SRI AUROBINDO

KARMAYOGIN

POLITICAL WRITINGS AND SPEECHES - 1909-1910

Vol.I. Saturday 26th June 1909 No.2

Facts and Opinions

Lord Honest John

On the converse side a passage from Mr. Algernon Cecil's “Six Oxford Thinkers” is instructive. He dwells on the self-contradictory and ironic close of John Morley's life. “He the philosophic Liberal, the ardent advocate of Home Rule, the persistent foe of war and coercion, is closing his fine record of public service with a coronet on his head as the ruler of India, of the child of Clive and Warren Hastings, of the creature of strife and fraud; as one might say, a benevolent despot in an absolute constitution imposed and administered by an alien race.”  We in India are sure of the despotism but have some doubts about the benevolence. Nor can we accept the phrase, absolute constitution, as anything but an oxymoron, a “witty folly”, a happy and ironical contradiction in terms. But for the rest the implied criticism is just.

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