Note 4 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
This refers to a talk I had had with General C. G. Gordon at the end of 1882 in which he had assured me emphatically that “no reform would ever be achieved in India without a Revolution.” Gordon, it will be remembered, accompanied Ripon, as his private secretary, to India in 1880, but soon after their landing at Bombay had resigned his place. The opposition of the covenanted civil service to any real reform had convinced him that he would be useless to Lord Ripon in an impossible task.