product of her free institutions." In another work he protests against English mistreatment
of natives in India and states emphatically that it must be ended. He says: "The conduct
on the part of Europeans . . . is more than anything else the root cause of Indian unrest . . .
I am strongly of opinion that governors should be vested with powers to investigate
judicially cases where Europeans are alleged to have outraged Indian feelings. Wherever
a case of wanton and unprovoked insult such as those I have cited is proved, government
should have the power to order the culprit to leave the country.... A few deportations
would soon effect a definite change for the better."(19) That Dove felt similarly is clear
from his letters to Brand.
Without a belief in racism, it was perfectly possible for this Group to believe, as they
did, in the ultimate extension of freedom and self-government to all parts of the Empire.
To be sure, they believed that this was a path to be followed slowly, but their reluctance
was measured by the inability of "backward" peoples to understand the principles of a
commonwealth, not by reluctance to extend to them either democracy or self-
government.
Curtis defined the distinction between a commonwealth and a despotism in the
following terms: "The rule of law as contrasted with the rule of an individual is the
distinguishing mark of a commonwealth. In despotism government rests on the authority
of the ruler or of the invisible and uncontrollable power behind him. In a commonwealth
rulers derive their authority from the law and the law from a public opinion which is
competent to change it." Accordingly, "the institutions of a commonwealth cannot be
successfully worked by peoples whose ideas are still those of a theocratic or patriarchal
society. The premature extension of representative institutions throughout the Empire
would be the shortest road to anarchy."(20) The people must first be trained to understand
and practice the chief principles of commonwealth, namely the supremacy of law and the
subjection of the motives of self-interest and material gain to the sense of duty to the
interests of the community as a whole. Curtis felt that such an educational process was
not only morally necessary on the part of Britain but was a practical necessity, since the
British could not expect to keep 430 million persons in subjection forever but must rather
hope to educate them up to a level where they could appreciate and cherish British ideals.
In one book he says: "The idea that the principle of the commonwealth implies universal
suffrage betrays an ignorance of its real nature. That principle simply means that
government rests on the duty of the citizens to each other, and is to be vested in those
who are capable of setting public interest before their own." (21) In another work he says:
"As sure as day follows the night, the time will come when they [the Dominions] will
have to assume the burden of the whole of their affairs. For men who are fit for it, self-
government is a question not of privilege but rather of obligation. It is duty, not interest,
which impels men to freedom, and duty, not interest, is the factor which turns the scale in
human affairs." India is included in this evolutionary process, for Curtis wrote: " A
despotic government might long have closed India to Western ideas. But a
commonwealth is a living thing. It cannot suffer any part of itself to remain inert. To live
it must move, and move in every limb.... Under British rule Western ideas will continue
to penetrate and disturb Oriental society, and whether the new spirit ends in anarchy or
leads to the establishment of a higher order depends upon how far the millions of India
can be raised to a fuller and more rational conception of the ultimate foundations upon
which the duty of obedience to government rests."
These ideas were not Curtis's own, although he was perhaps the most prolific, most
eloquent, and most intense in his feelings. They were apparently shared by the whole
inner circle of the Group. Dove, writing to Brand from India in 1919, is favorable to
reform and says: "Lionel is right. You can't dam a world current. There is, I am
convinced, 'purpose' under such things. All that we can do is to try to turn the flood into
the best channel." In the same letter he said: "Unity will, in the end, have to be got in
some other way.... Love—call it, if you like, by a longer name—is the only thing that can
make our post-war world go round, and it has, I believe, something to say here too. The
future of the Empire seems to me to depend on how far we are able to recognize this. Our
trouble is that we start some way behind scratch. Indians must always find it hard to
understand us." And the future Lord Lothian, ordering an article on India for
I suggest to you that the main conclusion which the reader should draw from it should be