Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Whereas reformers (occasionally with intent to mislead, often because they are themselves misled) tend to describe their work as if it were a concerted, directed whole worked out with a minimal difference of attitude and opinion, historians often gravitate to the glaring points of conflict in studying the development of a reform act. From these it is easy and interesting to paint a colourful picture. One might (rather inaccurately) describe the evolution of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms as the product of a process of conflict between the ambitious, radical, eccentric, ego-centric, Jewish, Secretary of State for India, Montagu and the Edwardian, unambitious, conscientious, self-effacing Viceroy, Chelmsford. Similarly, there is some temptation to view the growth of these reforms as the outcome of a battle between the forces of light (Montagu and Chelmsford) and the forces of darkness (the provincial governors).
1 Serious research on the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms can be said to have begun only within the past three years after revision of the British secrecy law opened the relevant cabinet and India Office records, the correspondence of Montagu and Chelmsford, and related India Office collections (e.g. the papers of Harcourt Butler and Lord Willingdon). In addition it has only recently become possible to make use of the George Lloyd and Bonar Law papers with the opening of the Beaverbrook Library. This year, for the first time, the archives of The Times have been opened to scholars. They shed some light on the activities of the newspaper, its editor, Geoffrey Dawson, and its influential correspondent, Sir Valentine Chirol. In preparing an Oxford D. Phil. thesis on the evolution of these reforms, the author of this article has also been able to make use of a number of sets of papers in private hands.Google Scholar
2 Chelmsford Collection, India Office Library, MSS.Eur. E264, Vol. 10, no. 27, Montagu to Chelmsford, 9 January 1919.Google Scholar
3 Cf. Harcourt Butler Collection, India Office Library, MSS. Eur. F116, Folder 41, Harcourt Butler to Sir Geoffrey Butler, 1 June 1921, commenting on these members.Google Scholar
4 Waley, S. D., Edwin Montagu, Bombay, 1964, p. 30.Google Scholar
5 Montagu Collection India Office Library, MSS. Eur. D523, Vol. 2, Montagu to Chelmsford, 15 June 1918.Google Scholar
6 Butler Collection, Folder 27, Willingdon to Butler, 24 April 1919.Google Scholar
7 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 15, no. 14, Pentland to Chelmsford, 26 August 1916.Google Scholar
8 J. and P (R) (Reform Records, Judicial and Public Department, India Office Library), Vol. 2, no. 77, Minute Paper, 1919, ‘Advance Copy of the Local Government replies to the circular letter of the Government of India asking for opinion of the reforms report’, p. 3.Google Scholar
9 For example Gait. Cf., Chelmsford Collection Vol. 51, no. 7, Gait to Chelmsford, 20 August 1916.Google Scholar
10 Chelmsford, Collection, Vol. 51, no. 55, Nair Minute of Dissent to Despatch no. 17, 24 November 1916 (para. 19).Google Scholar
11 Paragraph II of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report quotes the message of Hope: ‘The only possible solution of the difficulty would appear to be gradually to grant the provinces a larger measure of self-government, until at last India would consist of administrations autonomous in provincial affairs, with the Government of India ordinarily restricting their functions to matters of Imperial concern.’
12 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. I, Chelmsford to King, 27 february 1918.Google Scholar
13 Montagu Collection, Vol. 24, George Lloyd to Montagu, 26 December 1918.Google Scholar
14 Montagu Collection, Vol. 22, Montagu to George Lloyd, 2 October 1919.Google Scholar
15 Montagu Collection, Vol. 24, George Lloyd to Montagu, 18 March 1919.Google Scholar
16 Butler Collection, Folder 4, Butler to Holderness, 2 July 1917.Google Scholar
17 Butler Collection, Folder 41, Butler to Sir Geoffrey Butler, 24 September 1918.Google Scholar
18 Chamberlain Papers, University of Birmingham, AC21/5/18, Chelmsford to Chamberlain 5 June 1917.Google Scholar
19 Montagu Collection, Vol. 27, Montagu to Ronaldshay, 21 November 1918.Google Scholar
20 Butler Collection, Folder 36, Islington, to Butler, , 6 09 1916.Google Scholar
21 Austen Chamberlain Papers, AC 21/5/29, Montagu to Austen Chamberlain, 12 December 1917.Google Scholar
22 Montagu Collection, Vol. 9, Chelmsford to Montagu, 25 September 1919.Google Scholar
23 Montagu Collection, Vol. 7, Chelmsford to Montagu, 28 April 1918.Google Scholar
24 Recollection of Sir Keith Feiling, courtesy of Lady Lascelles. Cf. also Chamberlain Papers, AC 21/5/29, Montaguto Austen Chamberlain, 12 December 1917.Google Scholar
25 Montagu Collection, Vol. 3, Montagu to Chelmsford, 10 January 1919.Google Scholar
26 Chamberlain Papers, AC 15/4/138, Willingdon to Chamberlain.
27 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 1, Chelmsford to King, 4 October 1918.Google Scholar
28 Montagu's Mesoptamia Speech in Aiyar, The Right Hon. Edwin S. Montagu on Indian Affairs, Madras, 1917, pp. 406–7 (speech of 12 07 1917).Google Scholar
29 Lothian Collection, Scottish National Registry Office, GD 40/17/33, Kerr to Curtis, 22 July 1917.Google Scholar
30 Mazumdar, Vina, ‘Imperial Policy in India, 1905–10’, Oxford D.Phil. Thesis (unpublished), 1962, p. 38.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., quoting Sir A. P. MacDonnell's note of 10 September 1888, unrecorded confidential proceedings, Government of India Home Department, December 1889, no. 2, Arundel Committee Papers, Part II, no. 20 M 1051.
32 Nanda, B. R., The Nehrus, London, 1962, p. 167.Google Scholar
33 This was the tactic the conservative ‘diehards’ tried to employ in the 1930s. Cf. for example George Lloyd to Lord Salisbury (George Lloyd papers, courtesy of Lord Lloyd), 26 January 1934: ‘The logical conclusion, therefore, would be to make provincial autonomy complete and unqualified in whatever directions it is conceded and to balance this by strengthening the central authority of the Governor-General.’Google Scholar
34 Chamberlain Papers, AC 21/6/29B. Chelmsford Cabinet Memorandum on Delhi 1/18/16.
35 Montagu Collection, Vol. 6, Chelmsford to Montagu. Appended Simla Speech.
36 Lothian Collection, GD 40/17/32, Kerr to Curtis, n.d.
37 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 51, Claude Hill to Chelmsford, 20 October 1916.Google Scholar
38 Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, Cmd. 9109, Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 1918, para. 10.Google Scholar
39 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 51, Hill to Chelmsford, 7 July 1917.Google Scholar
40 Butler Collection, Folder 36, Islington to Butler, 22 August 1918.Google Scholar
41 Besant, (Ed.), The Montagu-Chelmsford Report, Reforms Proposals, Madras, 1921 (from Selected Indian Criticisms).Google Scholar
42 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 11, Chelmsford to Montagu, 7 July 1919.Google Scholar
43 ‘… He would not conceal that to be Viceroy of India had been the ambition of his life.…’, Austen Chamberlain to George Lloyd, 13 October 1920.Google Scholar
44 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 15, no. 410, Meston to Chelmsford, 13 September 1919.Google Scholar
45 Montagu Collection, Vol. 3, Montagu to Chelmsford, I May 1919. This suggestion followed along lines recommended by the Crewe Committee.Google Scholar
46 Cf. the memo appended to Meston to Chelmsford, 11 October 1919 (in Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 15, no. 431), particularly paragraphs 1 and 11.Google Scholar
47 Lothian Collection, GD 40/17/33, Kerr to Curtis, 22 july 1917. And see also Montagu-Chelmsford Report, op. cit., para. 200.Google Scholar
48 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 51, no. 11, Hailey to Chelmsford, n.d.
49 Chamberlain Papers, AC 21/4/23, Curzon Memorandum to Cabinet ‘On Indian Self-Government’, 2 June 1917. Kerr apparently considered a re-adjustment of provincial boundaries ‘to coincide with race and languages, if not the subdivision of the provinces themselves’ (Lothian Collection, GD 40/17/32, crossed out portion of unlabelled memorandum). Curtis favoured a breakup of the existing large provinces. ‘If India is to become a nation, provinces larger than any European state except Russia or Germany are fatal to that ideal’ (Lothian Collection, GD 40/17/33, Curtis to Kerr, 28 August 1917).Google Scholar
50 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 2, ‘Formula’, 7 July 1916.Google Scholar
51 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 51, no. 13, O'Dwyer to Chelmsford (note), 25 August 1916.Google Scholar
52 Montagu Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge, Cab. Folio 1916/ 17, Holderness Memorandum on Viceroy's Formula 31 July 1916, cites Chelmsford's letter. The phrase ‘subject to the maintenance of the supremacy of British rule’ was, however, removed in the India Office redrafting of Chelmsford's ‘formula’, and Chelmsford, with a strong sense of duty, a commitment to the belief that policy should be made in England, and an increasingly desperate desire for an announcement, accepted the change.Google Scholar
53 Chamberlain Papers, AC 15/5/5, Montagu Memorandum to Cabinet urging announcement. 8/17.
54 It should be noted that publicly Montagu took a rather more conservative view, bringing him closer to Curzon than the above quotation would suggest. In his 1912 speech at the Cambridge Liberal Club, for example, he subscribed exactly to the words of the Government of India Delhi Despatch of 1911:‘… a number of administrations, autonomous in all provincial affairs, with the Government of India above them all, and possessing power to interfere in case of misgovernment, but ordinarily restricting its functions to matters of Imperial concern’. (28 February 1912). In the cabinet memorandum cited, he was also rather conservative: ‘… there may be in India… some day or another, some states enjoying responsible government… some provinces will eventually become self-governing while others may never become self-governing’. Chamberlain Papers, AC 15/5/5, Montagu Memorandum to Cabinet urging announcement, 8/17.Google Scholar
55 Argov, D., ‘Moderates and Extremists, two attitudes towards British Rule in India’, in St. Antony's Papers, no. 18 (Ed. Mukherjee, ), Oxford.Google Scholar
56 Ibid., p. 29.
57 Feetham, who chaired the ‘functions committee’ of the Government of India, had done almost precisely the same work in South Africa.Google Scholar
58 Report, op. cit., para. 120.Google Scholar
59 Lothian Collection, GD 40/17/2, Kerr to Curtis, 10 August 1910, p. 2.Google Scholar
60 George Lloyd also seems to have been influenced by the English situation. ‘…I am more and more convinced that the whole thing depends on decentralization here—as indeed it does in England.’ Montagu Collection, Vol. 24, George Lloyd to Montagu, 18 March 1919.Google Scholar
61 Lothian Collection, GD 40/17/33, Kerr to Curtis, 2 October 1917.Google Scholar
62 See Chamberlain's Speech to the Women's Unionist and Tariff Reform Association, The Times, 15 May 1918, quoted in Sir Charles Petrie, The Life and Letters of the Right Hon. Sir Austen Chamberlain, London.Google Scholar
63 Chelmsford Collection, Vol. 3, Chamberlain to Stanley Reed, 7 February 1917, copy appended Chamberlain to Chelmsford, 7 February 1917.Google Scholar
64 Curtis, Lionel, Dyarchy, Oxford, 1920, p. 64.Google Scholar
65 Ibid., pp. 398–9.
66 Report, op. cit., para. 120.Google Scholar