II


TO CONSTITUENTS

(ARBROATH. OCTOBER 21, 1907)

It is an enormous satisfaction to me to find myself here once more,
the first time since the polling, and since the splendid majority that
these burghs were good enough to give me. I value very much what the
Provost has said, when he told you that I have never, though I have
had pretty heavy burdens, neglected the local business of Arbroath and
the other burghs. The Provost truly said that I hold an important and
responsible office under the Crown; and I hope that fact will be the
excuse, if excuse be needed, for my confining myself to-night to a
single topic. When I spoke to a friend of mine in London the other day
he said, "What are you going to speak about?", and I told him. He is a
very experienced man and he said, "It is a most unattractive subject,
India." At any rate, this is the last place where any apology is
needed for speaking about India, because it is you who are responsible
for my being the Indian Minister. If your 2,500 majority had been
2,500 the other way, I should have been no longer the Indian Minister.
There is something that strikes the imagination, something that
awakens a feeling of the bonds of mankind, in the thought that you
here and in the other burghs--(shipmen, artificers, craftsmen, and
shopkeepers living here)--are brought through me, and through your
responsibility in electing me, into contact with all these hundreds