The Viceroy’s speech

OUR leading article yesterday was written on the basis of the summary of the Viceroy’s speech at the farewell banquet at Simla. Since then, we have received and have also published the full text of the speech. It must be confessed that a perusal of the text of the speech does not, even in the smallest particular, alter the impression made on one’s mind by the summary. On the main issue, and after all it is only that issue which matters, it was not merely an unsatisfactory but a thoroughly inconsequential utterance which literally led nowhere. Sir Mahomed Shafi, in his speech, had said that in his considered opinion, the present was the psychological moment for His Majesty’s Government to make a generous gesture, and had expressed the hope that such a gesture might come before His Excellency left India’s shores. Lord Reading, the trained diplomat that he is, not only carefully avoided saying a word calculated to strengthen this hope, but actually sought to turn the tables upon Sir Mahomed and those for whom he spoke by asserting that so far as His Majesty’s Government was concerned, the generous gesture had been made already in Lord Birkenhead’s speech, and it was now for India herself to come forward with her answering response. “I thought from Sir Mahomed’s speech,” said His Excellency, “and especially the introductory observations on this subject, when he referred gracefully to the remarks of the Secretary of State Lord Birkenhead, that this was the gesture indicated, but as he proceeded, I realised that the appetite for generous gestures grows with their receipt.”