it was introduced in the House of Lords by the President of the Board of Education, Lord
Halifax (Lord Irwin), on 12 December 1934, in a typical Milner Group speech. He said:
"As I read it, the whole of our British and Imperial experience shouts at us the warning
that representative government without responsibility, once political consciousness has
been aroused, is apt to be a source of great weakness and, not impossibly, great danger.
We had not learned that lesson, let me remind the House, in the eighteenth century, and
we paid very dearly for it. We learned it some sixty years later and, by having learned it,
we transformed the face and history of Canada." Lord Salisbury once again advised
delay, and attacked the idea that parliamentary government could work in India or indeed
had worked anywhere outside the British Commonwealth. Lord Snell, speaking for the
Labour opposition, objected to the lack of protection against economic exploitation for
the Indian masses, the omission of any promise of Dominion status for India, the
weighing of the franchise too heavily on the side of the landlords and too lightly on the
side of women or of laborers, the provisions for a second chamber, and the use of indirect
election for the first chamber. Lord Lothian answered both speakers, supporting only one
criticism, that against indirect election to the central assembly. He made the significant
statement that he did not fear to turn India over to the Congress Party of Gandhi because
(1) "though I disagree with almost everything that they say in public and most of their
political programme, I have a sneaking sympathy with the emotion which lies underneath
them . . . the aspiration of young impetuous India anxious to take responsibility on its
own shoulders"; and (2) "because I believe that the one political lesson, which has more
often been realized in the British Commonwealth of Nations than anywhere else in the
world, is that the one corrective of political extremism is to put responsibility upon the
extremists, and, by these proposals, that is exactly what we are doing." These are typical
Milner Group reasons.
In the debate, Halifax was supported by Archbishop Lang and Lords Zetland,
Linlithgow, Midleton, Hardinge of Penshurst, Lytton, and Reading. Lord Salisbury was
supported by Lords Phillimore, Rankeillour, Ampthill, and Lloyd. In the division,
Salisbury's motion for delay was beaten by 239 to 62. In addition to the lords mentioned,
the majority included Lords Dufferin, Linlithgow, Cranbrook, Cobham, Cecil of
Chelwood, Goschen, Hampden, Elton, Lugard, Meston, and Wemyss, while the minority
included Lords Birkenhead, Westminster, Carnock, Islington, and Leconfield. It is clear
that the Milner Group voted completely with the majority, while the Cecil Bloc was split.
The bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 6 February 1935 by Sir Samuel
Hoare. As was to be expected, his argument was based on the lessons to be derived from
the error of 1774 and the success of 1839 in North America. The government's actions, he
declared, were based on "plain, good intentions." He was mildly criticized from the left
by Attlee and Sir Herbert Samuel; supported by Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, Sir Edward
Grigg, and others; and then subjected to a long-sustained barrage from Winston
Churchill. Churchill had already revealed his opinion of the bill over the BBC when he
said, on 29 January 1935, that it was "a monstrous monument of sham built by the
pygmies." He continued his attack in a similar vein, with the result that almost every
government speaker felt the need to caution him that his intemperance was hurting his
own cause. From our point of view, his most interesting statement, and one which was
not contradicted, said: "I have watched this story from its very unfolding, and what has
struck me more than anything else about it has been the amazingly small number of
people who have managed to carry matters to their present lamentable pitch. You could
almost count them on the fingers of one hand. I have also been struck by the prodigious
power which this group of individuals have been able to exert and relay, to use a
mechanical term, through the vast machinery of party, of Parliament, and of patronage,
both here and in the East. It is tragical that they should have been able to mislead the
loyalties and use the assets of the Empire to its own undoing. I compliment them on their
skill, and I compliment them also on their disciples. Their chorus is exceedingly well
drilled." This statement was answered by Lord Eustace Percy, who quoted Lord Hugh
Cecil on "profitable mendacity." This led to an argument, in which both sides appealed to
the Speaker. Order was restored when Lord Eustace said of Churchill, "I would never
impute to him . . . any intention of making a charge which he did not believe himself."
It is quite clear that Churchill believed his charge and was referring to what we have
called the Milner Group, although he would not have known it under that name, nor