The sentiment of reverence for the Crown is widespread and deep-rooted among all races and creeds in India[25].  It is perhaps the one tradition common to all.  It went out spontaneously to Queen Victoria, whose length of years and widowed isolation appealed with a peculiar sense of lofty and pathetic dignity to the imagination of her Indian peoples.  It has been materially reinforced by the pride of personal acquaintance, since India has been twice honoured with the presence of the immediate successor to the Throne.  The late King’s visit to India has not yet faded from the memory of the older generation, and that of the present King-Emperor and his gracious Consort is, of course, still fresh in the recollection of all.  How powerful is the hold which the majesty of the Crown exercises upon Princes and peoples in India was very strikingly shown by the calming effect, however temporary, which the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales had in Bengal four years ago, at the very moment when political agitation in that province was developing into almost open sedition; and it was shown once more this year by the hush of subdued grief that passed over the whole of India at the sudden news of King Edward’s death.  Only such rabid papers as Tilak’s old organ, the Kesari, ventured an attempt to counteract the deep impression produced by that lamentable event, and it could only attempt to do so, very ineffectively, by a spiteful and ignorant depreciation of the position and personality of the Sovereign, and of the part played by him in a Western democracy.

In spite of the traditional prestige attaching to the Crown, we cannot, however, reasonably look for loyalty from India in the sense in which we look for it from our own people or from our kinsmen beyond the seas.  There can never be between Englishmen and Indians the same community of historical traditions, of racial affinity, of social institutions, of customs and beliefs that exists between people of our own stock throughout the British Empire.  The absence of these sentimental bonds, which cannot be artificially forged, makes it impossible that we should ever concede to India the rights of self-government which we have willingly conceded to the great British communities of our own race.  And there is another and scarcely less cogent reason.  The justification of our presence in India is that it gives peace and security to all the various races and creeds which make up one-fifth of the population of this globe.  To introduce self-government into India would necessarily be to hand it over to the ascendency of the strongest.  That we are debarred from doing by the very terms on which we hold India, and that is what Lord Morley must have had in his mind, when, in supporting the Indian Councils Act last year, he specifically excluded all possibility of such assemblies ever leading to the establishment of Parliamentary government in India.  The sooner that is made perfectly clear the better.