dustry--every single one of the most burning and
controversial questions of the whole system of Indian Government and
seemed to say, "I will tell you how far this is wrong and exactly what
ought to be done to put what is wrong right." I think I have got from
him twenty _ipse dixits_ on all these topics on which we slow dull
people at the India Office are wearing ourselves to pieces. When it is
said, as I often hear it said, that I, for example, am falling
into the hands of my officials, it should be remembered that those
gentlemen who go to India also get into the hands of other people.

Dr. RUTHERFORD: I was in the hands both of officials and of Indians.

Mr. MORLEY: Then let me assure him, perhaps to his amazement, that he
came out of the hands of both of them still with something to learn.
I wonder whether, when this House is asked to condemn the present
proposals of the Government of India as being inadequate to allay the
existing and growing discontent, it is realised exactly how the case
stands. I will repeat what I said in the debate on the Indian
Budget. The Government of India sent over to the India Office their
proposals--their various schemes for advisory councils and so forth.
We at the India Office subjected them to a careful scrutiny and
laborious examination. As a result of this careful scrutiny and
examination, they were sent back to the Government of India with the
request that they would submit them to discussion in various quarters.
The instruction to the Government of India was that by the end of
March, the India Office was to learn what the general view was at
which the Government of India had themselves arrived upon the plans,
with all their complexities and variations. We wanted to know what
they would tell us. It will be for us to consider how far the report
so arrived at, how far these proposals, ripened by Indian opinion,
carried out the policy which His Majesty's Government had in view.
Surely that is a reasonable and simple way of proceeding? When you
have to deal with complex communities of varied races, and all the
other peculiarities of India, you have to think out how your proposals
will work. Democracies do not always think how things will work.
Sir Henry Cotton made a speech that interested and struck me by its
moderation and reasonableness. He made a number of remarks in perfect
good faith about officials, which I received in a chastened spirit,
for he has been for a very long time a