A fundamental misunderstanding
Lahore, Friday, December 5, 1924
OPINION may and does differ as to whether it was at all a dignified thing for Sir Malcolm Hailey, in his joint reply to the addresses presented to him at Gujranwala, to refer to the division in the local municipality over the question of presenting an address to him. There can, however, be no two opinions among right-thinking persons as to the essential unsoundness of the position which His Excellency took up in the matter. “I cannot forget,” he said, “that I come here not as an individual who no doubt has many failings justly deserving of public criticism, but as the representative in this Province of His Majesty the King Emperor. I have no doubt that when you, the majority of the Committee, decided to present an address to me, it was purely in this capacity that you desired to welcome me, and it is in this capacity that I, for my part, desire to express my appreciation of your determination to see that the citizens of Gujranwala should not incur the stigma of appearing to offer a deliberate affront to a representative of the Crown.” It means, in the first place, that while Sir Hailey, the individual, can justly be criticised for his failings, Sir Hailey, the representative in this province of His Majesty the Emperor, is entitled to share the latter’s own immunity from public criticism; and secondly, that for any class of the King’s subjects to refrain from publicly welcoming His Excellency is to offer an affront to a representative of the Crown. Both propositions are fundamentally wrong. The King is immune from public criticism because he can do no wrong, and he can do no wrong simply because he does nothing himself, that is, on his own responsibility.
