of absolute and personal government, and that raised some doubts.
Reference has been made to my having resisted the Irish Crimes Act, as
if there were a scandalous inconsistency between opposing the policy
of that Act, and imposing this policy on the natives of India. That
inconsistency can only be established by anyone who takes up the
position that Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, is exactly on the
same footing as these 300,000,000 people--composite, heterogeneous,
with different histories, of different races, different faiths. Does
anybody contend that any political principle whatever is capable
of application in every sort of circumstances without reference to
conditions--in every place, and at every time? I, at all events, have
never taken that view, and I would like to remind my hon. friends that
in such ideas as I have about political principles, the leader of my
generation was Mr. Mill. Mill was a great and benignant lamp of wisdom
and humanity, and it was at that lamp I and others kindled our modest
rushlights. What did Mill say about the government of India? Remember
he was not merely that abject and despicable being, a philosopher. He
was a man practised in government, and in what government? Why, he was
responsible, experienced, and intimately concerned in the government
of India. What did he say? If there is anybody who can be quoted as
having been a champion of representative government it is Mill; and in
his book, which, I take it, is still the classic book on that subject,
this is what he says--

"Government by the dominant country is as legitimate as any other,
if it is the one which, in the existing state of civilization of
the subject people, most facilitates their transition to a higher
state of civilization."

Then he says this--