A threat and an offer

IT may be conceded that Lord Birkenhead was not without justification in his speech at Milton Abbey Park, Dorset, in putting the interpretation upon the fact that “his speech in the House of Lords was accepted without question, almost without criticism, by the House of Commons, where spokesmen of the Labour and Liberal parties supported the main principles of the Government’s policy.” Where the opposition to the Government was led by a speaker who, while proclaiming that the policy of his party was not to give good government to India but to evolve self-government, described his lordship’s offer to India as “surprisingly liberal”, one can easily see how little criticism of the Government’s main policy there was in the debate. But when his lordship went on to base upon this interpretation what most patriotic Indians would regard as a threat, he simply wasted his breath. “I would say to our Indian critics,” he said, “that what I said in the House of Lords represents not only my party’s considered policy, but it is also the considered and deliberate judgment of all parties of the British nation. If they are prepared honestly and sincerely to attempt to make a Constitution, we wish them success. No door is closed to them. But if on the contrary they are determined to render ineffective and futile the Constitution we frame, there are very few doors open to them. That is the settled determination of the British nation.” The reminder was hardly necessary. With the exception of a very small minority of old-world Liberals, politically minded Indians have never been under any delusion in this matter.

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