The Dyer Debate

UNLESS a different decision has been arrived at, in the meantime, what has been called the Dyer debate will take place in the House of Commons to-day. Judging from the light-hearted manner in which so many members of the House have treated this subject so far, it is likely that the result of the debate will resound to the credit of the Mother of Parliaments. The plain fact of the matter is that these debates unusually reach a high level only when they are led by public men of the front rank. It is commonplace of historic criticism that there would have been no impeachment of Warren Hastings “if Burke had not been there with his prodigious industry, his commanding comprehensive vision, his burning zeal and power of kindling in men so different from one another as Fox and Sheridan, Windham and Grey, a zeal only less intense than his own.” Similarly, we owe the liveliness of more than one Indian debate of a later time to the keen interest which that prince among British Liberals, John Bright, took in Indian affairs. In our own time also, whenever an Indian debate has reached a tolerably high level, it has as a rule been due to the participation of politicians of one of two classes, either the Bradlaughs and the Fawcetts, who combined a high degree of sympathy with India with a commanding position in English public life, or the Wedderburns and Cottons, who, though devoid of any English influence, were still able to command a patient hearing on Indian questions by reason of their great knowledge of India. To-day, there are no men of either the first or the second class on whom we can rely. We have, indeed, our friends and some of them, like Commander Wedgwood, may be trusted to do their best for us, but we do them no injustice when we say that it is not in their power to raise an Indian debate to the level of authority.