“To govern men, there is but one way, and it is eternal truth.  Get
    into their skins.  Try to realize their feelings.  That is the true
    secret of government.”

That is not only a great ethical, but a great political law, and we shall reap a sour and sorry harvest if it is forgotten.  It would be folly to pretend to any dogmatic assurance—­and I certainly do not—­as to the course of the future in India.  But for to-day anybody who takes part in the rule of India, whether as a Minister or as a Member of the House of Commons, participating in the discussion on affairs in India—­anyone who wants to take a fruitful part in such discussions, if he does his duty will found himself on the assumption that the British rule will continue, ought to continue, and must continue.  There is, I know, a school,—­I do not think it has representatives in this House—­who say that we might wisely walk out of India, and that the Indians would manage their own affairs better than we can manage affairs for them.  Anybody who pictures to himself the anarchy, the bloody chaos, that would follow from any such deplorable step, must shrink from that sinister decision.  We, at all events—­Ministers and Members of this House—­are bound to take a completely different view.  The Government, and the House in all its parties and groups, is determined that we ought to face all these mischiefs and difficulties and dangers of which I have been speaking with a clear purpose.  We know that we are not doing it for our own interest alone, or our own fame in the history of the civilised world alone, but for the interest of the millions committed to us.  We ought to face it with sympathy, with kindness, with firmness, with a love of justice, and, whether the weather be fair or foul, in a valiant and manful spirit.

II

TO CONSTITUENTS

(Arbroath.  October 21, 1907)

It is an enormous satisfaction to me to find myself here once more, the first time since the polling, and since the splendid majority that these burghs were good enough to give me.  I value very much what the Provost has said, when he told you that I have never, though I have had pretty heavy burdens, neglected the local business of Arbroath and the other burghs.  The Provost truly said that I hold an important and responsible office under the Crown; and I hope that fact will be the excuse, if excuse be needed, for my confining myself to-night to a single topic.  When I spoke to a friend of mine in London the other day he said, “What are you going to speak about?”, and I told him.  He is a very experienced man and he said, “It is a most unattractive subject, India.”  At any rate, this is the last place where any apology is needed for speaking about India, because it is you who are responsible for my being the Indian Minister.  If your 2,500 majority had been 2,500 the other way, I should have been no longer the Indian Minister.