in been associated with them in
the making of peace? The British people have answered that question as
all the best traditions of British governance in India, and all the
principles for which they had fought and endured through four and a half
years of frightful war, bade them answer it.

The answer finally took shape in the great constitutional experiment of
which I witnessed the inauguration during my visit to India this winter.
It promises to rally as seldom before in active support of the British
connection those classes that British rule brought within the orbit of
Western civilisation by the introduction of English education, just
about a century ago. It has not disarmed all the reactionary elements
which, even when disguised in a modern garb, draw their inspiration from
an ancient civilisation, remote indeed from, though not in its better
aspects irreconcilable with, our own. A century is but a short moment of
time in the long span of Indian history, and the antagonism between two
different types of civilisation cannot be easily or swiftly lived down.
It would be folly to underrate forces of resistance which are by no
means altogether ignoble, and in this volume I have studied their origin
and their vitality because they underlie the strange "Non-co-operation"
movement which has consciously or unconsciously arrayed every form of
racial and religious and economic and political discontent, not merely
against British rule, but against the progressive forces which contact
with Western civilisation has slowly brought into existence under
British rule in India itself. These forces have been stirred to new
endeavour by the goal now definitely placed within their reach. That we
were bound to set that goal and no other before them I have tried to
show by reviewing the consistent evolution of British policy in India
for the last 150 years, keeping, imperfectly sometimes, but in the main
surely, abreast of our own national and political evolution at home and
throughout the Empire. Once placed in its proper perspective, this great
experiment, though fraught with many dangers and difficulties, is one of
which the ultimate issue can be looked forward to hopefully as the not
unworthy sequel to the long series of bold and on the whole wonderfully
successful experiments that make up the unique story of British rule in
India.

I have to express my thanks to the proprietors of _The Times_ for
allowing me to use some of the letters