Note 21 — Chapter XV

Note.—The reader must once more be reminded that this chapter, with the three that precede it, was written full twenty-five years ago. Its scheme of constitutional reform was scoffed at then as fanciful and Utopian. But the Asiatic world has marched on, and English opinion to-day seems to have awakened at last to its recommendations as a coming necessity. Whether the concessions now being elaborated so tardily at the India Office will suffice to allay the bitter feelings aroused by the reactionary policy of a whole past generation since Lord Ripon’s time, I forbear to prophesy. It is the common nemesis of alien rule to be too late in its reforms, and, even with the best intentions, to give the thing no longer asked, because its knowledge of the ruled has lagged behind. I deliver no opinion. It must suffice me that I have recorded my full testimony in this volume to a historical understanding of the India I knew in 1883-1884, during the too short rule of its best and wisest Viceroy.