India Under Ripon: A Private Diary

14

I include in the term “Deccan” the whole geographical area of the central and southern plateau of India; not merely the Nizam’s territory.

15

Since this was written factories especially for cotton goods have been established by native enterprise in Bombay, but have been met in the interests of Lancashire by measures designed to limit their competition with imported goods. Lord Cromer with the same object imposed “countervailing excise duties” in Egypt.

16

It was, I believe, a maxim of Sir John Strachey’s that, in the interests of Finance, the Bengal Settlement must by hook or by crook be rescinded.

17

The literary calibre of the native Indian press has immensely increased since this was written.

18

The apology was made, a lame one enough and rather tardy; but as Mr. Primrose, Lord Ripon’s private secretary, remarks in his letter of August 29, 1884, forwarding me a copy of it, “The mere fact of a European addressing a formal apology to a native gentleman is worth something.”

19

Much of what is here recommended as England’s duty towards Islam has within the last two years been taken to heart by our rulers, and adopted as a part of English policy. It is only to be regretted that in India the motive seems to have been the encouragement of Mohammedan loyalty as a counterpoise to the Hindu movement for self-government, 1909.

20

In reprinting this chapter I have incorporated with it part of another chapter on the Native States.

21

Note.– The reader must once more be reminded that this chapter, with the three that precede it, was written full twenty-five years ago. Its scheme of constitutional reform was scoffed at then as fanciful and Utopian. But the Asiatic world has marched on, and English opinion to-day seems to have awakened at last to its recommendations as a coming necessity. Whether the concessions now being elaborated so tardily at the India Office will suffice to allay the bitter feelings aroused by the reactionary policy of a whole past generation since Lord Ripon’s time, I forbear to prophesy. It is the common nemesis of alien rule to be too late in its reforms, and, even with the best intentions, to give the thing no longer asked, because its knowledge of the ruled has lagged behind. I deliver no opinion. It must suffice me that I have recorded my full testimony in this volume to a historical understanding of the India I knew in 1883-1884, during the too short rule of its best and wisest Viceroy.