I shall be asked, has not the Government of India been obliged to pass a measure introducing pretty drastic machinery?  That is quite true, and I, for one, have no fault whatever to find with them for introducing such machinery and for taking that step.  On the contrary, my Lords, I wholly approve, and I share, of course, to the full the responsibility for it.  I understand that I am exposed to some obloquy on this account—­I am charged with inconsistency.  That is a matter on which I am very well able to take care of myself, and I should be ashamed to detain your Lordships for one single moment in arguing about it.  Quite early after my coming to the India Office, pressure was put on me to repeal the Regulation of 1818, under which men are now being summarily detained without trial and without charge, and without intention to try or to charge.  That, of course, is a tremendous power to place in the hands of an Executive Government.  But I said to myself then, and I say now, that I decline to take out of the hands of the Government of India any weapon that they have got, in circumstances so formidable, so obscure, and so impenetrable as are the circumstances that surround British Government in India.

There are two paths of folly in these matters.  One is to regard all Indian matters, Indian procedure and Indian policy, as if it were Great Britain or Ireland, and to insist that all the robes and apparel that suit Great Britain or Ireland must necessarily suit India.  The other is to think that all you have got to do is what I see suggested, to my amazement, in English print—­to blow a certain number of men from guns, and then your business will be done.  Either of these paths of folly leads to as great disaster as the other.  I would like to say this about the Summary Jurisdiction Bill—­I have no illusions whatever.  I do not ignore, and I do not believe that Lord Lansdowne opposite, or anyone else can ignore, the frightful risks involved in transferring in any form or degree what should be the ordinary power under the law, to arbitrary personal discretion.  I am alive, too, to the temptation under summary procedure of various kinds, to the danger of mistaking a headstrong exercise of force for energy.  Again, I do not for an instant forget, and I hope those who so loudly applaud legislation of this kind do not forget, the tremendous price that you pay for all operations of this sort in the reaction and the excitement that they provoke.  If there is a man who knows all these drawbacks I think I am he.  But there are situations in which a responsible Government is compelled to run these risks and to pay this possible price, however high it may appear to be.