y stand for, would doubt for a single moment that
summary procedure of some kind or another was justified and called
for. I discern a tendency to criticise this legislation on grounds
that strike me as extraordinary. After all, it is not our fault that
we have had to bring in this measure. You must protect the lives of
your officers. You must protect peaceful and harmless people, both
Indian and European, from the blood-stained havoc of anarchic
conspiracy. We deplore the necessity, but we are bound to face the
facts. I myself recognise this necessity with infinite regret, and
with something, perhaps, rather deeper than regret. But it is not
the Government, either here or in India, who are the authors of this
necessity, and I should not at all mind, if it is not impertinent and
unbecoming in me to say so, standing up in another place and saying
exactly what I say here, that I approve of these proceedings and will
do my best to support the Government of India.

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 a