Sir Mortimer Durand refers to the history of the Ilbert Bill, a measure under which Lord Ripon’s Government proposed to give native magistrates jurisdiction over Europeans in certain circumstances.  I was at the time (1882-83) Financial Member of the Viceroy’s Council.  After a lapse of thirty years, there can, I think, be no objection to my stating my recollections of what occurred in connexion with this subject.  I should, in the first instance, mention that the association of Mr. (now Sir Courtenay) Ilbert’s name with this measure was purely accidental.  He had nothing to do with its initiation.  The proposals, which were eventually embodied in the Bill, originated with Sir Ashley Eden, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and who certainly could not be accused of any wish to neglect European opinion, or of any desire to push forward extreme liberal measures conceived in native interests.  The measure had been under the consideration of the Legislative Department in the time of Mr. Ilbert’s predecessor in the office of Legal Member of Council, and it was only the accident that he vacated his office before it was introduced into the Legislative Council that associated Mr. Ilbert’s name with the Bill.

As was customary in such cases, all the local Governments had been consulted; and they again consulted the Commissioners, Deputy-Commissioners, Collectors, etc., within their respective provinces.  The result was that Lord Ripon had before him the opinions of practically the whole Civil Service of India.  Divers views were held as to the actual extent to which the law should be altered, but, in the words of a despatch addressed by the Government of India to the Secretary of State on September 9, 1882, the local reports showed “an overwhelming consensus of opinion that the time had come for modifying the existing law and removing the present absolute bar upon the investment of native magistrates in the interior with powers over European British subjects.”  Not one single official gave anything approaching an indication of the storm of opposition that this ill-fated measure was about to raise.  I do not think that this is very surprising, for the opposition came almost exclusively from the unofficial Europeans, who for the most part congregate in a few large commercial centres, with the result that the majority of the civilians, who are scattered throughout the country, are not much brought in contact with them.  Nevertheless, the fact that so great a miscalculation of the state of public opinion could be made left a deep impression on my mind.  The main lesson which I carried away from the Ilbert Bill controversy was, indeed, that in spite of their great merits, which no one recognises more fully than myself, it is possible at times for the whole body of Indian civilians, taken collectively, to be somewhat unsafe guides in matters of state policy.  Curiously enough, the only danger-signal which was raised was hoisted by Sir Henry Maine, who had been in India as Legal