often
sorely perplexed by the conflict between his own political instincts and
the picture of Indian conditions placed before him by his official
advisers at home and in India. He felt, however, on the whole fairly
confident that he could deal with the situation by producing a moderate
measure of reforms which would satisfy India's political aspirations and
by keeping an extremely vigilant eye on Indian methods of administration
of which "sympathy" was in future to be the key-note rather than mere
efficiency. But when in the course of 1907 the agitation broke out
afresh with increased fury and began to produce a crop of political
outrages, Mr. Morley found himself in a particularly awkward position.
He was known from his Irish days to be no believer in coercion. But the
Government of India was not to be denied when it insisted that a
campaign of murder could not be tolerated and that repression was as
necessary as reform. The Secretary of State agreed reluctantly to
sanction more stringent legislation for dealing with the excesses of the
Extremist press in India, but he was only the more resolved that it must
be accompanied by a liberal reforms scheme. The Viceroy himself shared
this view and lent willing assistance. But the interchange of opinions
between India and Whitehall was as usual terribly lengthy and laborious.
A Royal Proclamation on November 28, 1908, the fiftieth anniversary of
Queen Victoria's Proclamation after the Mutiny, foreshadowed reforms in
"political satisfaction of the claims of important classes representing
ideas that have been fostered and encouraged by British rule." But not
till the following month, _i.e._ three years after Mr. Morley had taken
over the India Office, did the reforms scheme see the light of day.

It bore his impress. He had a ready ear for Indian grievances and much
understanding for the Moderate Indian point of view. He was prepared to
give Indians a larger consultative voice in the conduct of Indian
affairs, and even to introduce individual Indians not only into his own
Council at Whitehall but even into the Viceroy's Executive Council, the
citadel of British authority in India. He was determined to enforce far
more energetically than most of his predecessors the constitutional
right of the Secretary of State to form and lay down the policy for
which his responsibility was to the British Parliament alone, while the
function of the Government of India was, after making to him