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The Viceroy’s speech

Lahore, Sunday, December 14, 1924
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IT is perhaps too much to expect the Viceroy, like the King, whose representative in India he is, to be entirely free from Partisan bias; his position as actual head of the Government would not permit him to be, even if his own inclination lay in that direction. But the fact that he is the Viceroy as well as Governor-General makes it not unnatural for the public to expect a certain standard of fairness and impartiality in handling public questions, which one does not ordinarily expect from a mere leader of party, and to be disappointed when it finds that the reality falls short of the expectation. Judged by this test no Viceroy ever made a more disappointing speech than what Lord Reading made at the European Association dinner in Calcutta on Wednesday last. It is a speech of exactly the kind that one would have expected from a leader of the European community itself, official and non-official. Whether we have regard to the tribute he paid to the work of the Services and the hope he expressed for the indefinite continuance of work of the same kind rendered in the same spirit and temper, or to his defence of the Bengal Ordinance and the action taken under it or finally to his reference to the Reforms, the remarks made by His Excellency might as well have been made by the President of the Association, under whose auspices he delivered this post-prandial oration. The distressing impression that is left on one’s mind by a perusal of the speech is that in the opinion of this august personage, everything in India is for post the best, if not actually perfect — the Government, the Services as well the European community — with the single exception of the infernal agitator and the still more infernal revolutionary.

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