Lord Olivier on India

The Statesman of Calcutta is to be congratulated on its enterprise in putting questions to Lord Olivier and obtaining answers in the shape of a series of four articles which it has just published. The articles cover a wide range of subjects and are intended to throw light on some very important aspects of the policy of the Labour Government generally and of Lord Olivier in particular, which in the opinion of a good many critics did stand in need of elucidation. It cannot be said that they furnish good or pleasant reading. They have the characteristic defect of Lord Olivier’s public pronouncements: a lack of brevity and a certain roundabout way of saying things which only directness can make effective. He has certainly taken more space to say what he had to say than any other public man that we know of would have taken to say it. One reason for this undoubtedly does credit to Lord Olivier. He has a scholar’s detachment and is anxious to be just. But this is, by no means, the only reason, and in any case it does not lend to his articles the one quality without which all other qualities of a literary production are of little or no avail — attractiveness. The main object of the articles is not, of course, so much to explain the government’s policy in India as to defend that policy as also certain pronouncements of Lord Olivier himself that had been severely criticised by the die-heard press in England. The defence is undoubtedly both able and vigorous. In one notable instance, it has clearly gone home, as the vehement rejoinder it has provoked unmistakably shows.