careless, because, after it was published, he was horrified when the promise of
"progressive realization of responsible government in India" was pointed out to him.
Montagu went to India in November 1917, taking Sir William Duke with him. Curtis,
who had been moving about India as the guest of Stanley Reed, Chirol, Chelmsford,
Meston, Marris, and others, was invited to participate in the Montagu-Chelmsford
conferences on several occasions. Others who were frequently consulted were Hailey,
Meston, Duke, and Chirol. The Montagu-Chelmsford Report was written by Sir William
Marris of Milner's Kindergarten after Curtis had returned to England. Curtis wrote in
report. My prompt denial has not prevented a further complaint from many quarters that
Lord Chelmsford and Mr. Montagu were unduly influenced by an irresponsible tourist....
With the exception of Lord Chelmsford himself I was possibly the only person in India
with firsthand knowledge of responsible government as applied in the Dominions to the
institutions of provinces. Whether my knowledge of India entitled me to advance my
views is more open to question. Of this the reader can judge for himself. But in any case
the interviews were unsought by me." Thus Curtis does not deny the accusation that he
was chiefly responsible for dyarchy. It was believed at the time by persons in a position
to know that he was, and these persons were both for and against the plan. On the latter
side, we might quote Lord Ampthill, who, as a former acting Viceroy, as private secretary
to Joseph Chamberlain, as Governor of Madras, and as brother-in-law of Samuel Hoare,
was in a position to know what was going on. Lord Ampthill declared in the House of
Lords in 1919: "The incredible fact is that, but for the chance visit to India of a globe-
trotting doctrinaire, with a positive mania for constitution-mongering, nobody in the
world would ever have thought of so peculiar a notion as Dyarchy. And yet the Joint
Committee tells us in an airy manner that no better plan can be conceived."
The Joint Committee's favorable report on the Dyarchy Bill was probably not
unconnected with the fact that five out of fourteen members were from the Cecil Bloc or
Milner Group, that the chairman had in his day presided over meetings of the Round
Table Groups and was regarded by them as their second leader, and that the Joint
Committee spent most of its time hearing witnesses who were close to the Milner Group.
The committee heard Lord Meston longer than any other witness (almost four days),
spent a day with Curtis on the stand, and questioned, among others, Feetham, Duke,
Thomas Holland (Fellow of All Souls from 1875 to his death in 1926), Michael Sadler (a
close friend of Milner's and practically a member of the Group), and Stanley Reed. In the
House of Commons the burden of debate on the bill was supported by Montagu, Sir
Henry Craik, H. A. L. Fisher, W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore, and Thomas J. Bennett (an old
journalist colleague of Lord Salisbury and principal owner of
1892). Montagu and Craik both referred to Lionel Curtis. The former said: "It is
suggested in some quarters that this bill arose spontaneously in the minds of the Viceroy
and myself without previous inquiry or consideration, under the influence of Mr. Lionel
Curtis. I have never yet been able to understand that you approach the merits of any
discussion by vain efforts to approximate to its authorship. I do not even now understand
that India or the Empire owes anything more or less than a great debt of gratitude to the
patriotic and devoted services Mr. Curtis has given to the consideration of this problem."
Sir Henry Craik later said: "I am glad to join in the compliment paid to our mutual
friend, Mr. Lionel Curtis, who belongs to a very active, and a very important body of
young men, whom I should be the last to criticize. I am proud to know him, and to pay
that respect to him due from age to youth. He and others of the company of the Round
Table have been doing good work, and part of that good work has been done in India.”
Mr. Fisher had nothing to say about Lionel Curtis but had considerable to say about
the bill and the Montagu-Chelmsford Report. He said: "There is nothing in this Bill
which is not contained in that Report. That Report is not only a very able and eloquent
State Paper, but it is also one of the greatest State Papers which have been produced in
Anglo-Indian history, and it is an open-minded candid State Paper, a State Paper which
does not ignore or gloss over the points of criticism which have since been elaborated in
the voluminous documents which have been submitted to us." He added, a moment later:
"This is a great Bill." (2)
imagined, referred to Fisher's speech in its issue of September 1919 and called him "so