all the difference. That they would sharply criticise the British
system of government has been long known. It was inevitable. There
need be no surprise in the fact that they want a share in political
influence, and want a share in the emoluments of administration. Their
means--many of them--are scanty; they have little to lose and much to
gain from far-reaching changes. They see that the British hand works
the State machine surely and smoothly, and they think, having no fear
of race animosities, that their hand could work the machine as surely
and as smoothly as the British hand.

And now I come to my last point. Last autumn the Governor-General
appointed a Committee of the Executive Council to consider the
development of the administrative machinery, and at the end of March
last he publicly informed his Legislative Council that he had sent
home a despatch to the Secretary of State proposing suggestions for
a move in advance. The Viceroy with a liberal and courageous mind
entered deliberately on the path of improvement. The public in India
were aware of it. They waited, and are now waiting the result with
the liveliest interest and curiosity. Meanwhile the riots happened
in Rawalpindi, in Lahore. After these riots broke out, what was the
course we ought to take? Some in this country lean to the opinion--and
it is excusable--that riots ought to suspend all suggestions and talk
of reform. Sir, His Majesty's Government considered this view, and in
the end they took, very determinedly, the opposite view. They held
that such a withdrawal would, of course, have been construed as a
triumph for the party of sedition. They held that, to draw back on
account of local and sporadic disturbances, however serious, anxious,
and troublesome they might be, would have been a really grave
humiliation. To hesitate to make a beginning with our own policy of
improving the administrative machinery of the Indian Government, would