GORDON'S SECRET OF GOVERNMENT 181 



you that my desire was to meet you with sympathy 

 and understanding and in the spirit of helpfulness, 

 it has been owing rather to the readiness of Indians 

 to give me credit for good intentions than to any 

 successful effort on my part to render them 

 service. 



Would that all Englishmen, official and unofficial, 

 could be made to realise how truly Indians believe 

 in the efficacy of good intentions ; how ready they 

 are to give credit for those intentions; how ap- 

 preciative they are of sympathy ; how responsive 

 they are to affection, and how foreign it is to their 

 nature to take undue advantage of that brotherly 

 familiarity which between equals cannot be open 

 to misinterpretation. 



How true are the words of General Gordon, 

 who died at Khartoum : 



1 To govern men there is but one way, and it 

 is eternal truth. Get into their skins. Try to 

 realise their feelings. That is the true secret of 

 government." 



It is not my wont to indulge in lengthy quota- 

 tions, but I shall to-night quote extensively, 

 indeed textually, from the utterances of that 

 Viceroy and that statesman who are connected 

 with the grant to India of the first semblance of an 

 assembly empowered to voice public opinion in this 

 country and capable of so doing. I shall adopt 

 the words of others who could speak with authority, 

 not because it is admittedly better to read a good 

 sermon than to preach a bad one, but because it is 

 especially incumbent on me as a member of the 

 Government of India to be exceptionally circum- 

 spect lest any utterance of mine admit of being 

 interpreted or twisted into even the semblance 

 of a pronouncement of a fresh policy, or the 

 enunciation of new administrative or executive 

 principles. 



