Lost Dominion
- Edinburgh William Blackwood 1927
- 351p.
Many are the lost possessions of England. From some she has been driven in battle: others she has abandoned through negligence: others she has surrendered as useless and noxious: some have been bartered.
The case of India is up to the present the first and only example of the abandonment of a valuable possession on moral grounds.
Whether the future historian will attribute to the Imperial statesmen responsible the self denial of Washington or the self-denial of Sulla will be for him to decide. It is by results that policies are judged. The future only can show whether this great abdication is not also a great refusal. But may the good prevail.
I am writing history and not polemics. I wish to explain the reasons for the fall of the British dominion in India. I do not, therefore, praise or blame individuals. Indeed, as far as possible, I abstain from even naming the chief actors in the drama. Nor do I censure or praise policies. Given the conditions, the policy naturally follows. Nor am I writing to recommend or dissuade from any future policy. I am neither a politician nor a preacher. Nor am I called on to express dog matically approbation or disapprobation of current views. I am not a moralist Indeed, to my mind there is much to be said on both sides. The Imperialist is right, and so also is the Little Englander. There is not in my mind any aloiste right or wrong The question is qua mente, and three men all had zoble ideals
One word of warming. I am not a realist When, then, I was the expressions "India," -England," and the like. I do not thresby imply that I believe there is any such entity in rerum natura as, op. India apat from the actual and-otions and its various inhabitants. When, then, I say, India did this of thought this," I am only wing a convenient abborvia tion of the sendence, "At this time a good many of the actual inhabitants of India did or thought this Whos there is any chance of misunderstanding I have generally made the expression correspond to the thought