“YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK”

IN the course of his speech at the St Andrews’ Dinner in Calcutta, Lord Lytton spoke about the Government of India Act, to which it is necessary to draw attention. “I was sorry,” said His Excellency, “to see the irritation which was caused recently by the speech of Mr. Lloyd George, in which he referred to the Act of 1919 as an experiment. That irritation seemed to me to indicate a nervousness for which I can find no justification. Whatever anyone may think of the Act, however anyone may describe it, let us all understand that you can never go back. Some of my friends are afraid that the new Secretary of State or the change of Government might endanger the successful evolution of the Reforms in India. Any such fear is groundless. To undo the Act of 1919 would be the action of revolutionaries. The new Government in England is a Conservative Government, and Conservatives are not revolutionaries.” The first part of these observations is open to criticism only on one ground. If it is true, and it is true, that whatever one may think of the Government of India Act and however one may describe it, we can never go back, then the party with whom Lord Lytton should find fault is not the people of India whose feeling of irritation was perfectly justified by the occasion, but Mr. Lloyd George whose stupid speech was responsible for the irritation. There is no question of nervousness. The people of India know that their destiny is primarily in their own hands. But a people’s faith in their own destiny, no matter how strong, cannot preclude their feeling offended or aggrieved when a deliberate attempt is made by a man in authority to interfere with its realisation of that destiny. It is just because Mr. Lloyd George’s speech did constitute such an attempt that all India condemned it with one voice.