ht be, yet I also perceive
serious disadvantages. In the old days they were able to command the
services on the Indian committees, of ex-Ministers, of members of this
House and members of another place, who had had much experience
of Indian administration, and I am doubtful, considering the
preoccupations of public men, whether we should now be able to call a
large body of experienced administrators, with the necessary balance
between the two Houses, to sit on one of these committees. And then I
would point out another disadvantage. You would have to call away from
the performance of their duties in India a large body of men whose
duties ought to occupy, and I believe do occupy, all their minds and
all their time. Still it is an idea, and I will only say that I do not
entirely banish it from my own mind. Two interesting speeches, and
significant speeches, have been made this afternoon. One was made by
my hon. friend, the mover, and the other by the hon. Member for East
Leeds. Those two speeches raise a really important issue. My hon.
friend the Member for Leeds said that democracy was entirely opposed
to, and would resist, the doctrine of the settled fact.[1] My hon.
friend tells you democracy will have nothing to do with settled facts,
though he did not quite put it as plainly as that. Now, if that be so,
I am very sorry for democracy. I do not agree with my hon. friend. I
think democracy will be just as reasonable as any other sensible form
of government, and I do not believe democracy will for a moment
think that you are to rip up a settlement of an administrative or
constitutional question, because it jars with some abstract _a priori_
idea. I for one certainly say that I would not remain at the India
Office, or any other powerful and responsible Departmental office, on
condition that I made short work of settled facts, hurried on with my
catalogue of first principles, and arranged on those principles
the whole duties of government. Then my hon. friend the Member for
Brentford quoted an expression of mine used in a speech in the country
about the impatient idealists, and he reproved me for saying that some
of the worst tragedies of history had been wrought by the impatient
idealists. He was kind enough to say that it was I, among other
people, who had made him an idealist, and therefore I ought not to be
ashamed of my spiritual and intellectual progeny. I certainly have no
right whatever to say that I am ashamed of m