Lord Curzon, who talks almiut everything, delivered on Monday a
speech defending the annual migration of the Indian Government to Simla. He maintained that in Simla the Viceroy found a leisure impossible in Calcutta, and also a climate and physical conditions in which he could recuperate his energies. His counsellors and agents must accompany him, and the telegraph and the railway now keep them in touch with the whole of India. The Viceroy hinted that the usual stay of the Government on the hills might possibly be a little too long, but still the change was on the whole advantageous, and left no sting upon his conscience. Lord Curzon did not, however, even allude to the two grand objections to Simla. One is that in residing there the heads of Departments appear to shirk all the unpleasant conditions to which their subordinates are exposed. They are not, in fact, living in India at all, though they are drawing Indian salaries. The other is that Simla, becomes a sort • of Court thronged with men and women who hope by making themselves agreeable to the Monarch and his Ministers to obtain appointments, and who, in fact, do obtain them. To be acceptable at Simla is a much quicker road to promotion than to work hard and successfully in the plains, and Simla is accordingly sought as Versailles was sought under the later Bourbons. No doubt Calcutta in the hot weather and the rains is a most depressing place ; but there is no reason why Calcutta should be the official capital of India. Either Agra or Allahabad would be a better one, and in either the Viceroy would be in moral touch with the entire Empire.
Previous page
