Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎530r] (184/238)

Proceedings of the East India Association. 397
Mr. Daru seemed to think it rather unbecoming in me as an Englishman
to keep harping on the fact of ours being an alien Government. I did so
purposely, because it is a fact which can neither be altered nor explained
away, and which ought to inspire constant caution on our part. It is not
so much a matter of race and creed as of distance and domicile. Of our
countrymen who represent us in India, few were born, much fewer educated
there; not more than half have wife or child with them at any given
moment, and practically none wish to die there. Where their treasures
are, there must their hearts be also. The more clearly we recognise these
limiting conditions and the distinctness of British and Indian interests,
the more careful shall we be, if we are faithful to our trust, not to com
promise the independent future of our ward by any greater interference
with his concerns than the business in hand absolutely requires. Present
circumstances undoubtedly require that we should act as parish constable—
to borrow Cromwell’s description of himself when forced to act without a
Parliament. They do not require that we should make them pay for being
taught how wise and good we are. Yet this is what they do in Germany
and France, says Mr. Thorburn. Precisely so, and the political condition
of both countries supplies a strong reason for not imitating them. It is
often said, and was said by Mr. Digby at this meeting, that in India the
Government is everything, more so than in the most official-ridden nations
of Europe. Considering (to put it mildly) his imperfect confidence in the
wisdom of the present rulers of India, I should have expected him to be
among the first to urge restriction rather than enlargement of their sphere
of activity, and I can only regret that he does not see the matter in that
light.
And now a word or two, in conclusion, as to my own attitude on the
question. That Mr. Thorburn should find the paper bewildering and
unsettling is in no way surprising. Such is very commonly the first effect
of presenting a familiar subject in a new light. But I must have expressed
myself very badly to give him the impression of a ‘'doubter doubting his
own doubts,” when I was trying to give expression to one of my deepest
and most settled convictions. Nor can I altogether accept the Chairman’s
description of the paper as one submitted to a debating society, which
sounds hardly respectful to an Association composed largely—perhaps I
might say predominantly—of veteran administrators, though it is quite
true that it was, and was intended to be, too academical to be submitted
to a working legislative body. I believe firmly, and did my little best to
convince the influential persons whom I was addressing, that India would
be better off now—economically, politically, and even educationally—if
the despatch of 1854 had been pigeon-holed and ignored, and that it would
be the beginning of a better time if it were possible now to reverse that
policy. But I am no less clearly of opinion that, even if I had been so
fortunate as to convince them all, and the Secretary of State and Viceroy
into the bargain, they would have been powerless to bring about any such
reversal without first effecting a radical change in the current conceptions
of State functions, of which I see no immediate likelihood, either in this
country or among educated Indians. The practical aim, therefore, of my