ithout rebuke to indulge in the calumnies and
expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth
without measure upon the whole population of India.... The people
of India do not like us, but they would scarcely know where
to turn if we left them. They are sheep, literally without a
shepherd."

However, that may be, we at least at Westminster here have no choice
and no option. As an illustrious Member of this House wrote--

"We found a society in a state of decomposition, and we have
undertaken the serious and stupendous process of reconstructing
it."

Macaulay, for it was he, said--

"India now is like Europe in the fifth century."

Yes, a stupendous process indeed. The process has gone on with
marvellous success, and if we all, according to our various lights,
are true to our colours, that process will go on. Whatever is said, I
for one--though I am not what is commonly called an Imperialist--so
far from denying, I most emphatically affirm, that for us to preside
over this transition from the fifth European century in some parts, in
slow, uneven stages, up to the twentieth--so that you have before you
all the centuries at once as it were--for us to preside over that, and
to be the guide of peoples in that condition, is, if conducted with
humanity and sympathy, with wisdom, with political courage, not only a
human duty, but what has been often and most truly called one of the
most glorious tasks ever confided to any powerful State in the history
of civilised mankind.

VI

HINDUS AND MAHOMETANS

(AT THE INDIA OFFICE. JANUARY, 1909)

[A deputation of the London Branch of the All-Indian Moslem League
waited upon the Secretary of State, in order to represent to him the
views of the Mussulmans of India on the projected Indian reforms.]

I am delighted to meet you to-day, because I have always felt in my
political experience, now pretty long, that it is when face answers
to face that you come best to points of controversial issue. I have
listened to the able speech of my friend Mr. Ameer Ali and to the
speech that followed, with close attention, not merely for the sake
of the arguments upon the special points raised, but because the
underlying feeling and the animating spirit of the two speeches are
full of encouragement. Why? Because instead of any hostile attitude
to our reforms as a whole, I find that you welcome them cordially and
with gratitude. I c