by John Buchan
The trouble in the Punjab was allayed for the present, but there was ugly evidence of disquiet elsewhere. The tour in the Madras Presidency of the Bengali agitator, Bepin Chandra Pal, led to a series of riots, and in the autumn his doings in Calcutta resulted in his going to prison for six months. Throughout the autumn and early winter the capital city was in a disturbed state, seditious meetings were frequent, the police were stoned, and in the beginning of December an attempt was made to murder Sir Andrew Fraser, the Lieutenant-Governor. The circular of the British Cabinet on the proposed reforms had arrived in India, and had been communicated to the local governments for their observations, but side by side with the discussion of reform there rose for consideration the necessity of further steps for the preservation of order. Lord Kitchener, whose term of office had been extended by Mr. Morley, was anxious for an improved Press Act, and the subject was discussed in many letters between the Viceroy and the Secretary of State: both disliked the policy on general grounds, but the former was daily growing more convinced of its inevitability. In November the Seditious Meetings Bill was passed (superseding the recent Regulations of Meetings Ordinance), and Minto made a speech in the Legislative Council in which he frankly denned his policy. “The bill is aimed at the inauguration of dangerous sedition, not at political reform, not at the freedom of speech of the people of India. . . . Far from wishing to check the growth of political thought, I have hoped that with proper guidance Indian capacity and Indian patriotism might earn for its people a greater share in the government of their country. . . . We may repress sedition, we mil repress it with a strong hand, but the restlessness of new-born and advancing thought we cannot repress. We must be prepared to meet it with help and guidance, we must seek for its causes.” This speech earned the commendation of Mr. Gokhale, who had opposed the bill. “I liked it,” he told Dunlop Smith, “though I cannot agree with it. There was a true ring about it.” The passing of the Act involved the release of the Punjab deportees. “I have not a shadow of doubt,” Minto wrote on 5th November, “that we must release them, and that the sooner we do so the better.” So, in spite of the forebodings of the timid, released they were at Lahore on 18th November.
The correspondence of these months with Mr. Morley shows the Secretary of State preserving an air of philosophy under anxieties which he was unwilling to confess and a growing exasperation at the denseness of mankind. “I am not very clever at egg-dances, as my old Chief was,” he wrote, “but I’ll try my best; and I know that in you, who are the person most directly involved, I shall have a judge who will make allowances. . . . Radical supporters will be critical, and Tory opponents will scent an inconsistency between deporting Lajpat and my old fighting of Balfour for locking up William O’Brien. I shall not, however, waste much time about that. I have always said that Strafford would have made a far better business of Ireland than Cromwell did. . . .” A month before he had written: “I fancy you are of a good temperament for troublous times, and I believe that I am not bad;” but his philosophy was not always proof against vexation, and so we have this cri du coeur: —
“I am so very glad that my lot was cast in the nineteenth century, and not the twentieth! When a man has that sort of feel, ‘tis a sign that he should take in his sail, and drift peaceably into harbour. You will understand this highly figurative conclusion.”
In July he was getting very weary, not only of the Radical independents in the House of Commons (“I have often thought that a man of Cotton’s stamp would like nothing less than such a pacification of India as you are seeking — so perverse and wrong-headed is the vain creature’s whole line “), but even of the Indian moderates like Mr. Gokhale. “I am the best friend they have got in England . . . yet they seize the first chance that offers to declare me as much their enemy as Curzon!” Yet, though the letters show now and then the brittle patience of a man approaching seventy, the main impression they leave is of a marvellous vitality. He sends Minto not only his reflections on life and statesmanship, but news of every kind, including a startling view of the German Emperor — which he called a “golden impression” — that “he does really desire and intend peace.” At the close of August, when he had appointed the two Indian members* of his Council and was looking forward to a Swiss holiday, he again toyed with the notion of a visit to India. “I have sometimes played with the idea of a scamper to India. . . . How glorious it would be! But my shagreen skin (you know Balzac’s Peau de Chagrin?) is rapidly sinking to a sadly diminutive scrap, and I am above all things a homebird. Yet I would honestly give up a moderate bit of my talisman skin if I could have a week’s talk at Simla with you.” Minto’s letters are confined, as a rule, strictly to business, but once he follows the example of the Secretary of State and gives an excerpt from his philosophy of life: —
“It is important to choose the right opportunity for the battle. Of course in many things one must fight and chance the consequences, but sometimes one is more sure to win if one can afford to wait. There is an old racing motto, of which I used to be very fond and which I have always thought well adapted to the race of life: ‘Wait in front’ — which, being interpreted, means, Do not make too much running, but always be in the place from which you can win when you want to.”
* Mr. Krishna Gobinda Gupta of the Indian Civil Service, a Hindu, and Mr. Saiyid Husain Bllgrami, a Mohammedan who had been a member of the Viceroy’s Legislative Council.
In November the Mintos paid a visit to the Nizam at Hyderabad, and proceeded thence to Madras. Then they crossed the Bay of Bengal to Rangoon, and after a pleasant but fatiguing tour in Burma were back in Calcutta for Christmas. One of the duties of a Viceroy is that of public entertainer, and he is never without his guests, for any visitor of note has to be bidden to Government House, and the Mintos, having many relations and having accumulated up and down the world an infinity of friends, entertained more extensively than most of their predecessors. Minto’s modesty made him willing to learn from any man, and his placid good sense and friendliness made a success of even difficult meetings. A case in point was the tour of the socialist leader, Mr. Keir Hardie, in 1907. He talked beyond question a good deal of nonsense, but mischiefmakers perverted what he said, until he became a bogey of the first order to both England and India. Minto took a juster view and invited him to the Viceregal Lodge. “Keir Hardie,” he wrote to Sir Arthur Bigge, “was much better than he was painted. I rather liked him, as I think every one at Simla did who met him. He is simply a crank, and his sayings were very much exaggerated. He was most anxious to see people entirely opposed to his views, and he saw many.” To Mr. Morley he wrote: “He said nothing that I could in the least find fault with. He impressed me as a warm-hearted enthusiast, who had come out here with preconceived opinions. He was quite prepared to admit the difficulties of the present position. . . . Though much of this (his criticism) is entirely wrongheaded, there are grains of truth.” “What a singular world,” Mr. Morley replied. “A talk with Scindia one day and then with Keir Hardie the day after! The last event fills one with a queer exquisite sort of satisfaction; and I think if you had been here while the Keir Hardie storm was at its height (I did not quite escape the force of the gale myself), you would relish the notion of a ‘cordial interview with the Viceroy’ as keenly as I do. The King heartily approved of your seeing him.”
IV
In December 1907 a decentralization commission had begun work in India, and in the beginning of 1908 it was plain that trouble would ensue. The commission had been the result of a suggestion of Minto’s made early in 1907 as an alternative to Mr. Morley’s dangerous proposal of a parliamentary inquiry into Indian affairs. It soon became a pet scheme of the Secretary of State, and he took a keen interest in its composition, selecting various chairmen who failed him one after the other, and finally appointing Mr. (now Sir) Charles Hobhouse. Mr. Hobhouse did not turn out to be the most fortunate of choices. He contrived to offend many of the officials with whom he came into contact, he disregarded the
terms of his inquiry and proposed to report on the most delicate and secret matters completely outside his scope, and he finally came into conflict with the Viceroy himself. One evening about 9 p.m. he sent in eighty-six questions, which he asked the Viceroy to consider before noon next day; when told that this was impossible, and that he was in the range of his inquiries exceeding his powers, he demanded a private luncheon with the Viceroy to discuss the question, which was incompatible with viceregal etiquette. Minto wrote to Mr. Morley on 3rd January an account of the deadlock. He did not think that the Government of India should be itself examined on any of the great questions of administration, but should keep clear so that it might be able to give an independent opinion upon the report when completed. Above all, it was impossible to have the commission visiting and interrogating the native states, whose internal relations were a delicate matter and depended mainly upon personal intercourse between the ruling princes and the Viceroy. On 9th January he wrote that the chairman of the commission “is apparently under the impression that some superior power to that of the Government of India has been delegated to him,” and he went on to suggest a principle of which Mr. Morley cordially approved: “Indian policy should generally depend upon an exchange of views between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. There must be a policy for India as a whole approved by His Majesty’s Government, and I can see nothing except confusion of ideas if the Secretary of State should be advised by the heads of a number of local governments, in whom generally little reliance can be placed in reference to questions of imperial magnitude.”
The worst difficulty was the matter of the native states. Minto refused, rightly, to let the commission visit these states, since its purpose would have been misunderstood, and it would have led to endless perplexities; so it was arranged that, so far as that subject was concerned, the chairman should examine the head of the Foreign department in Calcutta and political officers belonging to any native state he cared to name. Unhappily Mr. Hobhouse misunderstood or forgot the arrangement, went to Rajputana apparently on a private tour, and while there called for confidential reports on a variety of subjects, alleging — or so the officials understood him — that he had a secret commission from Mr. Morley to examine into these matters. The Viceroy promptly forbade the officials to furnish a line of information or Mr. Hobhouse to ask for it. Allowances must be made for the difficulties of the commission; they had “sun-dried bureaucrats” on the brain, and, being on the look-out for secretiveness naturally found it; their task could not be a very easy or popular one, though the Viceroy and the Government of India did everything to facilitate it. But the chairman was unhappily chosen, for his ability and energy were not mellowed by the necessary tact. The Secretary of State was the last man to suffer his name to be taken in vain. Even before the Rajputana incident he had written: “I am in some despair about a certain commission that in a doubtful hour I launched upon you. From many quarters I have the same story of want of tact, and of excessive brusqueness. I can only plead that I did my utmost to warn him, and in every letter I have harped upon the same tune.” On the matter of a “secret mission” he was flat in his denial. On 12th March he wrote: “The trouble Hobhouse is giving us really is almost exasperating. The ‘secret mission’ is wholly unintelligible. Why, I told him fifty times that you were to decide everything in this region. It is as absurd as his talk about my ‘delegating’ the powers of a Secretary of State to him.” The commission was brought to a close with some celerity, and presently Mr. Hobhouse was promoted from the India Office to the Treasury.
The second daughter, Ruby, had become engaged to Lord Cromer’s eldest son, and in February Lady Minto went home for the wedding. Before she left she had the felicity of seeing her youngest daughter, Violet, win the Calcutta Ladies’ Steeplechase at Tollygunge.
“I took up my position,” she wrote in her diary, “in a long stretch of country where we could see four of the wall jumps, feeling too sick with fear to speak. Rolly was equally wretched. It was an awful moment seeing them crash past us. One lady fell at the first wall; Rolly saw a heap on the ground with fair hair, and for one horrid moment thought it was Violet. She was wonderfully calm, not a bit nervous, and holding her horse well together. . . . After seeing them pass we galloped back to the winning post. It was a tricky course with turns, the slippery ground making it much more dangerous. Fortunately the suspense was short-lived. We had hardly got into position before Violet sailed round the corner, leading by several lengths, looking round with the savoir faire of an old jockey to see what she had in hand, as if she had been riding races all her life. She cleared the last fence beautifully and won easily. . . . Violet’s first remark after the race was, ‘Why wasn’t I a boy?’ For my peace of mind I am too thankful she wasn’t.”
Lady Minto left just as the long-expected war broke out on the North-West frontier. The frontier policy of India had been laid down in Lord George Hamilton’s dispatch of January 1898, during Lord Elgin’s viceroyalty, and had been accepted by Lord Elgin’s successors. Its aim was limited liability, and it was based on two main principles — that the military force should be concentrated so as to command the strategical points of the border, and that Government interference with the tribes should be limited so as to avoid the extension of administrative control over independent tribal territory. In consequence most of the regular troops were withdrawn inside the border, Chitral and Malakand being among the few transborder stations occupied, while the tribal valleys, like the Khyber, Kurram, Tochi, and Zhob, were held by local militia corps commanded by British officers. The position could not in the nature of things be satisfactory. The tribal levies were often incompetent, one tribe after another grew restless or took to raiding, punitive expeditions followed, there was a burning of huts and crops, the British retired, and a little later it all began again. The policy had no promise of finality, and the men whose business it was to hold the frontier were inclined to the belief that the strip of no-man’s-land lying between India and Afghanistan should be brought directly under British control. The Amir, talking to a British officer, once said, “Till the British frontier reaches the frontier of Afghanistan we never can have peace. So long as these tribes have not been subdued by the British there will be trouble and intrigue.” The whole question indeed bristled with difficulties. There was on the one side the natural desire of the British Government not to enlarge its territorial responsibilities; and there was on the other side the exasperation of the frontier officials with a system which did not get rid of responsibility but gave no real guarantee of protection. Minto’s view was that a modified occupation was necessary. He wrote to Mr. Morley on October 16, 1907: —
“There need be no necessity for taking the country in the sense of forcing upon it British administration, collection of revenues, etc. We could simply hold it by the creation of one or two roads, or rather by the improvement of the existing roads by means of tribal labour . . . and the establishment of a few advanced posts, leaving the tribes as heretofore to carry on their own tribal administration, as we have done in the Swat valley and other districts. Why should we have a nest of cut-throats at our doors when all our experience has taught us that the mere evidence of British strength means not only safety to ourselves but happiness and prosperity to the districts we have pacified? . . . Putting aside the loss of life and property consequent upon perpetual frontier outrages, the pacification of Waziristan would, in the long run, be far less expensive than a succession of expeditions. I hope when an occasion does arise to resort to force that all this may be borne in mind.”
On January 29, 1908, he wrote again: —
“I think perhaps you misunderstand me. I doubt very much if any one who thinks at all would wish to increase our landed property purely for the sake of adding to our possessions. But an examination of our frontier history would, I should say, undoubtedly prove that when we have assumed control of tribal districts comparative civilization and peace have been the result. . . . The examples that come
to my mind are Baluchistan, the Kurram valley, the Swat valley, and the tribal country on this side of the Malakand, in which latter district the chief request of the jirga which met me was for an improved railway service! I believe, too, that the responsibility and expense these districts entailed upon us before they came under our control was probably far greater than that which exists at the present day. . . . The state of affairs on our frontier is becoming simply disreputable. We cannot afford any longer to disregard the safety of our own subjects. We shall have to fight, and, of course, we are sure to win. But in doing so are we to spend lives and money and throw aside what we may gain, with the knowledge that in a few years’ time we shall have to repeat the same expenditure, which our frontier experience has told us we can so well avoid?”
Mr. Morley was not convinced, but as the last letter was being penned part of the writer’s forecast was coming true. On the night of 28th January the Zakka Khel tribe of the Afridi race made a most daring raid on Peshawar. This was the culmination of a long series of outrages, and it was decided to send an expedition into their country, the Bazar valley. A force, consisting of two brigades under the command of Sir James Willcocks, crossed the border on 15th February. Mr. Morley’s telegraphed instructions were explicit: “Orders are that the end in view is strictly limited to the punishment of the Zakka Khels, and neither immediately nor ultimately, directly nor indirectly, will there be occupation of tribal territory.” The expedition was entirely successful, and, having taken order with the tribes, it withdrew on 29th February. It was a delicate business, for the Zakka Khels had to be isolated from the other Afridis, and there was an ugly attempt of various mullahs on the Afghan side to raise a jehad. It was plain that Habibullah could not control his subjects, for presently came an attack by an Afghan lashkar at Landi Kotal, which was easily beaten off. Also the trouble spread to the Mohmands, who in April assumed an attitude so threatening that Sir James Willcocks had to re-concentrate his field force and read them a sharp lesson. By the middle of May the frontier was quiet again; but anxiety remained, for the springs of the mischief had been in Afghanistan, and the Amir had wrapped himself in mystery and vouchsafed no communication about the Anglo-Russian Convention or anything else. It was fortunate that the year before the Viceroy had at any rate established with him a strong personal friendship.