world--the breakdown of British statesmanship. That is what it will
do. Now I do not believe anybody--either in this room or out of this
room--believes that we can now enter upon an era of pure repression.
You cannot enter at this date and with English public opinion, mind
you, watching you, upon an era of pure repression, and I do not
believe really that anybody desires any such thing. I do not believe
so. Gentlemen, we have seen attempts, in the lifetime of some of us
here to-night, attempts in Continental Europe, to govern by pure
repression. Has one of them really succeeded? They have all failed.
There may be now and again a spurious semblance of success, but in
truth they have all failed. Whether we with our enormous power and
resolution should fail, I do not know. But I do not believe anybody
in this room representing so powerfully as you do dominant sentiments
that are not always felt in England--that in this room there is
anybody who is for an era of pure repression. Gentlemen, I would just
digress for a moment if I am not tiring you. ("Go on,") About the same
time as the transfer, about fifty years ago, of the Government of
India from the old East India Company to the Crown, another very
important step was taken, a step which I have often thought since
I have been concerned with the Government of India was far more
momentous, one almost deeper than the transfer to the Crown. And what
do you think that was? That was the first establishment--I think I
am right in my date--of Universities. We in this country are so
accustomed to look upon political changes as the only important
changes, that we very often forget such a change as the establishment
of Universities. And if any of you are inclined to prophesy, I should
like to read to you something that was written by that great and
famous man, Lord Macaulay, in the year 1836, long before the
Universities were thought of. What did he say? What a warning it is,
gentlemen. He wrote, in the year 1836:--"At the single town of Hooghly