es should remain what they are. I am not going to
expatiate upon that to-night, but it did occur to me in reading all
these proceedings that the part of Hamlet was rather omitted, because
India after all is the only real Empire. You there have an immense
Dominion, an almost countless population, governed by foreign rulers.
That is what constitutes an Empire. I observed it all with a rather
grim feeling in my mind, that, if anything goes wrong in India, the
whole of what we are talking about now, the material and military
conditions of the Empire as a whole, might be strangely altered and
convulsed. One of the happy qualities of youth--and there is no
pleasure greater than to see you in that blissful stage, for one who
has passed beyond, long beyond it--is not to be, I think I am right,
in a hurry, not to be too anxious either for the present or future
measure of the responsibilities of life and a career. You will forgive
me if I remind you of what I am sure you all know--that the civil
government of 230,000,000 persons in British India is in the hands of
some 1,200 men who belong to the Indian Civil Service. Let us follow
that. Any member of a body so small must be rapidly placed in a
position of command, and it is almost startling to me, when I look
round on the fresh physiognomies of those who are going out, and the
not less fresh physiognomies of those who have returned, to think of
the contrast between your position, and that, we will say, of some of
your Oxford contemporaries who are lawyers, and who have to spend ever
so many years in chambers in Lincoln's Inn or the Temple waiting for
briefs that do not come. Contrast your position with that of members
who enter the Home Civil Service, an admirable phalanx; but still for
a very long time a member who enters that service has to pursue the
minor and slightly mechanical routine of Whitehall. You will not
misunderstand me, because nobody knows better than a Minister how
tremendous is the debt that he owes to the permanent officials of
his department. Certainly I have every reason to be the last man to
underrate that. Well, any of you may be rapidly placed in a position
of real command with inexorable responsibilities. I am speaking in the
presence of men who know better than I do, all the details, but it
is true that one of you in a few years may be placed in command of a
district and have 1,000,000 human beings committed to his charge. He
may have to deal with a fami