William Wedderburn

“ I myself have devoted my life to political reform, but I none the less reverence those good and high-minded men who are every- where (though all too few in numbers) labouring to raise-, the moral tone of the people, none the less sympathize with?! those learned and highly-cultured men who are striving to promote their education, or with those hearty honest men who desire by promoting athletic sports and games to raise their physique, and a fortiori is my heart none the less with those earnest and unselfish workers who, like yourself, are giving their lives to the cause of social reform. ”

“ At present the greatest impediment to all progress here appears to me to consist in a general failure to realize the essential unity of the cause of reform. You find earnest men whose eyes appear to be closed to everything but the material wants of the people, and to whom the poverty of our population appears to be the one sole evil against which it is necessary to concentrate all efforts. You find equally devoted enthusiasts who see in the ignorance of the masses the source of all their sufferings and in their intellectual elevation a panacea for all woes. ”

“ I by no means set up the average education of European girls as all that could be desired — all I ask for is a really good education for all Indian girls, and if the European system is defective let us improve upon it and adopt a more perfect one.
But what I do desire to make plain is that without the proper education of our females, without their elevation to their natural and rightful position, no great and permanent political progress can be hoped for. It is by such education alone that the national intellect can be completed and the East put in a position to compete fairly with the West. ”

“ The earnest and unselfish labourers for Progress in this country constitute but an infinitesimal fraction of the population, a fraction that becomes absolutely inappreciable if further subdivided. If, then, any real results are to be achieved, it can only be by linking together all those who love the light and would fain push the darkness farther back, in a common effort against a common evil.
Doubtless, division of labour is the seed of Progress, and throughout the universe specialization goes hand in hand with development. ”

“ With unexampled energy, great perseverance and unfaltering faith he had striven amidst good report and evil to promote the social and political welfare of the people and had lived to see the firstfruits of his noble and unceasing efforts. Though it is impossible that Indians can ever repay the debt of obligation they owe to him for his righteous and dis- interested service, the name of Mr. Hume will be remembered with affection and gratitude by generations to come as that of a sterling Englishman of deep and abiding sympathy with their most cherished aspirations. ”

“ In a close service like that of India, the temptation to cultivate the good graces of those in high office is only too great. Brilliant official prizes, carrying with them large incomes, extensive influence, and pleasant surroundings, await the happy man whom a Viceroy delights to honour. No exceptional discipline therefore is needed to promote the desire for self-advancement. On the other hand a whole service will be demoralized by a policy which penalizes honest independence, and stimulates, instead of checking, mean and selfish ambitions. ”

“ It is the British Government in their noble enthusiasm for the emancipation of this great people—God's trust to them—from the fetters of ignorance, who by the broadcast dissemination of Western education and Western ideas of liberty, the rights of subjects, public spirit and patriotism, have let loose forces which, unless wisely guided and controlled, might, nay sooner or later certainly must, involve consequences which are too disastrous to contemplate. ”

“ Hume loved India passionately, as every one who knew him could testify, and he loved justice and freedom also passionately. Thus it was that, after the close of a distinguished official career, he came forward to devote his great gifts to guiding India along the path of justice and freedom and self-respect. He came forward to teach Indians to walk nobly along the path of nationhood. ”

“ The Government has, broadly speaking, never realized the vast proportions of the coming flood which is being engendered by the noble policy of which in 1833 Lord Macaulay was so prominent an exponent; and it is we of the Congress, who through good repute and ill repute, careless what men say of us if only haply God may bless our efforts, who standing between the country and the coming development, are labouring—labouring almost frantically—to provide in time channels through which this surging tide may flow, not to ravage and destroy but to fertilize and regenerate. ”

“ And when you threaten, as you often do, to abandon all other work and devote for the rest of your life your great abilities and energies, your fearless honesty and fiery enthusiasm, to these two comparatively minor matters, you seem to me, I confess, like a man who should concentrate all his attention and efforts upon a single plank in the bottom of his ship, leaving all the rest to wind and wave, to rock and rot, as Chance may will it. ”

“ The people are taught to recognize the many benefits that they owe to British rule, as also the fact that on the peaceful continuance of that rule depend all hopes for the peace and prosperity of the country. They are taught that the many hardships and disabilities of which they complain are after all, though real enough, small in comparison with the blessings they enjoy, but that all these grievances may be and will be redressed if they all join to press their views and wishes unanimously, but temperately, on the Government here and on the Government and people of England. ”

“ Hume was a constant attendant at the meetings of the Association and presided over the meetings of the Executive Council. With the wonderful charm of his magnetic personality he inspired the oft-defeated Liberals with some of his own intense faith in Liberal principles and their ultimate triumph. A profound believer in the reign of law instead of force, of arbitration instead of war, intensely in earnest in giving to the poorest the advantages of education, equality of opportunity for all was with him a passion. ”

“ In the second place, besides holding that obnoxious as are the customs against which you take arms, you have somewhat exaggerated the magnitude and universality of the evils to which they give rise, I cannot but fear that your method of thus attacking particular branches of a larger question, as if they could be successfully isolated and dealt with as distinct entities, is calculated to mislead the public, to confuse their conceptions of proportion, to entail loss of power and intensify, what seems to me at this present moment to be, the most serious obstacle to real National progress. ”

“ The Union is prepared when necessary to oppose, by all constitutional methods, all authorities, high or low, here or in England, whose acts or omissions are opposed to those principles of the government of India laid down from time to time by the British Parliament, and endorsed by the British Sovereign, but it holds the continued affiliation of India to Great Britain, at any rate for a period far exceeding the range of any practical political forecast, to be absolutely essential to the interests of our own National Development. ”

“ In Japan, a peaceful revolution converted a mediaeval military despotism into a constitutional government, based on the people's will. By a process of evolution, equally peaceful, the followers of Mr. Hume have set themselves gradually to convert the precarious domination of a foreign bureaucracy into a stable national government, under the aegis of the British Empire. India will then become a tower of strength to the Empire, attached by the strongest ties to this free country, under whose auspices she will, we trust, attain redemption and happiness. ”

“ And of amongst even you, the elite, fifty men cannot be found with sufficient power of self-sacrifice, sufficient love for and pride in their country, sufficient genuine and unselfish heartfelt patriotism to take the initiative, and if needs be, devote the rest of their lives to the Cause — then there is no hope for India. ”

“ If a new life is visible in India to-day, if the Indians have a national self-consciousness which was non-existent before the year of the first Congress, if their national self- respect is higher, if the esteem in which they are held by the civilized world is greater than it was, if with determination and self-confidence they look forward to the day when their country will have responsible government such as is enjoyed by the self-governing dominions of the Empire ; the credit for all this is to no small extent due to the Congress that was founded by Mr. Hume and therefore to Mr. Hume himself. ”

“ With regard to the charge that the Congress pamphlets excited hatred to the Government, Mr. Hume replied that nothing was to be gained by ignoring the notorious practical grievances felt by the peasantry. Every one who makes himself acquainted with the village life knows how bitter, when they talk among themselves, are the complaints, not loud but deep, with regard to the costly and unsuitable civil courts, the corrupt and oppressive police, the rigid revenue system, the galling administration of the Arms Act and the Forest Act. What is wanted is justice, cheap, sure, and speedy ”

“ A man who might have become a Lieutenant- Governor was content to work silently for the people among whom he had lived so long. Now that he has been called to his rest we can only, in language all too feeble, express our undying gratitude for all that he did for us and our country with an earnestness of devotion and nobility of purpose which have scarcely any parallel. ”

“ Secondly, you must educate the boys of the whole nation — and also the girls : "Assuredly there is no greater, grander, or more glorious work before you than the reinstatement of India's women on the exalted pedestal which is their due, and which your wiser forefathers, thousands of years ago, when India was great and glorious, accorded to them." ”

“ It is essential, I think, that we should all try to realize that closely interwoven in humanity as are the physical, intellectual and psychical factors, progress in any direction, to be real or permanent, postulates a corresponding progress in other directions — that though we may and must most specially devote our energies to overcoming the particular adversary that circumstances have most immediately opposed to us, we each form but one unit in a force contending against a common foe, whose defeat will depend as much on the success of each of our fellow-soldiers as on our own. ”

“ That two of the most, complicated and controverted problems of social reform, which for at least a quarter of a century have engaged in a desultory fashion the minds of the public, should thus in three short years have been cleared of all misconceptions and misrepresentation and reduced to their simplest elements, is a great work and one for which the country will, hereafter, I feel sure, be adequately grateful to you. ”

“ Those only who like myself take great pains to ascertain what goes on amongst the native community, really have any conception of the frightful extent to which drunkenness has increased during the last twenty years. Moreover, while we debauch our subjects we do not even pecuniarily derive any profit from their ruin. Of this revenue, the wages of sin, it may in the words of the old adage be truly said that illgotten wealth never thrives, and for every rupee additional that the Abkaree yields, two at least are lost to the public by crime, and spent by the Government in suppressing it. ”

“ Her sons must and will remain mere humble and helpless instruments in the hands of foreign rulers, for 'they would be free, themselves must strike the blow.' And if even the leaders of thought are all either such poor creatures, or so selfishly wedded to personal concerns, that they dare not or will not strike a blow for their country's sake, then justly and rightly are they kept down and trampled on, for they deserve nothing better. Every nation secures precisely as good a government as it merits. ”

“ Rash Behari Ghose, speaking at the same meeting, expressed his confidence that " when the voice of blind passion and vulgar strife is hushed, the name of Allan Hume will find a conspicuous place in the roll of those good servants of England who are imperial in the true sense of the term ; for the true imperialist is not the man who shouts the loudest about the imperial destiny of England, but the man who is conscious of the great trust which has been laid on England and which a great and righteous nation alone can discharge. ”

“ And the special purpose of the decentralization and local self-government measures now being brought forward, is to substitute the best kind of native agency for the worst ; to revive the ancient activity of rural municipal life, and to entrust the village management to the decent quiet villagers themselves instead of leaving it to a swarm of greedy underlings attracted to the Government service, not by the scanty pay, but by the power they enjoy, and the unlimited opportunities for exaction. ”

“ The least that we could do would be to provide ample funds — for sending and keeping constantly in England deputations of our ablest speakers to plead their country's cause — to enable our British Committee to keep up an unbroken series of public meetings, whereat the true state of affairs in India might be expounded — to flood Great Britain with pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers, and magazine articles — in a word to carry on an agitation there, on the lines and scale of that in virtue of which the Anti-Corn-Law League triumphed. ”

“ Every true son of India, however much he may differ from you as to methods, knows well that the reforms you aim at are noble and necessary ones, and every true son of India ought to feel it to be a sin against his country to say an unkind word against, or attribute the smallest unworthy motive to, one who is struggling so earnestly and unselfishly to advance in one direction that country's cause. ”