Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/476

440

had been impressed with the urgency of the matter. A prelimi- nary and informal examination of the changes possible and prudent had been made by Lord Hardinge. Lord Chelmsford took up the inquiry from the point where his predecessor had left it. At the close of 1916 his Government submitted to the Secretary of State a considered scheme of reforms, and asked for an authorita- tive declaration of policy. Was the goal for the Indian peoples to be responsible government? If so, by what stages and steps should it be reached? The questions raised were large and delicate. The Cabinet was preoccupied by the war. In July 1917 the Secretary of State, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, resigned on the report of the Mesopotamian Commission.

Declaration of Aug. 20 1917. It fell to his successor, Mr. Montagu, to announce on Aug. 20 191 7, in the House of Commons, the policy of the Government with regard to India. " The policy of H.M. Government," he said, " is that of increasing the association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire." After stating that the Government had decided that substantial steps in this direction should be taken as soon as possible, and that he was going to India to examine the matter in conjunction with the Viceroy, he ended with an important caution: " Progress in this policy can only be achieved by successive stages. The British Government and the Government of India, on whom the responsibility lies for the welfare and advancement of the Indian peoples, must be the judges of the time and measure of each advance, and they must be guided by the cooperation received from those upon whom new opportunities of service will thus be conferred and by the extent to which it is found that confidence can be reposed on their sense of responsibility."

This announcement, though its qualifying words were not liked by the extreme nationalists, somewhat cleared the air in India, and Mrs. Besant's release had a further tranquillizing effect. In the Mahommedan camp there were signs of discord. Conservative Mahommedans did not like the Lucknow Compact with the Hindu leaders. Mahommedan feelings were stirred by the reverses suffered by Turkey and the growing power of the Sherif of Mecca. In Sept. the Hindu population attacked their Mahommedan neighbours in the Shahabad and Gaya districts of Bihar over the cow-killing question, and bloody and destructive riots occurred before order was restored by force.

The Montagu-Chelmsford Report. In the course of the winter Mr. Montagu visited India. The results of his mission were em- bodied in a joint report by himself and the Viceroy, drawn up before he left India, and bearing date April 22 1918. The report is a lengthy and able document, written in an attractive and picturesque style. It described the existing administrative system and led up to the conclusion that the political development of the provinces was stifled by the rigid control which the central Government was compelled to exercise in discharge of its responsibility to Parliament. In the course of 10 years the nation- al consciousness and the desire for political power had grown with unexpected rapidity, and the Morley-Minto constitution no longer satisfied Indian opinion. The report then described the social and political conditions of the different sections of the Indian population, with the object of showing that responsible government could not be introduced at once over the whole field of administration; and examined and pronounced impossible the Congress-League scheme of reforms. In the second part of the report the authors set out their own proposals. These, in brief, were that the provinces should be the domain in which the earlier steps towards the progressive realization of responsible government should be taken, and that the only possible plan was to divide the functions of provincial governments into those that might be made over to popular control and those which for the present must remain in official hands. This novel and ingenious plan of a dual Government has received the name of " dyarchy." The Montagu-Chelmsford scheme of reforms and the action which was taken on it by Parliament are described below (see under Administration).

War Conference of 1918: India's Increased Effort. The Montagu-Chelmsford report was nearing completion at Simla when the Viceroy's attention was recalled to the pressing realities of the war. In the Near East, German troops had pene- trated the Caucasus and Turks were invading Persia. With the collapse of Russia a road to Afghanistan and thence to India seemed possible. In a telegram (April 2 1918) which reflected the anxieties of the western front though it referred to what was happening in the East, the Prime Minister made a strong appeal to the Government and people of India to redouble their efforts and prevent German tyranny from " spreading to the East and engulfing the world." Lord Chelmsford's response was to convene a war conference at Delhi, to which many ruling princes and representatives of all provinces of every shade of opinioi were invited. There he earnestly besought all classes to suspe: political strife, to concert measures for gathering up the whol man-power and resources of the country, and to accept cheerful!; the necessary sacrifices. The conference heartily and loyall; responded to the appeal and agreed upon a programme of mea ures of no small value. The better organization of recruiting an materials of war was entrusted to boards. A scheme of territori; recruitment was mapped out whereby each province woul< furnish its quota of men. The ruling princes, who, as alwa; were preeminently helpful and practical, undertook to furni; larger contingents and to open their dominions to British recruit ing parties. The conference was followed by similar conferen in all the provinces. These did much to rekindle public inte: in the war and to enlist popular support to the exertions of th Government. In the five months preceding the Armisti 200,000 men were recruited, and had the war gone on this number would have been greatly increased. In the spring of 1917 the Legislative Council had accepted the Government's proposal to make a free gift of 100,000,000 to the home Government towards the expenses of the war. This was in addition to the obligation which the Indian Government had undertaken, to bear the normal charges of all troops on the Indian establishment sent overseas. In the Sept. session of 1918 the Legislative Council, by a large majority of the non-official members, to whom the decision was left, agreed to make a further contribution. It was to take the form of paying for a certain number of Indian troo employed outside India by the British Government, along wit certain pensionary charges. Assuming that the war would 1; till 1920 the aggregate charge was estimated at 45,000, Actually, however, on account of the earlier ending of the wa and the heavy cost to India of the subsequent Afghan War, t! contribution was reduced to less than one-third of that sum.

In appraising the contributions and the sacrifices made by Indi; to the common cause of the Empire, several factors which d : tinguish that country from the self-governing Dominions should remembered. The first is the poverty of the general mass of th< population, dependent on a precarious and primitive agriculture, without the stay of large industries, with little accumulated capital unversed in modern ways of banking and investment, and wedd to the ancient habit of hoarding. Secondly, the fiduciary relati of the Government to the governed, making it reluctant to impc sacrifices on a dependent population, and ever conscious of the difficulty of finding revenue to meet the elementary needs of a civil- ized administration. Thirdly, the necessities of self-defence owing to untranquil borders and liability to invasion. During the war the life of the late Amir of Afghanistan alone averted this danger. Its imminence and gravity were proved by the Afghan War and the rising of the independent tribes which followed on the murder of Amir Habibulla in Feb. 1919. All these circumstances considered, the part borne by India in the 1 war and the sacrifices made by her people for the common cause were by no means despicable. They are represented by an addition of over 230 crores to her rupee debt, the sending overseas of 800,000 combatants and 400,000 non-comba- tants, and the furnishing of food-stuflfs and other supplies at the cost of much privation among the poorer classes. If the agriculturists as a body and some other sections of the community made money out of the war, the urban classes and the multitude of persons on small salaries and fixed incomes suffered greatly from the dearness and scarcity of food and clothing. Privation undoubtedly intensified the severity of an epidemic of influenza in the autumn and winter of 1919 from which 5,000,000 persons died. It was also a potent cause of the labour unrest, strikes, and labour unions that were a marked feature of industrial India during 1919 and 1920, and that reacted on the political situation in 1921.