les the House with speeches
of his own once in twelve months. There are several topics which the
House will expect me to say something about, and of these are two or
three topics of supreme interest and importance, for which I plead for
patience and comprehensive consideration. We are too apt to find that
Gentlemen both here and outside fix upon some incident of which they
read in the newspaper; they put it under a microscope; they indulge
in reflections upon it; and they regard that as taking an intelligent
interest in the affairs of India. If we could suppose that on some
occasion within the last three or four weeks a wrong turn had been
taken in judgment at Simla, or in the Cabinet, or in the India Office,
or that to-day in this House some wrong turn might be taken, what
disasters would follow, what titanic efforts to repair these
disasters, what devouring waste of national and Indian treasure, and
what a wreckage might follow! These are possible consequences that
misjudgment either here or in India might bring with it.

Sir, I believe I am not going too far when I say that this is almost,
if not quite, the first occasion upon which what is called the British
democracy in its full strength has been brought directly face to face
with the difficulties of Indian Government in all their intricacies,
all their complexities, all their subtleties, and above all in their
enormous magnitude. Last year when I had the honour of addressing the
House on the Indian Budget, I observed, as many have done before me,
that it is one of the most difficult experiments ever tried in human
history, whether you can carry on, what you will have to try to carry
on in India--personal government along with free speech and free right
of public meeting. This which last year was partially a speculative
question, has this year become more or less actual, and that is a
question which I shall by and by have to submit to the House. I want
to set out the case as frankly as I possibly can. I want, if I may
say so without presumption, to take the House into full confidence so
far--and let nobody quarrel with this provision--as public interests
allow. I will beg the House to remember that we do not only hear one
another; we are ourselves this afternoon overheard. Words that may be
spoken here, are overheard in the whole kingdom. They are overheard
thousands of miles away by a vast and complex community. They are
overheard by others who are doing the servi