The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-07
LINKS INDIA WITH AMERICA.
LORD CURZON FINDS PARALLEL
IN THEIR GREATNESS.
Former vIcerOy Talks At Pilgrims Dinner
and Defends His Administration-No
"POmp and PaSeantry" in Daily Work
Warning Advice on Colonial Policy.

eA
Special Gable Despatch to THE Sun.
LONDON, April O.--Lord Curzon, who wac
a guest at the Pilgrims Club banquet at
the Savoy Hotel tonight, made a strtkin g
speech on the greatness Of imperial re-
spon sibilities. After a humorous opening
in which he described the best pilgrimage
of his life as the one he made across the
Atlantic to persuade an American pilgrim
to continue her life pilgrimage in his COM
pany, he remarked that there was a less
accidental connection between America
and India.
Recalling that Columbus's discovery re-
suited from his searching for the supposed
eastern extremity Of India, with the re-
sultant selections. the West Indies, and the
NorthAmerica Indians, he said that Amer
lea could be described as a sort OF historical
and geographical afterthought Of India.
Great Britain had been engaged for $50
years in the same experiment that America
is now king in the Philippines.
He thought, despite the wide difference
between the constitutions Of America and
India, that there was a great similarity
between the Offices OF the President OF the
United States and the Viceroy Of India.
Having pointed out the resemblances. he
said he was not sure that the Viceroy did
not exercise even greater influence than
the President, he having committed to his
temporary charge 300 900 900 persons OF
various races, languages and religions
1t was a stupendous problem for daily
solution, involving the infinite mystery Of
the future.
To realize to what an extent Great Britain
is an Asiatic empire ons should recall hal
three Of every four subjects of the King
Emperor were in India. He imagined the
imperial house to be one in which the col
onies were pillars, but in which, high above
all. was the vastness Of the Asiatic dome.
Lord Curzon spoke enthusiastically of
service in India. Nobody who was con-
cerned in that service, he said, abandoned
it without regret, although when he returned
home nobody seemed TO know what he had
been doing. His own administration had
been dubbed by a certain member Of Parlia-
ment as one of pomp and pageantry. There
was pomp and pageantry at the coronation
durbar, and he thanked HEAVIER there was
a part Of the Empire where things were
not 80 drab and c~olorless as in grimy, I'M
ina ginative England.
But there was no pomp or pageantry in
their daily life, which involved working
nights as we'll as days. They had always
to remember that the British officials were
not in India or any dependency for the
benefit Of the British people, but for the
benefit Of the people Of the country itself.
All administration Of the dependencies had
been carried out in that spirit. 1t was the
spirit in which Viscount Miner had adj
ministered South Africa and Lord Cromer
Egypt, and in which India had also been
administered by a long succession Of Vice.
roys.
He appealed to the British to as far as
they could trust the men on the spot, and
not to worry, fret or nag them with dog
matte wisdom. They themselves did not
claim superior wisdom, but in any case
their errors were in no wise comparable
TO those based on dogmatic ideas conceived
at home. .
He proceeded to rap the Government
for its recent treatment OF Natal. warning
it never to sacrifice the interests Of a de-
tendency to exclusively British interests.
and never to force on it a policy insult
able to it because il was advantageous to
the home government. The meaning of
empire was not to impose the selfish wish
OF the mother country, Dut TO Try 10 eHect
a harmonious coordination Of the whole.
II they lost a great colony like Natal, the
process would not end there, and they
would find before long that they had lost
the empire.
Lord Curzon concluded by urging the
country TO send its best men to its depend
encies, and said:
Wherever unknown lands exist. wher-
ever peoples ara in a state Of barbarism,
wherever a new civilization can be i'm
or superimposed on an old civili-
~zation, wherever, in fact, progress and
enlightenment are possible, there is a field
for the Anglo-Saxon race"