unities in India, including also the
interests of the British Government. I can only tell you further, that
if this action of ours fails, miscarries, and is wrecked, it will be
a considerable time before another opportunity occurs. You will never
again--I do not care whether the time be long or be short--you will
never again have the combination of a Secretary of State and a
Viceroy, who are more thoroughly in earnest in their desire to improve
Indian government, and to do full justice to every element of the
Indian population.

VII

SECOND READING OF INDIAN COUNCILS BILL

(HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 23, 1909)

MY LORDS. I invite the House to take to-day the first definite and
operative step in carrying out the policy that I had the honour of
describing to your Lordships just before Christmas, and that has
occupied the active consideration both of the Home Government and of
the Government of India for very nearly three years. The statement was
awaited in India with an expectancy that with time became impatience,
and it was received in India--and that, after all, is the point to
which I looked with the most anxiety--with intense interest and
attention and various degrees of approval, from warm enthusiasm to
cool assent and acquiescence.

A few days after the arrival of my despatch, a deputation waited upon
the Viceroy unique in its comprehensive character. Both Hindus and
Mahomedans were represented; and they waited upon the Viceroy to offer
warm expressions of gratitude for the scheme that was unfolded
before them. A few days later at Madras the Congress met; they, too,
expressed their thanks to the Home Government and to the Government
of India. The Moslem League met at Amritsar; they were warm in their
approval of the policy which they took to be foreshadowed in the
despatch, though they found fault with the defects they thought they
had discovered in the scheme, and implored the Government, both in
India and here, to remedy those defects. So far as I know--and I do
beg your Lordships to note these details of the reception of our
policy in India--there has been no sign in any quarter, save in the
irreconcilable camp, of anything like organised hostile opinion among
either Indians or Anglo-Indians.

The Indian Civil Service I will speak of very shortly. I will pass
them by for the moment. Lord Lansdowne said truly the other night that
when I spoke at the end of December, I used the words "formidable and