ct must lead towards a closer
political partnership. It became, indeed, impossible for us to refuse to
do so without being untrue to the principles that had governed not only
our own national evolution long before the war, but all our declared war
aims and all our appeals, which never went unheeded, to Indian loyalty
and co-operation during the war.

The experiment can only succeed if it secures the steadfast and hearty
extension to new purposes of the co-operation between British and
Indians to which the British connection with India has owed from the
very beginning, as I have tried to show, its chief strength and its best
results. One may feel confident that amongst the British in India there
will be few to deny their co-operation, though scepticism and prejudice
may die hard and social relations may prove even harder to harmonise
than political relations. The new Constitution was inaugurated under
Lord Chelmsford's Viceroyalty. If he perhaps failed, especially at
certain gravely critical moments, to rise above a somewhat narrow and
unimaginative conception of his functions as the supreme depositary of
British authority in India, and was too apt to regard himself always as
merely _primus inter pares_ in a governing body, peculiarly liable from
its constitution to hesitate and procrastinate even in emergencies
requiring prompt decision, Lord Chelmsford was as upright, honourable,
and courageous an English gentleman as this country has ever sent out as
Viceroy, and India will always gratefully associate his name with the
reforms which have opened up a new era in her history. His place has now
been taken by another Viceroy, Lord Reading, whose appointment at a time
when so many Indians were smarting under a deep sense of injustice has
been all the more heartily welcomed as, apart from many other
qualifications, he went out to India with the special prestige of a
great justiciary who had exchanged for the Viceroyalty the exalted post
of Lord Chief Justice of England. Lord Reading's own liberalism is a
sufficient guarantee that he will apply himself with all his approved
ability to the carrying out of the new reforms. But, if anything more
had been needed, the revised Instrument of Instructions under Royal Sign
Manual which he took out with him for his guidance prescribed both for
the Government of India and for the Provincial Governments the utmost
restraint, "unless grave reason to the contrary appears," in any
exercise