Published: Pioneer, 4 December 1888; Pioneer Mail, 5 December 1888.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, p. 95).

Text: Pioneer.

Notes: Lord Dufferin, no longer the viceroy, on the eve of his departure from India, spoke at length at the St Andrew's Dinner, Calcutta, on Friday, 31 November, 1888. In the speech, a swan song, Dufferin spoke more frankly on certain subjects than he had allowed himself to do in his viceregal character, especially on the subject of the Indian National Congress. The Congress was regarded with great suspicion by most of the English in India, and in fact it led the way towards what became the movement for Indian independence. The speech was reported fully in the Pioneer, 3 December 1888.

But it hardly matters what Dufferin said, for the idea of ‘What the World Said’ is that each paper will ride its own hobby-horse whatever the news might be.

‘What the World Said’ has been reprinted in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets and in Harbord, iv, 2132–4.

The following will be found to be a more or less accurate forecast of the opinions of the Indian journals on Lord Dufferin's speech at the Calcutta St. Andrew's Dinner:–

The C-v-l and M-l-t-ry G-z-tte:–

Like Sarah Battle of old Lord Dufferin asks only for the extreme rigour of the game. And he plays that game with light-hearted abandon on the eve of his departure. The reason for his reticence up to this point are [sic] explained by our Afghan correspondent and the Lord Bishop of Lahore as being due partly to religious considerations and partly due to the passage of a Toorkh Kafila through the Pariari Syed country, circumstances which those in the least acquainted with frontier policy will at once see, &c., &c.