, foreign visitors, who
expected to find a semi-savage country, hold up their hands in
admiration. But if they saw the life of the people, the masses of
struggling clerks trying to educate their children on Rs. 25 (28s.
0-1/4d.) a month, the masses of labourers with one meal a day, and the
huts in which they live, they would find cause for thought. And if the
educated men talked freely with them, they would be surprised at their
bitterness. Gopal Krishna Gokhale put the whole matter very plainly in
1911:
One of the fundamental conditions of the peculiar position of
the British Government in this country is that it should be a
continuously progressive Government. I think all thinking men,
to whatever community they belong, will accept that. Now, I
suggest four tests to judge whether the Government is
progressive, and, further, whether it is continuously
progressive. The first test that I would apply is what measures
it adopts for the moral and material improvement of the mass of
the people, and under these measures I do not include those
appliances of modern Governments which the British Government
has applied in this country, because they were appliances
necessary for its very existence, though they have benefited
the people, such as the construction of Railways, the
introduction of Post and Telegraphs, and things of that kind.
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