Now a very important question arises, for which I would for a moment
ask the close attention of your Lordships, because I am sure that both
here and elsewhere it will be argued that the necessity, and the facts
that caused the necessity, of bringing forward strong repressive
machinery should arrest our policy of reforms. That has been stated,
and I dare say many people will assent to it. Well, the Government of
India and myself have from the very first beginning of this unsettled
state of things, never varied in our determination to persevere in the
policy of reform.

I put two plain questions to your Lordships. I am sick of all the
retrograde commonplaces about the weakness of concession to violence
and so on. Persevering in our plan of reform is not a concession to
violence. Reforms that we have publicly announced, adopted, and worked
out for more than two years--how is it a concession to violence, to
persist in those reforms? It is simply standing to your guns. A number
of gentlemen, of whom I wish to speak with all respect, addressed a
very courteous letter to me the other day that appeared in the public
prints, exhorting me to remember that Oriental countries inevitably
and invariably interpret kindness as fear. I do not believe it. The
Founder of Christianity arose in an Oriental country, and when I am
told that Orientals always mistake kindness for fear, I must repeat
that I do not believe it, any more than I believe the stranger saying
of Carlyle, that after all the fundamental question between any two
human beings is--Can I kill thee, or canst thou kill me? I do not
agree that any organised society has ever subsisted upon either of
those principles, or that brutality is always present as a fundamental
postulate in the relations between rulers and ruled.

My first question is this. There are alternative courses open to us.