about affairs of state, one constantly hears expressions of surprise and
indignation that there should be any unrest in India at all. "We have,"
say the die-hard wiseacres, "governed India jolly well and jolly
honestly, and the Indians ought to be jolly grateful instead of kicking
up all this fuss. If that meddlesome Montagu had not put these wicked
democratic ideas into their heads, and stirred up all this mud, we
should have gone on quite comfortable as before." But if we face the
facts squarely, we shall see that the wonder is not that there has been
so much, but that there has been so comparatively little unrest, and
that India should, on the whole, have waited so patiently for a definite
advance towards self-government.

What are the facts? They are these. Partly by commercial enterprise,
partly by adroit diplomacy, partly by accident, largely by the valour of
our arms, we have obtained dominion over the great continent of India.
We have ruled it for more than a century through the agency of a handful
of Englishmen, alien in creed, colour, and custom from the people whom
they rule--men who do not even make their permanent homes in the land
they administer. Now, however efficient, however honest, however
impartial, however disinterested such a rule may be, it cannot obviously
be really agreeable to the peoples ruled. This is the fundamental
weakness of our position. That our rule on these lines has lasted so
long and has been so successful is due not to the fact alone that it has
been backed by British bayonets, but rather to the fact that it has been
remarkably efficient, honest, just, and disinterested--and, above all,
that we have in the past given and secured goodwill.

Superimposed on this underlying irritant, there have been of late years
a number of other more direct causes of unrest. Education, which we gave
to India and were bound to give, had inevitably bred political