Lord Birkenhead on India

LORD Birkenhead’s latest speech on India is an interesting illustration of the well-known saying of a distinguished Frenchman that language was given to man not to express but to conceal his thoughts. At a time when India, with the exception of that part which has definitely and almost finally made up its mind that nothing substantial in the way of political reform can come from England, has been expecting his lordship to take it into confidence as regards the trend and the probable outcome of his consultations with the Viceroy, he omits to say the one thing which the public is impatient to know. The reason, of course, is intelligible. The conferences in which he is engaged are still going on. But this is not the kind of reason that can indefinitely satisfy a public whose heart has been sickened by hope already too long deferred; and it must be forgotten that it is now some weeks since the Viceroy reached England and the consultations between the two officials began. But if Lord Birkenhead said nothing positive which could satisfy anyone in India, he did make more than one statement which is bound to add considerably to the uneasiness of that large section of Indian opinion which has now for some time been expecting a friendly and truly conciliatory gesture from the Secretary of State. The reference to “some elements of not dynamic but static trouble” and to “difficulties in the relations between England and India which have been described as fundamental” is one such statement.

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