Speeches by Lord Curzon of Kedleston Viceroy and Governor-General of India. 1898-1901

(Cheers.) But may I carry my suggestion one step further ? May I not say that the growth of the ideal of duty has been the most salient feature in the history of our relations with India during the past hundred years and still more during the reign of the present Queen ? (Cheers.) A century ago India in the hands of the East India Company was regarded as a mercantile investment the business of w [...] It is his duty first and foremost to represent the authority of the Queen-Empress whose name revered more than the name of any other living sovereign by all races and classes from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas is in India both a bond of union and the symbol of power ; and to associate with the personal attributes that cling about that name the conviction that the justice of her government is [...] But there is a common bond of manhood between us the element of the human in humanity which holds us together; and is the true link of union ; and it is the recognition of that bond and the sense of fellowship that it engenders that have been the secret of the success of every great Frontier officer that we have ever had. [...] I have always thought that if British troops were required for India they must in the main be sent not by land but by sea ; and that it is in the improvement of our steam services and the shortening of the sea route by every means that science and wealth can effect in the maintenance of our unquestioned supremacy in the Mediterranean and in the retention of the use of the Suez Canal that the [...] As to the way in which it was intended to approach the Native Princes the Committee never contemplated a direct appeal by the Government ; what they hoped was that the Government would express its sympathy with the objects of the scheme and give it their sanction The appeal would then be made by the Committee who of course would look only to the perfectly free and voluntary contributions of th