Horniman’s deportation

THIS day five years ago, B.G. Horniman was deported from India by a fiat of the Executive Government. The lawless law under which this arbitrary order was passed has now ceased to exist, but the order itself remains, and this in spite of the fact that every single official who had anything to do with the order has ceased to be officially connected with India. Sir Lloyd George, the original author of the mischievous blunder, is no longer Governor of Bombay. Nor are Lord Chelmsford and Mr Montagu, who loyally supported him in his folly, responsible for the administration of India at Delhi and Whitehall. The fact is proof of that marvellous impersonal and non-party character of the Government of India on which we are so often asked to congratulate ourselves, but which is really the worst thing about it. In a country governed under the party system, there is at least this advantage that a mistake made by the leaders or representatives of one party stands a fairly good chance of being rectified by those of another, when the latter comes into office. No such thing is as a rule possible in India, where a mistake made by one Government, however serious, is as a rule maintained for as long a time by its successors as it can possibly be maintained. This would be a bad enough thing even if the principles generally governing the administration of India were sufficiently high. It is immeasurably worse because those principles are no better than the ordinary principles of the Conservative party with its rooted hostility to liberty and progress.

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