226 Morley's Indian Reform Speech [1908 



" Sabunji writes from Constantinople saying he has received my 

 ' Secret History,' which ' records faithfully all our joint doings in the 

 land of the Pharaohs.' I am glad to have his testimony to my accuracy. 



" 18th Dec. — Morley's much expected Indian Reform speech has at 

 last been made in the House of Lords, amid much Tory applause, 

 great care having been taken that there should be no hostile criticism 

 here or in India. Here the speech was put off till the last working 

 day of the session, and in India the leaders of the opposition, includ- 

 ing the chief newspaper editors, had been clapped into prison. These 

 reforms, if they had been produced three years ago when Morley 

 first came into office, or if they had been announced now as an avowed 

 first step towards Home Rule, or again, if they had been accompanied 

 by an abandonment of the Division of Bengal and a release of the 

 political prisoners, might have affected a reconciliation with the ex- 

 tremists, but now I feel it is too late. In themselves the reforms are 

 poor things. There are to be unofficial majorities in the Provincial 

 Councils, and a single native is to be allowed on the Executive Council 

 of Calcutta. A great parade is made about this last, but it amounts 

 to very little, as the native member is to be nominated by the Viceroy, 

 and he will always be able to choose a tame man, Hindoo, or Moham- 

 medan, or Parsee (Gokhale perhaps), just as they name tame Copts 

 to be Ministers in Egypt, while in the Provincial Councils the Governor 

 or Lieut.-Governor is to retain the power of veto. If native India is 

 satisfied with this, well and good, we shall see. What is certain is that 

 under cover of the reforms announced the reign of political terror will 

 be allowed its full way, arrests, deportations, imprisonments, and the 

 impounding of printing presses. The same would be done in Egypt 

 if our officials there could get rid of the Capitulations. 



" 23rd Dec. — Tyrrell has written me an interesting letter on my 

 'Future of Islam,' which he has been reading. He says: 



' It makes one think furiously. You would have been God the 

 Father had you foreseen all that has happened since you wrote it; 

 and I wonder how this attempt at constitutionalism will affect the 

 hegemony of the Turk in Islam. Should Turkey become politically 

 strong, she might perhaps become a cynosure for the eyes of re- 

 nascent Islam everywhere, a sort of mother and mistress of churches, 

 but she must then keep her Caliph or Pope, and that would bode ill 

 for a liberal state, giving equal treatment to all religions. Without 

 the Caliph, or with a mere figure-head Caliph, Turkey would be de- 

 nounced by the reactionary majority of Islam as Liberal and Apostate, 

 and the spiritual headship would pass to some other land. Of course 

 a Constitutional Persia and a Constitutional Turkey, and perhaps the 

 Mussulmans in India might sympathize and stand together. I think 

 Islam as less committed to a complex dogmatic system could " modern- 



