It is not by attempting to rule directly a country like India, but
by giving it good rulers, that the English people can do their duty to
that country; and they can scarcely give it a worse one than an
English Cabinet Minister, who is thinking of English, not Indian
politics; who seldom remains long enough in office to acquire an
intelligent interest in so complicated a subject; upon whom the
factitious public opinion got up in Parliament, consisting of two or
three fluent speakers, acts with as much force as if it were
genuine; while he is under none of the influences of training and
position which would lead or qualify him to form an honest opinion
of his own. A free country which attempts to govern a distant
dependency, inhabited by a dissimilar people, by means of a branch
of its own executive, will almost inevitably fail. The only mode which
has any chance of tolerable success is to govern through a delegated
body of a comparatively permanent character; allowing only a right
of inspection, and a negative voice, to the changeable
Administration of the State. Such a body did exist in the case of
India; and I fear that both India and England will pay a severe
penalty for the shortsighted policy by which this intermediate
instrument of government was done away with.
It is of no avail to say that such a delegated body cannot have
all the requisites of good government; above all, cannot have that
complete and ever-operative identity of interest with the governed
which it is so difficult to obtain even where the people to be ruled
are in some degree qualified to look after their own affairs.
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