Hindu religious principle of caste is held so sternly that it would prevent all fruitful communication between the leaders and the masses. The people who have really ruled India have always been the people not bound by caste ; that is to say, the Mohammedans and ourselves. What a foundation on which to try to build up a structure of democracy ! The attempt would, no doubt., end in making India safe for an oligarchy. Think of the millions of-low-caste natives and outAcastes. These people could never make their voices heard. The " untouchables " would defile their political leaders if they did so much as come within speaking distance of them. The whole system is a frank negation of demo- cracy. Surely the first step towards democracy is to invite the intellectual Brahmins of India to think the matter over carefully, and decide whether they prefer democracy or caste. The two things cannot co-exist. If they think self- government preferable, and are willing to throw open their arms and admit to their counsels their very humble and hitherto untouchable brethren, well and good. We shall then have a starting-point. But to pretend that democracy and equality will be learned by virtue of Mr. Montagu's scheme, whetithe whole religious ceremonial of the Brahmins forbids them tolive as equals with their fellow-men who happen to have been born in circumstances different from their own, is' madness. About seventy per cent, of the Indian people are ryots or small reminders. At a meeting of the Bengal Association of Ryots on April 24th, reported in the Statesman, the members passed a resolution which contains these words : "Knowing what the yam)] know, they beg to inform the Government as well as the agitators that they can never prefer a selfish oligarchy to an impartial bureaucracy, which has been their only support till now. So unless the richer classes, such as the reminders and Mahajans, show greater consideration forthe poor peasantry. and unless a due share of self-government is given to them, the peasantry as a whole will oppose a further extension to any self-government."
The Spectator has proposed that there should be an experiment in reform in one of the Rajah-governed States. Let some Indian Prince bestow upon his people the blessings of self-government. The experiment would be most carefully watched, and if it succeeded would of course be widely imitated. Nobody could resist such a success. But Mr. Montagu poured all his scorn upon any such sane and moderate measure. He had special words of abuse for the very sensible proposal of the Indo-British Association that in every Province one or two districts should be placed in charge of a solely Indian official staff, and that the plan, if successful, should be extended into a division, and finally into the whole Province. Really Mr. Montagu's arguments against trying such experiments as the Indo-British Association and the Spectator have proposed were the worst part of his speech. " In for a penny, in for a pound," is nearly always a bad argument, but it is most dangerous of all when it is applied to Con- stitution-making. One can hardly resist the belief that Mr. Montagu at the back of his mind feels that an experi- ment would be sure to fail, and would therefore block any attempt at more ambitious reforms. Therefore he seems to say to himself "Plunge right in. The ice, of course, is too thin to bear. Don't test it with one foot. Walk right on ! " As against our own scheme, we must admit that though many Rajahs talk of reform when reform is fashionable at Simla, perhaps not one of them could be induced to submit his country to the experiment. Native Rajahs may talk of advanced education for native women when it is being ardently taken up by the ladies of Simla, but they have no real intention of yielding their power to the people at large. That objection, however, does not apply to the plan of the Indo-British Association, and Mr. Montagu's derision is, we fear, only too likely to recoil some day not only upon his own head but upon the heads of his countrymen. As we have tried to point out, Mr. Montagu affirms that immediate reform of the most sweeping kind is necessary for India for no better reason than that be wishes it to seem necessary.
There is no such necessity. We are entirely in favour of experiments of a moderate kind, remembering all the time the height and depth of our responsibility to the mixed races of India. If the capacity for self-government flourished and developed, we should look forward with confidence to the day when we could clear out and leave the Indian peoples to themselves. But that day is not yet, nor.is it within sight. Just when we have at last got a really fine and fair system of government at work, Mr. Montagu, with all his fancifulness and racial ambition, detetmines to drive the coach right over the precipice. When any-one remonstrates he says.: "You cannot refuse to do this because you publicly promised to da it. You are in honour bound." Our conception of honour is different from Mr. Montagu's, and we believe that if the people who are not accustomed to study Indian affairs would now take the trouble to look into the whole subject they would not find themselves in agreement with Mr. Montagu.
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