Another of the subjects to which the attention of the Indian Government has been specifically directed has regard to the mitigation of flogging, the restriction of civil flogging, and the limitation of military flogging to specific cases.  In this we are making a marked advance in humanity and common sense,—­which is itself a kind of humanity.

My hon. friend appeals to me saying that all will be well in India, if the Secretary of State will make a statement which will show the Indian people that, in his relations with them, his hopes for them, and his efforts for them, he is moved by a kindly, sympathetic, and friendly feeling, showing them that his heart is with them.  All I have got to say is that I have never shown myself anything else.  My heart is with them.  What is bureaucracy to me?  It is a great machine in India, yes a splendid machine, for performing the most difficult task that ever was committed to the charge of any nation.  But show me where it fails—­that it is perfect in every respect no sensible man would contend for a moment—­but show me at any point, let any of my hon. friends show me from day to day as this session passes, where this bureaucracy, as they call it, has been at fault.  Do they suppose it possible that I will not show my recognition of that failure, and do all that I can to remedy it?  Although the Government of India is complicated and intricate, they cannot suppose that I shall fail for one moment in doing all in my power to demonstrate that we are moved by a kindly, a sympathetic, a friendly, an energetic, and what I will call a governing spirit, in the highest form and sense of that sovereign and inspiring word.

IV

INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE

(London.  July 1908)

Gentlemen,—­I have first of all to thank you for what I understand is a rare honour—­and an honour it assuredly is—­of being invited to be your guest to-night.  The position of a Secretary of State in the presence of the Indian Civil Service is not an entirely simple one.  You, Gentlemen, who are still in the Service, and the veterans I see around me who have been in that great Service, naturally and properly look first of all, and almost altogether, upon India.  A Secretary of State has to look also upon Great Britain and upon Parliament—­and that is not always a perfectly easy situation to adjust.  I forget who it was that said about the rulers of India in India:—­“It is no easy thing for a man to keep his watch in two longitudes at once at the same time.”  That is the case of the Secretary of State.  It is not the business of the Secretary of State to look exclusively at India, though I will confess to you for myself that during the moderately short time I have held my present office, I have kept my eye upon India constantly, steadfastly, and with every desire to learn the whole truth upon every situation as it arose.