think democracy will be just as reasonable as any other sensible form
of government, and I do not believe democracy will for a moment
think that you are to rip up a settlement of an administrative or
constitutional question, because it jars with some abstract _a priori_
idea. I for one certainly say that I would not remain at the India
Office, or any other powerful and responsible Departmental office, on
condition that I made short work of settled facts, hurried on with my
catalogue of first principles, and arranged on those principles
the whole duties of government. Then my hon. friend the Member for
Brentford quoted an expression of mine used in a speech in the country
about the impatient idealists, and he reproved me for saying that some
of the worst tragedies of history had been wrought by the impatient
idealists. He was kind enough to say that it was I, among other
people, who had made him an idealist, and therefore I ought not to be
ashamed of my spiritual and intellectual progeny. I certainly have no
right whatever to say that I am ashamed of my hon. friend, who made
a speech full of interesting views, full of visions of a millennial
future, and I do not quarrel with him for making his speech. My hon.
friend said that he was for an Imperial Duma. The hon. Gentleman has
had the advantage of a visit to India, which I have never had. I think
he was there for six whole long weeks. He polished off the Indian
population at the heroic rate of sixty millions a week, and this makes
him our especially competent instructor. His Imperial Duma was to be
elected, as I understood, by universal suffrage.

[Footnote 1: The Secretary of State had on an earlier occasion spoken
of the Petition of Bengal as a settled fact.]

Dr. RUTHERFORD: No, not universal suffrage. I said educational
suffrage, and also pecuniary suffrage--taxpayers and ratepayers.